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Michael I don't think you will get anymore benefit from a 301 than you're getting from the cross-domain rel canonical tags that are already in place. However, I think the fact that you already have these cross-domain rel canonical tags i place, and that the content is identical, will make it much less likely that 301 redirecting those domains would be seen as any type of spam. If it were me, just so all of my users were on the same domain - and to keep the problem from getting worse over time - I would go ahead and 301 redirect the other domains, but on a page-to-page basis. In other words, each page would link directly to the page it is currently referencing as the rel canonical. This would be much better than redirecting them all to a single landing page, and would send signal that is consistent with the current one you are sending via the cross domain rel canonical. You might try this one domain at a time. Let the dust settle on that domain and, if all goes well, move on to the next. It may take a year to complete the project, but it might be the safest way to go. Alternatively, you could just continue to leave the other sites up with the cross domain rel canonical tag - but the problem is likely to just worsen over time as more people link to the other domains, and they develop their own sources of traffic via direct links, social, bookmarks, etc... outside of the SERPs.

Hello no6thgear, Generally speaking, product detail pages have a much more difficult time ranking for anything other than the specific product name/model. Even then, eCommerce sites are often going up against juggernauts like Amazon, Target, Walmart, eBay, or whoever the leaders are in your niche. If you're using any manufacturer/distributor product descriptions that are shared on other websites, or have a lot of products with "thin" content it will make ranking these pages much more difficult, if not nearly impossible. That said, it IS best practice to link directly to the page instead of relying on rel canonical tags or 301 redirects, which treat them symptom and not the cause. If you can find a way to do this in Shopify I recommend it, though I'm not sure if it would be worth changing eCommerce platforms for if there are no other strong issues supporting the change.

you do not want to go crazy with words in the URL. Only use them when appropriate. For instance I would honestly not start every URL with /lawsuit–example As has already been said the content should do that. For instance if you have a page regarding a lawsuit you should put at least 2000 words on the page with maybe some video not YouTube see wistia.com/learning/advanced-seo-with-distilled if you're going to use video. I do think using a link structure that is clean and to the point. Will help you the most. So example.com/keyword–keyword/ but do not feel like you have to stuff the link with keywords. After which focus on getting high quality relevant links pointed to that page as well as building high-quality relevant content.

No the site is fully built can you see any more problems? I was considering what tom has said about setting up a canonical tag for the tabs and this has confirmed it for me - thanks tom

Hey http://www.removeem.com/  is owned by  Virante a Moz recommended company. They are very good. All the best, Tom

As an early member of Moz, I can tell you that what brought me back to the site everyday was the blog and the comments on the blog. However I rarely commented on posts,  I didn't didn't answer or ask any Q&A, and I  didn't use the tools very much (although I used free tools at other sites pretty often) but I thought they provided a lot of credibility.  The content was very high quality and taught me to do my job better. You could tell that quite an investment was being made in the content and that there was a dedication to it and the community. It's my feeling that it was the content and the tools that developed nurtured a community Q&A section--it didn't just spring out of nowhere.  A lot of work first went into building a community where a Q&A section could flourish. I think the long term rewards will be worth it as long as you're in it for sake of building a community and not for the sake of any SEO value the community can provide.

Hi Karl, The magazine is reputable, but don't think it goes out anywhere except to their online members.  I like the idea you mentioned, but seems the tough part of content marketing is the outreach part. Man there is such a wealth of knowledgeable folks here on moz.  Awesome having experts like you help small guys like me.  Thanks so much! ron

Tough questions there Prince, First of all, know that we all struggle with the same questions--how do we get back links to our content, how many do we need, where should they come from, and to what pages should they go. Being able to answer those questions well is really what separates companies at the top of the search results from those beneath them. If you think of each link as a relationship with the person who created it, then you understand that each link is unique, as is each person who creates one for you, each page they are pointed to, each page they are coming from. It is hard work creating and maintaining those relationships. First you  have to show those people who may build a link to you who you are, why they should like you, why  they should trust you, and then you need to give them something exceptional to link to; something that is inspirational; something unique; something fun and credible; ultimately, something that is beneficial for them to share with others. It doesn't have to be difficult to create content like that, especially in the lawyer space, as there tends to be a lot of conformity among them.  it just takes thinking differently than every one else, seeing your services a little differently than all the other attorneys do, and recognizing that your audience has unique aspects about them to which you can tailor content.   I'm not saying anything new here.  Take a moment to review these and see if they don't help: A Manifesto of Content Marketing - Moz The Guide to Developing a Content Strategy for "Boring" Industries - Moz Here are a few ways attorneys have set themselves apart and created something sharable: http://www.pinterest.com/webshark360/funny-attorney-marketing/ http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/how-to-write-a-great-response-to-a-cease-and-desist-letter/ http://blogs.findlaw.com/strategist/2010/12/bed-bug-lawyer-attorney-finds-unique-practice-niche.html http://nylawthoughts.com/2011/03/28/bob-dylan-and-the-law/

Thanks for advice Paul - I've edited pages with poor backlink profiles out of redirect and 301'd the rest to relevant pages within the new website, and traffic has spiked up a bit. There were some very powerful links (national newspapers, etc) the new site was missing out on.

