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Category: Intermediate & Advanced SEO

Looking to level up your SEO techniques? Chat through more advanced approaches.


  • Hello Chris, you're absolutely right. It took me a while to conceptualize the process, but referring to projects where I've used 301's to redirect one URL to another helped me realize that I perform the task almost on a daily bases. The one twist that's a first for me is that of redirecting URL's from an active domain to another. A note to readers that may have a similar question - the 301 redirect is implemented on the donor domain and not on the receiving domain (where content is being move to) explaining why the URL can no longer exist on the donor domain. With much appreciation, thank you.

    | UplinkSpyder
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  • Hi Bob, You often run into this situation with eCommerce sites - they want to add information to each product but they don't quite know where to put it. The short answer is yes - but only if it's content that actually helps the visitor. If you can increase the value of these pages by adding unique content by all means do so. On the other hand, if the content is truly valuable, you may consider placing it on it's own page where it might attract more attention. The thing you want to avoid is adding content just for the sake of adding content. If it's not going to increase visitor engagement then it's probably not worth doing - but I've never seen a case where adding high quality, engaging content actually hurt. Go for it!

    | Cyrus-Shepard
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  • Hello PremioOscar, That may be the best option, and probably the one I'd choose, but I think he is hoping to rank for searches specific to each letter (e.g. Letter A Bracelet, Letter H Bracelet...) which may not be possible with a single page. By breaking them up into groups (e.g. A-G, H-M...) he can target at least one letter per group. Each group would have its own unique description, which is scaleable while each letter having its own is not. I would argue that each letter having its own unique description is indeed scaleable if you're talking about one product. I could have written three of them in the time it took to write this reply. However, if this letter situation is repeated across dozens or hundreds of products I would consider the idea presented by  Michael. Does that make sense?

    | Everett
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  • Hi Wendy, Since it sounds like you were hit by Panda first, that's where I would start. I can't be sure that it's a factor, but I found a lot of "thin" pages on your site like: http://www.myoptimind.com/megaworld-corporation-uptown-bonifacio-website/ http://www.myoptimind.com/why-custom-web-design-is-important/ You might benefit from going through your site and adding value to pages like this, or going through your analytics to see what pages don't recieve many visits and/or have low engagement, and address these pages first. If you're using WordPress, you might also consider cleaning up your tag pages such as this one: http://www.myoptimind.com/tag/e-commerce-tips/ As far as backlinks, I did find a number of low quality directory and comment-style links pointing to your site. Have you received any messages from Google Webmaster Tools or filed a reconsideration request? Additional resources: http://moz.com/webinars/advanced-wordpress-seo

    | Cyrus-Shepard
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  • You are on the right track, I think. This is the hardest part of the whole process really - the "wall" that you hit after you've posted a good blog. Most of the advice I read, stops there and kind of expects us to know what to do or that people are magically supposed to find your awesome content and start linking. Here's some extra "technical SEO tricks" that I've started using. Since you've already got the good content - use that to build links (everyone else feel free to chime in, as I'm really new to this): Use the rel=author Markup to link your post to your Google+ page Add social media share buttons Promote your blog on your social media pages (FB, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn) Submit to blog directories (Technorati, Zimbio, Ontoplist, Alltop, BestoftheWeb, Blogarama, etc - All PR6). Make sure you choose the right category, so that all your links source from your niche and look natural - don't "automate" this process. Submit to bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Delicious - All PR8) If anyone else has ideas for using their content to build good links, let me know. To answer your second question, how long a link takes until it adds value, it really depends. I've seen 2 weeks, and I have actually seen 5-6 months afterward, it finally shows up in Moz tools. Strange. Hope this helps. I'm still learning too - so anyone else have any suggestions?

    | DrewR
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  • Hi Andreas - this is an interesting question and one that I've never run into, and I can't find any public references to whether or not it's been tested in the past. The easiest solution is avoid the issue in the first place by embedding the flash video into the PDF and then including a transcript and photos beneath the flash content, inside of the same PDF file. This solves the issue regardless of whether the flash is read by the crawler. If that's not an option, the next best solution would be to test your hunch and hopefully report back here as to whether it was successful or not. I'd be interested to hear the results.

    | KaneJamison
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  • I don't want to link or redirect from the old website to avoid passing penalties. Thank you for your answers!

    | sbrault74
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  • In Google Webmaster tools you can use the remove button or click the little icon and total. I would definitely say there is a correlation with 404's and losing pages to the Google index. As Google does not index 404's You have nine things being blocked by robot text go to the robots.txt file in Google Webmaster tools and find out there if there's an issue and you're blocking some of your website to Google You can also use this tool to tell you exactly what your Google robots.txt file looks like right now and compared to any changes being made is very valuable tool http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/robots-txt-generator/ I hope I've been of help sincerely, Thomas 4GWzkph.png

    | BlueprintMarketing
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  • That's a great idea Dana, thank you for the suggestion. I will try that with some of our less performing category pages, then I'll post the results here. Thank you again! Best, Fabrizio

    | fablau
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  • I've had a little look through the website and the link profile and everything seems ok from that end. None of the pages are set to 'noindex' and the robots.txt isn't blocking any of the search bots. Usually I would ask if there has been an unnatural links warning come through Webmaster Tools but there are only a few links pointing to the site (all of which go to the homepage), so I doubt this is the case. What I would recommend is that you start building some links to the deeper pages on the website - also, set up a blog or something similar and start placing some new pages on the website. Once you build some new content a little more reguarly, Google will start indexing the site more frequently. This should clear up the issue a lot quicker. I would put a bit more of a focus into building some deep links on the site though. Once you've done that I'm sure you will start seeing some results.

