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Jason, Thanks for your answer, yeah the issue that we have is that the site is a flash gaming site, and as you know flash is not running on Apple and really slow on other mobile devices, so the solution is to give access to only html5 games to our users rather than having huge bounce rates on flash based games. This said now, if my page /games list all the games for desktop, do you think it will be wise to keep this page and only show the html5 one to the mobile user, but this will give 2 different version of the page to google, or will it be better to create /games/mobile and don't let users that use mobile device see /games that should only be accessible if you are not using a mobile device. I am like you it will be better to keep everything under one domain rather than going for the subdomain route. Cheers,

You'll want to use Vary HTTP header in your pages to tell google that you have different code for different user-agents: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: text/html Vary: User-Agent Content-Length: 5710 (... rest of HTTP response headers...) Be sure you understand the pitfalls of user-agent detection as explained by Gogole here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/redirects

Thank you, Craig!

Thanks for the response James. The 301 redirect makes sense. Maybe you know the answer to this question b/c I was thinking of this as a possible solution the other day.  The correct URL pages have canonical tags on them, so what would happen if I were just to cut and paste the correct URLs over the incorrect URLs within the navi. page?  Would that make duplicate content issues, b/c internally the correct URLs are live, but the SERP results would still be for the incorrect URLs?  Is the canonical tag too weak of a signal in that case? Would the SERPs eventually drop those indexed search pages? Thanks again for the help, as you see I am still learning this stuff, and don't want to  screw up too bad

I can't see anything that specifically precludes you from counting you own review in that.  However if there were a lot where the only review was you own I can see it could look like you were trying to manipulate things. If you were doing that I would definitely include the reviewer markup as well. That would make it really clear that you were being open about the source. This page might be useful, You've probably seen it already, but they are talking about mixed case there and seem fine with what you are suggesting: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146645&topic=1088474&ctx=topic

Brutal honesty time. You're in a very difficult position on this one.  From one perspective, the best practice would be to tell you all of those domains should be shut down, not even 301 redirects.  It's the only "ideal" clean-up of what could very well be deemed mass-scale spam. However, doing so could literally wipe out a significant volume of existing SEO strength that comes from the links because there's just no way to know how those sites are or are not impacting the main site at this point. Alternate option: If there are pages on the rogue domains not on the main site, are those pages that "should" be on the main site when taking the "single site" approach?  If so, those should be moved and redirects set up.  And if that content doesn't really belong on the main site, those pages should be redirected to their parent home page or wiped out entirely. In this scenario, you're communicating "there's only one site - it's the site we want ranking, and thus we've taken action to kill all the renegade content". This is the option I would recommend if it were my client. Except how can you determine all the other rogue domains out there? That would be important to the process. I would personally also need to evaluate current organic search traffic to help decide what to do.  Is the total organic based visit count significant?  Or is it almost non-existent?  Because if it's almost non-existent, as painful as it might be to do so, I would opt for the first action - killing off all the rogue domains. As drastic as it is, and as much as some SEOs would say "get what value you can from redirects", it really is the safest way, long-term to ensuring the site doesn't get slammed by Google. And if short-term or even mid-term rankings drop in that process, my position is still "I care most about long-term goals with sustainability and stabilization critical long-term elements. Whatever you consider doing, I would also explain all of this to the site owner, and have them participate in the decision making process in a way you can be sure they first understand the issues and then that they have no ability afterward to blame you for anything that takes place due to past methods that were obviously ugly at best and reckless at worst. I'd also love to hear what others here have to say about this and what they would recommend.

Hi Sarah, Good questions! Regarding choosing categories - no, do not use geo terms in the categories. This will likely lead to penalization. Some tips: it's best if you can choose at least 2 of Google's pre-set categories as your first 2 categories if you can't find pre-set choices for all 5, but if you have to use your own custom-written categories for the last 3, that's fine. Be sure they follow the 'is-not-does' rule. So for you, your business IS a carpet cleaning company, so a category like that is fine, but your company DOES carpet cleaning and that is not an allowed category. Similar examples: plumber is okay, but plumbing is not. Dog walker is okay, but dog walking is not. Hair salon is okay, but hair cuts is not. So, be sure to follow this rule. Regarding what to put in the business description field, again, strongly advise against using any type of geo terms in this field (no cities, zip codes, phone numbers, regional terms, county terms, etc.). While there has never been a public rule against this, it has long been observed that the use of geo terms in the category field can dock your listing. So, avoid that. The best use of the business description field, in my opinion, is to offer up your key selling points in this area. For example, if you've won a Best-Of award. Or if you offer a free initial consultation. Or a money back guarantee. Or have 35 years of experience. In other words, share your unique value proposition here. I also try to avoid using any of the keywords in the description field that I've already used as a category. Again, this isn't a publicly acknowledged rule, but it has been observed in the past as possibly being problematic. The only thing you need for Google to understand the locale of a given Google+ Local page is its address and phone number field. Fill these out accurately and depend on that rather than using geo terms any place else on the listing - not in the business title, categories, description or anywhere else. Hope this helps!

Hi Adam, Good thinking. Hope it works out well. Situations like these can be layers deep and murky - tough to sort out. Wishing you the best!

thanks a lot for these pointers, sure will work on it.

one more test... please ignore.

Thanks. And yes, as I have mentioned its not personalized

Add Countries or Suburbs in your keyword For Example  Keyword 1 in Australia or Keyword 1 in Melbourne it would let you target those who actually search to get these services from the places you want to target for example seo services in Melbourne or seo services Australia.

Nakul - Re: "other then seeing those links in GWT, are there any other red flags that you are seeing in terms of not ranking, any penalty messages, unnatural links warning on the new?" No - no red flags.  My "new" site has only been live for about a week and is already reached page 2 or 3 of google serp for my main keywords. But since I know those backlinks cause my old site to go from #2-3 of page 1 to past page 20, I freaked when I saw them following me. or was there any messages on the old domain when you got penalized ? No - I crashed on April 24 and never recovered, even though I removed all the pages that had been syndicated and asked Google for reconsideration, they said there was no manual penalty.

I dont see any reason to put or not the follow links in your navigation, unless you want to focus on a certain page for more relevancy, or focusing a certain page for ranking. If you want to remove your follow links on your navigation be sure you specified your inner pages in your Sitemap.xml, so Google bots can still track your pages.

Hi Chris, Internal linking is an important but not over beneficial part of optimising your site. Typically a good navigation, possibly a meaningful footer (with links) and breadcrumbs can be helpful for a users navigation. These approaches account for most of the internal linking on a site. When running with these approaches, I would always recommend text links (avoid images where possible) and ensure above all it gives the user the best experience. For your example above, writing Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets in the nav might take up to much real estate and look a little sloppy, try a drop down with the main category 'widgets' and run the colours as sub categories. Having a site structure www.example.com/widgets/blue will help to define widgets are an important concept on your site  while also highlighting that you have Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets. It will be assumed that for the product pages in this example, engaging unique content is available. That said, if you see the need I would also encourage you to have internal link within your content, WHERE RELEVANT. I have seen to many sites, simply go through their content and pick out the popular keywords linking all over the place. If it helps the user (possibly by defining an unusual term OR refering to a service OR product described on a different page) it's worth doing. One of my pet hates is finding a keyword on page that links to itself (same URL) because it is a keyword that is being targeted. As a user it's frustrating and personally I immediately leave sites running this practice. You don't have to continually link to your desired page with the same keywords, in fact it's discouraged. Google are becoming increasingly better at understanding intent, therefore do what is best for your visitors and you will ensure that your site enjoys longevity in search rankings... Best of success, Dan