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Thanks Tom for your answer. I understand that it will have a negative affect. I just look for real-life cases from people who did a similar change of topic/subject. We used to have a website on a topic that is not in our field of interest anymore. The name can be the same (not much branded traffic) so we thought it might give a new website a bit of a start with some links.

Exact match domains are definitely still worth it.  Check out this case study on a couple thousand sites, which shows that exact match domains suffered LESS from Penguin than other sites: http://www.jonathanleger.com/anchor-text-optimization-how-much-is-too-much/ Penguin tends penalize sites that spam anchor text exact keywords, instead of a more natural link profile that includes your branded keywords.  However, when your brand IS your keywords, then it's very hard for Google to penalize you.

You can turn off snippets by using the following code: HOWEVER, this will also prevent text snippets from being shown for your search results, so probably not what you want. The best thing to do would be to go into your analytics and determine how many pageviews Google Instant Preview is generating.  If it's a significant amount, and you feel it's impacting CTR, then spend the effort to create a pretty Javascript-free version.  Otherwise, ignore it (less that 5% of our visitors use Instant Preview, for example). Here's Google's answer on the webmaster forums: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-instant-previews#11

Yes I think it was a Penguin drop. There is one other thing about the page that dropped. It is using a 301 re-direct.   I had updated the page url a while ago, but nearly all of the links to the page are to the old page.  So this penalty might be a combination of signals that collectively have tagged that page. I'm working on cleaning up the link profile right now.   I think that Penguin is a very imperfect animal.   But I cant change the beast, so I will just have to make some changes here.

Hi Bibiana,    Actually, I am the competition (own the business)   But hey, nothing I am telling you is a secret and there is nothing like some good competition to make me more motivated to work.    If you are interested, send me a Private Message here on SEOmoz and we can talk more.   We may be able to help each other out.  It we collaborated a bit it could help both of the businesses out. Saludos y que tengas un buen día.

Hello, If you are willing to provide more details rather than just the idea, you can get a good quality one for around $300.  The graphics are important but the information flow is just as important.  I think to get a good infographic done, the planning and research could take longer than the actual design. So if you are under a tight budget, providing detailed information on how you want to infographic to flow would allow you to cut cost significantly.

Hi Geoff. 1. These are not websites I own, I had asked the webmaster to remove these site-wide links which they did. 2. They are not hosted on the same server. 3. The anchor text was keyword specific. 4. As a preventative measure, however it looks like this has back-fired. 5. Not to my knowledge, check PR and all is still the same. 6. Yes, they do have other links pointing to it, however in terms of percentage very little, as these were site-wide which was going into the thousands. Some keywords have disappeared that were not in the site-wide links, which is a concern, maybe there is something else going on? Shall I get the webmaster to re-instate these site-wide links?

Not at all, it's more natural for a domain's external link profile to consist mainly of backlinks containing the nofollow link relationship than not. The 67% ratio would be about right and this would not, in itself flag any problems at all. Its important for a link profile to look natural, a healthy balance of nofollow links with followed links along with a nice mix of variety with the types of pages linking back to a domain.

Hi Harry What you value most about infographics you find? RELEVANT or CLEAR info. Look for anything interesting but not well explained, or something not write yet... and of course... Google Webmaster Blog: there are a lot of changes and always new information is required for users. The hardest is write the first... then a lot of ideas will cross your mind.

Well it sounds like you've been careful on the approach to building the links. Have you analysed the websites above you (with a fine tooth comb) and critically analysed yours as if it was someone else's? I know it's frustrating, but I'd say remain patient and just remain ethical. It may be the case that these .gov links look good because of their 'authority' but the actual relevance of them to your site may not be ticking boxes. You'd be better getting a natural link from a .co.uk or .net, for example, rather than trying to sap authority. What's more, if the .gov sites are already linking out to others - remember that you're sharing the link benefit with all those other sites, so it may not actually be that valuable. Try and explore other ways you can get links in your niche rather than asking for them - the rankings will come naturally then!