Hi Ricardo If you want to include district as well and district is part of the city which I think it is, then go for: www.domain.com/category-city-district I'm sorry but I still do not understand the filters you are speaking about. Do they relate to the category? Peter

Hi there, You can use your robots.txt to noindex the incorrect URLs, then via webmaster tools you can request to have the incorrect pages removed from Google's index. (Webmaster Tools > Google Index > Remove URLs). There is a help document here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/59819?hl=en Good luck! Amelia

Hi Casey I have a "self-referring" (pointing to itself) canonical on all of my pages, if another isn't needed.  There's certainly no harm in doing so and I believe that there is a benefit to. If your content is put up, is indexed first by Google and has the canonical tag on it - that is a really clear directive to Google/Bing that you are the originator for your content.  That means if someone comes along and steals/scrapes the content from your site, they are far less likely (in my opinion) to be successful in passing it off as their own (and therefore leaving you with a duplicate content issue). In addition, having self-referring canonicals on pages future proofs you against any plugins/searches/features of your site that might generate multiple URLs from an original (think www.domain.com?searchquery.html if you have a search function on your site). Having a canonical will mean that Google will not index multiple versions of your URL, which might also result in duplicate content.  This also prevents attacks from people who try to brute force multiple versions of your URL to get indexed (ie sending spam links to www.domain.com?randomquery - it's very rare but I've seen it happen) In short, I think self-referring canonicals are great idea - use them wherever you can.

Completely agree Drew! My problem is that I find it very hard to create the kind of exceptional and unique content necessary to really earn links and social virality on a low budget

Yeah, I'm afraid Chris is right. There's really no way to tell Google to index both pages but then not give them control over which one ranks. Google is naturally going to prefer the full content page, because they want to get people to the best "answer", in a sense. Truthfully, I think it's a better search user experience, in most cases. Internal search users can travel from the snippet to the post, but search users may get frustrated at going from Google's results to your results, and not straight to the resource. If you force the first step on search users, you may actually increase your bounce rate and harm your overall performance.

Assuming the parent company site has children site - link to the new parent site from all of your child sites. Issue press releases: PRFire.co.uk PRLog.org Free-Press-Releases.com 1888PressRelease.com 24-7PressReleases.com PressBox.co.uk The list of free PR sites goes on. There are also a lot of high page rank sites, like PRWeb and eConsultancy.

Hi Federico, Thanks for taking the time to check out the site. I understand that there are hundreds of factors that come into play when looking at search ranking. It's just frustrating that we've pretty much followed all the instructions laid out on SEO Moz but don't seem to be getting the results - the only reason I can see why this might be is because of something related to our homepage under SSL (the redirect, the sitemap, or something simple missing in the structure). I have analyzed our competitors and I cannot see why we are not getting improvements compared to what they are doing. When choosing an SEO professional, how can we be sure that they will be able to diagnose the issue we are having as nobody so far has been able to pinpoint the issue? -G

Here is a correction :: Posting on Google+ is not the same as Google+1's. Google +1's Amazing Correlation with Higher Search Rankings - Moz http://moz.com/blog/google-plus-correlations by Cyrus Shepard - in 11,464 Google+ circles Aug 20, 2013 - Many publishers have added Google+ authorship information to their websites in order for author photos to appear in Google search results. . . . _(Edit: This should say "posting on Google+" instead of Google +1s. It's clear that Google doesn't use the raw number of +1s directly in its search algorithm, but Google+ posts have SEO benefits unlike other social platforms.) _— August 20th, 2013 - Posted by Cyrus Shepard

I could see linking to an image file itself as useful if the image were larger and you wanted to display it outside of a paragraph of text. Many infographics could qualify for a page of their own. The site would still benefit from traffic and from authority.

Fair enough. If you believe there is a benefit to your users then proceed. Sounds like they are seasonal navigational links and that they could be good for users. But because this tactic could be used to manipulate search, it might still raise flags. If you are automating these links and they all appear on the same day at the same time with the "Exact same fantastically keyword stuffed anchor text" then it will look suspicious. If these are links pointing to a uniquely titled event, "November SEO Evangelist Raleigh" and the news is published casually in content over a few days after the original announcement then it will look less suspicious. Especially if the each publication adds in some additional commentary about the event that makes it useful for each site's distinctive audience. As with everything SEO, test it out. You should know fairly quickly if you get an algo penalty. You should also know fairly quickly if users are finding the links useful. I would certainly "NoFollow" the links.

I want to start by agreeing with everything Alex has said.  He's absolutely right. To answer your question directly, I would think nofollow should be used when the blogger writes the review.  If they mention you and link to you in later posts, that's their editorial choice and those links can be followed.  Technically, if the blogger mentions/links to you in later posts, you don't really have anything to do with it and it's their choice whether the make the link followed or not.