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Hi Guys Thanks for the quick response.  Okay, having read through the links and other resources on hreflang="x" and how to implement it I have a couple of follow up questions if you don't mind. Question 1: Using http://www.abercrombiekids.com as an example which I found, the source of their homepage has many alternate links to other sub domains or ccTLD's. The idea here I presume is that it notifies the search engine where alternative versions of the same content can be found  (even though that some of the content presumably is in a different language which I find strange...). So the idea of this is then for Google to index those alternate webpages but assign them to the www.google.?? search engine somehow? Question 2: In my site homepage for the .CO.UK site, I would have 1 alternate href as "x-default" (for the .co.uk domain) and then 2 alternate hrefs to the homepages of the USA site and the Australian site.  And this process would change depending on which site I am looking at i.e. the USA site would set itself as the "x-default" and link to the other 2 domains as alternates - is that correct? Question 3: Finally, do I need to apply this methodology to EVERY page on all 3 sites indicating which is the default and which is alternate? Kind regards and appreciation for your feedback. Kris

I noticed this as well but then some registrars do ask for special requirements. Check out the requirements on www.travel.travel: http://www.travel.travel/index.php/authenticate-register/industry-segments/

Hi Jeff, Dug up some info for you in the links below. Chinese Web Design Patterns Smashing Magazine Article Chinese E-Commerce Sites All the best.

Also, be sure to read Craigslist's terms and conditions for frequency of posting, and where you can post pets. If people think you are a puppy mill, you're likely to have your ads quickly flagged.

this shouldn't have any impact from a SERP point of view, however this seems a very easy thing to get around, especially if your customers twig on - simply change their IP location until they get a price they are happy with, why not simply have one price and charge different shipping rates. The only time Google may have a problem is in PPC land. PLA's you have to show the price the customer is going to pay and as you wont know the location of the person at the time of them searching you are probably going to show them a cheaper price on the advert and then a higher price on the Ads (you will either get complaints or a high bounce rate) both of which Google wont like. Too many complaints and you could in theory have your account suspended. Organic - not really many issues Paid - Google wont like, and this will affect your QS meaning you have to pay more to get more of your adverts shown, which will have a high bounce rate further driving down your QS score meaning you pay more to get your adverts shown.

Hi Berner In relation to "links", you can recover and fairly quickly as William pointed out. Every website needs continued maintenance. Disavow provides you the opportunity to keep you site in shape! We run monthly health checks (using Moz) for our clients which includes refreshing link data, keeping disavow files updated etc. This gives us the opportunity to identify and solve any site issues efficiently with the client firmly in the loop so to speak. What has happened? Why it happen? Where? What we will do? Evidence/Outcome? Whoever you employ, make sure they cover everything and provide "evidence". You deserve to have this. It's not just links that can get you penalised however. If you are researching what exactly Google will penalise you for, take a read below. http://blog.kissmetrics.com/penalized-by-google/ Keep us informed, we're a friendly bunch!

Thank you Philip Thank you so much. I am quite lost. I watched videos and created my pages based on these videos from a seo company. They preach that you must do like site.com/city-keyword-keyword/target keyword. So it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong. I added my state at the beginning thinking that it will help local seo but is this not the right way to think? Thank you. I have a lot to do

Thanks Robert!

Kane, Thanks for the response.  I agree that few will type that in but I wonder if the user's location matters--That is: since Google knows where people are located why wouldn't Google try to match up their location with the webpage content?.  For restaurants, it appears to matter to Google--when I put in a national restaurant like Bob Evans one of the results is all-menus.com/state/myneabylocaltown.    Why not for a retail store like a Kohls that also has a physical location?  .OTOH a coupon site isn't a store with a local presence--it's just a site that can exist anywhere.  Still, logically it seems to me that if my content is geared toward a physical location (ie the coupon is good locally), then Google would/should check for whether a user search has a potential location-connection, and prioritize that in the results---like it appears to do with the allmenus.com site. This issue has caused me a lot of grief lately as I want to have the location breakdown but fear it won't be rewarded, yet logically IMO it should be.  Kane if you or anyone else has further insight please do share.

Can I ask why you chose to change the URLs? If everything else is still the same, I'd image that you should see your results come back. I'm sure you had a process in place for handling changing all of the internal links? I wonder about this since you have so many pages and now the URLs are different.