    | MatthewBarby
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  • Thanks Marijn, I won't disavow the links but I'll keep an eye on these links.

    | Rubix
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  • thanks it is very helpful for me...i am doing it...

    | unibiz
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  • I would worry about the anchor text but not because it will make my link profile look unnatural but because of the branding issues. I mean if this is a link that is also transferring some targeted traffic to my website then I would really want to change the anchor text or else it will kill the user’s experience who is working on my website. If the links are in 1000’s this is really shocking and a spammy signal to Google so if you can down the number awesome or else try to get your link removed from their website. Hope this helps!

    | MoosaHemani
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  • Hi Chris, There are 2 Definitions of Domain Authority: 1. Domain Authority is a metric used by Moz to predict a website's ability to rank for a given keyword, all other things being equal. It is a predictive metric only, based upon computer modeling and some intellegent guesses, but it in no way effects actual ranking. That said, there is a strong correlation between DA and rankings. Meaning sites with high DA often rank well, and vice versa. But one does not cause the other. You can read more about it here. http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority 2. SEOs use the term "Domain Authority" to refer to the body of metrics Google assigns to a site's value. It's a general term and yes, Google uses some version of "Domain Authority" to determine your rankings, but this is not the same thing as DA that you see used in Moz. Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

    | Cyrus-Shepard
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  • Thanks Mike - yes, I believe this only happens on results pages on their site. Good point on the cloaking - good thing to think about as well. Sounds like disallowing in robots.txt is the 1st thing they should do, then they can remove the pages resulting in 404s which they can then manage through GWM.

    | Prospector-Plastics
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  • Personally I don't think the NoIndex, NoFollow solution is the best because they'll be harming or killing any link equity that was going to the site through that page instead of consolidating it. The best solution would be to come up with the means of adding that 301 as soon as you can so they stop hurting themselves needlessly. Could they possibly leave the page up and just add some form of "Product Discontinued" type of message on the page to direct people to the most pertinent category page and other listing/product as needed? That way they don't shoot themselves in the foot while they wait on the ability to easily 301 and then once they can they just need to 301 the pages with the "Discontinued" message to one of the relevant pages listed.

    | MikeRoberts
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  • i cant really answer that because i do not see the purpose of other sites. Reciprocal links arent really needed but you might just be thinking of maybe the 3 will pass link juice back to the main site. Honestly, you can just do it. It's just a few and it doesnt really matter at this moment. Just focus on other link building work instead of worrying about it Good luck Gagan

    | DennisSeymour
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  • Thank you very much Chris.  Much appreciated!

    | Party_Experts
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  • Hi Ruchi, As Tom addressed most of your queries, I would like to say something regarding your following enquiry: "Also please elaborate best practices(Such as IP address, Physical address, look and feel etc.) if someone wants to run same business through more than one website?" Here, your intent and goals matter. For example, a business entity intends to occupy multiple places in the SERPs using multiple websites for the same search terms. I would never recommend this practice to anyone. If you are targeting a set of keywords or phrases, do that using one single domain and put all your SEO efforts towards building it and try to make it an authority in the niche. This should be the long term goal. In the past, I have had clients who had an SEO strategy like the following: 1. One target keyword. 2. Multiple websites targeting the same keyword. 3. Occupy multiple places in the top 10 Google search results. This strategy is very hard to fly these days in Google. This strategy used to be lucrative for some seasonal sale kind of businesses, who did not care about their websites once the season ended or their stock cleared, it is not at all recommended if you are here for a long-haul. Personally, I have seen such strategies working for quite a while and then either all of them or most of those websites (pack of websites from the same business entity) being thrown out of index or penalized. Please note that some of the clients used all the tactics under the Sun to erase the traces of association among these websites and tried to make them look as if they were being operated by different business entities. Few such traces include but not limited to: a. same IP b. same whois info c. same website templates d. design and flow similarities e. same analytics tracking info f. logging or accessing these websites from same geo-location, systems g. browsing history and access patterns. h. no cross linking etc.. Though using methods like the above can buy you sometime before the axe comes down, we should refrain ourselves from all the unethical ways or loopholes to trick search engines and their algorithms. It is one of the daily tasks of a good SEO professioinal to set the right SEO perspective to his clients. He should learn to say, 'No' to any such proposals made by the client to trick the search engines. The recommended strategy would be: 1. One business 2. One informative and useful website 3. Rich content. By all possible means, include useful videos, pdfs and infographics. 3. Strong link profile acquired through editorial, natural, voluntary backlink, citations, ethical link building activities   using share worthy and link worthy content. 4. Strong social media presence. 5. Solid search engine presence and ranking. Hope that helps. Best regards, Devanur Rafi.

    | Devanur-Rafi
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  • Thanks for the help guys, it is good to actually have a direction to look in now, I was just completely stuck before. I will post any updates I have.

    | leapSEO
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