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I absolutely agree with Keri on the points she raised. Some responses to your questions: With respect to your navigation changes, it could have a positive or negative effect on your site depending on the changes. If you eliminated links to less popular areas of your site, that is a good thing. If you eliminated links to good content and now it takes users more clicks to open a page then more juice will be lost and the content could become too deep for indexing. The links from your duplicate content sites shouldn't hurt your site, but if they share your same web host they don't help it either. It sounds like you are aware of your duplicate content issues and are working to correct the problem. With respect to establishing a brand, I would suggest you really focus on making your main site stand out. A part of that is having a great looking site that is not just another template copy. My favorite source of information on establishing a brand is: http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/future-of-link-building  Since the webinar is titled "link building" many people miss it. I LOVE this video. Watch it, then watch it again. Take notes. It contains fantastic information for establishing a brand.

Interesting thread. So now after the more recent Panda update, is that another dip I see in those same graphs There's gotta be something with wrong with the data. Most of the data I've seen from Google Trends and Compete is laughable. So any further updates? How has Panda affected SEO websites? And why? Is it all the incestuous linking? Thinking out loud here... is it possible that Google has some way to benchmark what the mean/median/average links there are per industry and THEN it uses those to figure out what a websites link count is worth? (Know what I mean?) eg. SEO industry mean = 300 real links, so above 300 higher authority, but dentist websites mean = 60 real links, so different way to measure authority? Point is, links and their worth could also be classified and measured by industry.

Neverblue. Best one, hands down.

As Ryan explains, since your rankings drop is not confined to one keyword it could be related to the Panda Update but I don't think that it hit the UK SERPs until April 11.  more about the Panda Update timeline

Thanks for posting the followup to this, it's very helpful to know both that the problem is solved and that Alex had a fast turnaround.

If this belongs to google they shoved it out the door before it was fully dressed.... or we are looking at something that was "leaked" instead of "launched".

Art of seo is great and worth buying it

I will fix that, thanks, funny my seo did not pick up on that.

There is not an official answer. It would be proprietary information from Google. Google collects an incredible amount of data and is able to use any and all of it to configure customized search for what they deem to be a better user experience. Some examples (the basics) user location past user searches from their Google account past user searches from their pc (cache) Google gathers tons of additional information and can use any of it to further customize a search. For example, if you search for "clearing browser cache" then Google COULD determine what browser you are using and automatically use that information to add "Firefox" or your browser name to the query. In my latest test they were not making this change. Google provides the Chrome browser which is popular and collects even more information. They also provide free Wi-Fi service which collects a lot of data. Additionally they collect a ton of other data such as your hardware configuration, software and more.

Really useful info. Didn't know 1and1 did offer it and I'll check Maven too. I do own 6 different accounts in spanish hosting (my principal target) but they don't use to have more than a pair of C-class IP's per datacenter, so you get redundant after building a short "wheel" or you become crazy (the point I am lol). Thank you Marco

I agree it depends with the crawl rate on the site.Updating a new sitemap helps if you are adding new URLs and posting new content on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs gets the attention of Google, so if it seems to be going slow, try getting social. I think this question is already answered, unless you need more clarity?

I would say that it is generally better to hire a separate person for SEO and SEM. There are so many different tasks that an SEO can be doing to move the organization forward on the SEO front that I think it is often a mistake for SEOs to be given additional tasks like PPC, or managing the company's social media, that will take their focus off doing SEO really well. Also, SEO is changing so fast that it can be a lot to ask to have your SEO stay current on the latest in SEO and also stay up to date on the PPC world as well.

I think what he says is often less important than what he doesn't say. As the defacto Google spokesman to our industry, he's in a tough position, and I think if you're fair, you'll admit he does a good job for Google, and provides good info to us. You just have to read between the lines a little. I've yet to ever see Matt caught in a lie. More often, people are to quick to hear what they want to hear.

Maybe for these jobs you eliminate the admin work.  Then strike a deal with the client.... he pays $250 up front and then another $250 after you have doubled his traffic.  Sweet deal for the client and he should be happy to pay $250 after your work makes a kickass impact.

I can't see how you could beat MozCon.  While I am not in the business of SEO, I asked my wife if I could go to Mozcon for my birthday gift.  She laughed and said I have serious problems, but it would be a kick to listen to an meet the people who are so far ahead of the curve.

The traffic to the site will generate leads for the company who owns the site. If they already have a website that converts then they will know what content to put on this site to create that conversion rate. The buyer is buying the site knowing the potential that the site will have when it comes to generating business for them. I've looked at is as the first page results of Google are a line of shops. The shop at #1 is seen as the shop which gets the most visitors to it. Now imagine that shop is currently being refitted - people can still see the shop and what it sells but are unable to actually enter the shop to buy anything. Now, the person who owns the shop further down the street (i.e is ranked #10 or #12 or #15 etc) - he really wants to own that shop which is being refitted and he knows how much that shop is worth to his business if he owned it after the refit is completed. Although the site I have created is a basic canvas, all it needs is branding by the new owner and it will then perform as well as their current site when it comes to conversion rates. Does that make sense with explaining the view point I am taking on this project ?

Would you mind sharing a link the page? It would be much easier to talk specifics if we could look at the page. In general terms, you want to examine the page and your site for the desired keyword. The two questions I would ask are: Is your page optimized for the "x1" keyword or phrase? Earlier today someone asked what he could do to improve his ranking for "Las Vegas vet". An examination of the site's home page showed that phrase was not used a single time on the page. You need to ensure you offer solid content with appropriate usage of the term, without stuffing the page. Is your site canibalizing your SERP? When you search for the keyword, do other pages from your site appear? If so, try to figure out why. Google apparently believes the page offered is a better match for "x1". You can help by modifying the page a bit and replacing "x1" with a different keyword designed for that particular page. You can also use anchor links for x1 throughout your site. These links would help users find the desired page and let Google know you are focusing that keyword to a particular page.

No not going to do that don't worry.

they are just doing some testing (as they always do). Hope that one doesnt win tho! Check http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-url-above-search-results-snippet-78488