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Ok i will see what can be done about the duplicate content. Will adding META NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW to the empty directory pages i have, cure any problems that Google may have? (will NOINDEX also stop these pages from showing as duplicate content in SEOmoz, or will they still be shown?) I have also spotted that several of the duplicate pages are due to www and non-www So i have updates the settings in Google WebMaster Tools to only list www and also added a .htaccess 301 redirect so all users are directed to www.  Is this the best thing to do? Thanks Jon

Hi Greg, As Edward has correctly stated, anything other than an actual, physical address is not what Google 'wants'. That being said, there are tons and tons of such listings in their index, but even a cursory glance at Google's spam fighting history over the past two years is a big indication, at least to me, that they are more committed than ever to upholding their guidelines and weeding out anything they consider to be violating them. So, honestly, it might well be possible to get away with something like this for a month, a year, three years, etc., but taking such a risk means a day of reckoning would be looming over the business ever day and the business owner would never know when to expect their rankings to suddenly tank. At present, Google is still very much allowing home-based businesses in their index, providing they hide their addresses, so this is probably the most common solution in what I'm assuming is your case. And if you feel concerned about publishing your home address anywhere, here is a list of directories that also allow you to hide your address, and this can help you with your citation building: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/08/13/can-you-rank-well-in-local-google-without-revealing-your-street-address-anywhere/

Thank you, Thank you lot

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

The best way to do this is to get your site syndicated in Google News. Google identifies real time/breaking trends for queries and often displays related news results. Here's more info on Google News: https://support.google.com/news/publisher/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2481358 I've had a couple of sites accepted in recent years, and am very familiar with Google's requirements. Let me know if you have any questions.

Sorry, I meant to respond to this days ago.  Started, but didn't finish and then it left my mind. It sounds to me like you want to place a Google map on your site to show the location of the business?  If this is correct, I wouldn't use KML nor KMZ.  I would just use a javascript point market that represents the one location using the Google Maps API.  You can see what I mean as I have several points on one site I'm finishing up at http://www.snoshield.com/contest/christmas2012 You can also show service area like this: http://www.kcdirt.com/contact Both of those maps use strictly JavaScript, there is no KML or KMZ on them.

Hi Joel, Hopefully, the stuff we discussed via PM and your other thread about your company will have helped you to understand some of the reasons you are being ranked on Page 2. Beyond that, one of the best places to learn about this subject is David Mihm's annual Local Search Ranking Report. This report surveys some of the top Local SEOs in the world. Here is the 2012 edition: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml Also, I recommend you become a regular reader of the following 3 blogs: http://www.blumenthals.com/blog http://www.ngsmarketing.com/blog/ http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/ In addition to this, I have recently published two comprehensive blog posts that received quite a bit of industry acclaim, covering both the psychological mindset and tactical approach to Local SEO. Here are these posts: The Zen of Local SEO http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1314 The Rudiments of Local SEO http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344 I hope you will find these resources to be truly helpful!

As of today, my page is now ranking 5th on page 1. It is just bouncing all over the place.

Is cuteelephantslife.com your actual URL or just an example?  It 404's for me and I don't see it at all in the SERPS.  I'm assuming that was just an example and your keywords are different. If you dropped from position 2-3 to 4-7 then you were not likely directly hit by Panda.  Sites that have a Panda hit generally drop off the map to page 10 or more. There are over 200 algorithm factors and knowing which ones caused you to drop would be impossible.  A drop for just a few positions on the first page could be: -loss of a few links or even just one great quality link.  (Perhaps you had sites linking to you that were affected by Panda) -malware on your site -a competitor that has better SEO or many other factors.

The best way to be close to "real rankings" is to use Chrome with incognito window. BUt again like you said there are additional factors that it looks are becoming more and more important that you can not reproduce - location, google plus circles and so on. Cheers.

Pretty cool, however I noticed that it only appears for "things to do in {insert large city name here}". Small cities don't show ... yet (things to do in laramie wy)

When you say improve your SEO do you mean improve your rankings?

Come-on Rand...other guru's...Help!  Looks like there are many of us that need to know what to do! Knowing that you aren't alone is "kinda" comforting but it doesn't help the bank account.  I was speaking with my adword rep yesterday & raised a bit o' hell.  I know they can't do anything but it felt good. I've always felt that Google was full of it.  They've always stated that the person searching is their customer and that search results are supposed to give that searcher the best results possible. HA!  I fought that for years seeing poor quality websites beating me when all they had was a 1 page website that was listed on DMOZ. For the last few years we had real competition. Good websites, good competitors and a fair shake. Now it seems they have figured out how to increase the odds of the ppc ad being clicked with mega sites like walmart or amazon showing up in the top 4-5 positions leading the searcher to click on the ppc. I mean seriously...google the phrase "picnic baskets" and look at the results. To that end - Google reported Q3 2012 revenues of $14.10 billion, representing a 45% increase compared to Q3 2011.

Here's something else I noticed about OP's site: Home page outranks privacy page when using site search -- yet home page appears to be filtered out of standard queries.

I would recommend the Keyword Tool that is part of Google AdWords. It is free and allows you to search for specific queries and see how popular those search terms are in specific areas.

Do you need customers/users to come in on the first page? You may need to make the site, so what you want visitors to accomplish can be done from every page. I have pages that outrank my homepage for keywords, but if I want the visitor to do a certain thing I tailor that page to generate the outcome I want rather than trying to get them back to the home page. Also some of your pages are probably on the first page because of the uniqueness of content withing that forum. I also noticed you haven't posted on your blog since February of 2011. If you don't think your content is important enough to talk about, then Google might not think it is important enough to index? Just a thought.

Unless a page can give value to a searcher (not just an existing customer) it shouldn't be in Google's search index. Sometimes I like to go back to the basics. Remember that search engines exist to help people find information that they WANT to find. Realistically, people are not going to want to find every page on your websites in SERPS.I suggest you ask yourself this question; does this page offer information that someone would actually want to search for, and make your decision accordingly. p.s. Having said all of that, I'll answer your question. The answer is yes, having thin pages on your site can hurt your domain. If your pages offer value to searchers, I suggest you improve them instead of remove them, but if they don't offer value to searchers don't waste your time, and just no-index them.

Hi KLLC Do you mean that pages are showing up as duplicate content in the SEOMoz crawl report but you have canonical tags in place? If so don't worry as SEOMoz doesn't recognise canonical tags yet and so still reports the pages as duplicate content even though you may have tagged them correctly to help search engines. Take a look here for more info and scroll down for some SEOMoz staff responses for added help - http://www.seomoz.org/q/canonical-tag-and-duplicate-content-report Hope this helps

Update: Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I starting searching on Google for pointers on enabling the Authorship markup. Came across this really helpful video - http://youtu.be/YyIQzHD8rBY Followed those steps - in linking my personal Google+ profile and enabling the Bio section with myself as Author in the blog posts. And so far looking good. Tested a post with the Rich Snippets Testing Tool in Google Webmaster - and it's picking up the Authorship with the photo quite nicely! Thanks for the help YyIQzHD8rBY