Thanks for the information you provided... I believe the shift in rankings will be primarily due to a weak link profile for your domain but also a stronger backlink profile from some of your competitors which has seen them rise above you in the organic rankings. These changes coming since the additional Penguin algorithm updates rolled out by Google. (Incidentally, have you seen a decline in Yahoo/Bing if you monitor positions at these search engines too)? When seeking link opportunities, it's not advisable to chase PR - if 95% of your backlinks all come from pages with a PR3+, then this in itself looks unnatural and will have been a signal flagged. It is also possible, that those domains you have previously sourced backlinks from via building content relationships could also have suffered as a result of the latest algorithm updates - if they look to sell/provide backlinks using their page PR as selling point, and subsequently link out to various websites from sidebar placements (which they do looking at some of the pages containing your backlinks), this could also have made your domain suffer as less weight/authority is being passed through your links. I would recommend acquiring some new backlinks, don't worry about the PR of a page and don't focus on using keywords in your anchor text. Perhaps consider some guest content at a few blogs, writing a few pieces of content at each related to your products/services using an author byline with branded backlinkS - for example:- <name>is the marketing manager at RentalInsurance.org for a leading provider of renters insurance in New York.</name> Perhaps also consider contributing via comments to some blogs, doesn't matter whether backlinks are nofollow or otherwise, just ensure your brand and where possible,link back to your site (using your name for commenting instead of keywords) via making some relevant and genuine comments to other blogs. Build a few handfuls of backlinks such as these which will counterweight the links in your existing backlink profile and ensure there are some more genuine and natural links being built. I would expect this to prove a step in the right direction however there is also the possibility Google could also be looking at onsite elements and the practically exact match domain name too which have also seen changes from recent algorithm updates. Hope that helps for now.

Thanks for adding your comment on this SirMax. Very creative and not something I'd thought of!

Hi Arthur, Unfortunately, no, if you can't receive mail at the old address and are being offered a postcard only option, that won't work for you. Because of this, instead of claiming the incorrect listing, I would recommend that you use the report a problem link at the bottom of the Place Page  (if it still exists and is available to you). Since this morning, though, everything is upside down in the whole Google Localsphere. I'm not totally sure what has happened in Australia, but I believe the migration from Places to Plus is global. In case you haven't read about it, here's a good overview from Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/google-places-is-over-company-makes-google-the-center-of-gravity-for-local-search-122770 At this point, Google is saying that you can still managed existent listings from the Places Dashboard, so if you do have the ability to report a problem, do so. Let Google know you have a correct listing and point to it and that this other listing is old and the business doesn't exist there. Today has been the craziest day in Local in recent memory. Lots of changes in the works.

Thanks Keri

Hi Barry, Excellent question - so thanks for asking. Basically, Google uses its search engine to determine when a "query deserves freshness". This often happens when certain subjects appear often in news articles, or there is a spike in search for a certain phrase, for example. When Google makes this determination, they want to serve the freshest content available. Often, these aren't the best sites. A bit of a sacrifice is made for speed and freshness over quality, in order to get the latest news. Some tips for optimizing for these types of queries: Keep an updated xml sitemap Make sure your timestamps are up to date Submit your content to Google news Publish your content via RSS Publish/Update your content frequently Broadcast your content on G+ as broadly as possible One of the best resources I know of for optimizing for these queries was done my Rand and Mike a few months back: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-freshness-update-whiteboard-friday Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

I'd actually do it the other way - redirect "index.php" to the root ("/") version - Google seems to prefer that and many of your inbound links will be to the root domain (people naturally default to it). Make sure your internal links point to that ("/") as well. See this post that expands on that and gives some .htaccess examples: http://www.searchmasters.co.nz/articles/78/redirecting-indexphp-to-root-using-htaccess/ You can add the canonical tag to help sweep up the problem, but I think it's best to have a solid 301-redirect in place here, especially if both versions are showing up in analytics.

Hi Khem - Thank-you for your response, I appreciate it.  - Matt M

What kind of links they lost, what was that domain? If it was like 250 links form one domain for one month, Google could think that they were paid and that could get you penalty. Buying links is a risky business these days.

Hi Rob Do you mind me asking where you got the link profile breakdown from? I've been using link detective and it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as concise or informative as your list. thanks Justin