Hey Mark, Your old URL might drop in ranking b/c it lose an internal link; it depends on how many links (both internal/external) it currently has. If it has a lot, the loss of an internal link may not matter that much. The new URL should rise in ranking for green shoes. There's no guarantee it will rise to replace your old URL. It depends on its link profile, competition, and on-page SEO. Here are some additional thoughts on strategy: If you can, maybe ADD the new link instead of REPLACING the old link. Then you won't lose the internal link. I'd test it out for a week by making the proposed changes. If you don't like the changes, revert the menu. Hope that helps. -- Andrew

Hi Audra, You've categorized your question as a local question, and in visiting your website, I see you have 4 physical locations listed, though precedence is being given to your location in Thomasville, GA, the partial NAP of which appears in the footer of the website. It's important to understand that, of all of the search engines, Google has the most sophisticated approach to how it assesses and displays local businesses. Right now, the Local SEO of your website is not being handled properly and my guess is that it is thus not sending the proper signals to Google to achieve the visibility you'd love to achieve. I can't provide a full audit here, within the scope of Q&A, but I can point out a few quick things to you. 1). Your footer has a section labeled 'Our Locations', listing the names of 4 cities in 4 states. Yet, within the footer, the only NAP being provided is for the Thomasville location. And, that Thomasville NAP is only partial. Your NAP would be deemed 'partial', because the Thomasville, GA, location is being listed with a toll free number instead of a local one. Local SEO revolves around local area code phone numbers. So, we don't have complete NAP for this location, and when I visit the 4  location landing pages by clicking on the links in the footer, none of these are listing complete NAP either. In fact, there is no mention of a phone number at all on these pages. These pages are not giving Google the signals they expect and need. There is nothing in the footer to indicate that Oklahoma is of premium importance to the company. Despite the fact that you've optimized the title tag of the homepage to mention Oklahoma, what Google is finding in the footer would signal to them that Georgia is really your most important location. So, there are discrepancies and missing data here. You need to have a unique local area code phone number for each unique physical office you occupy. Seeing the way the site is set up, I am wondering how the company has handled its Local SEM, in general, especially in terms of the development of Google+ Local pages and citation building. Without those local phone numbers, the company's hands are tied in Google Land and you're unlikely to achieve the visibility you desire without complying with Google's basic standards for local businesses. If the company has not hired a Local SEO to consult with previously, I would highly suggest finding a top tier one who can dig into the site and the off-site Local SEM that's been done and to analyze problems and develop a marketing strategy. There are about 20 questions for which answers are needed and, hopefully, by consulting with a pro on this, you can discover both your issues and your opportunities. Hope this helps!

Appreciate your feedback. This clarifies the issues for us. The timing worked out perfectly ... so yes, your response worked for us. No doorway page. Thanks for adding the link to Matt Cutts article.

Hi Hawk, I'm pinging in for knowing if you consider your question answered or not, so we can decide to close the question or ask more people in the community to offer their answers. Ciao

If you are still wondering about the directory url: atlantaeventscorporate.com/weddings to do this you could: Create a subdomain. Forward atlantaeventweddings.com to the subdomain   Use htaccess rewrite to direct incoming traffic to atlantaeventcorporate.com/weddings/   or   Redirect weddings.atlantaeventcorporate.com to atlantaeventcorporate.com/weddings/ Don't create a subdomain: Just create the weddings folder in the root of your domain and build from there. and then forward atlantaeventweddings.com to atlantaeventcorporate.com/weddings/

Language and country targeting are two different things. There are tons of people across multiple countries that speak English. People in Turkey speak a few languages as well I would assume. It seems like you want to take the content on your site focused to users in Turkey, but offer it in English. If you put the English content on your Turkey ccTLD, it can still rank for people searching across the world for those English terms, but it's harder depending on the topic especially if there are sites/companies in their own country targeting the same topic. Check out this tool I made to determine what international expansion strategy is best for your company. http://www.katemorris.com/issg

Hi David, Sorry for such a delayed response but I keep wondering about your point on the meganav.  Its known that Google is able to figure out menus and wont count those toward duplicate content?  I just would like to be sure since my menus are fairly substantial when dropdowns are included.

Great!  I just sent you an email.

No, it doesn't need to be unique when doing this. Google understand that a product doesn't change, just because the location does, and is how they suggest avoiding duplication issues in these circumstances. -Andy

Thanks Marc. Sorry for the slow response--I came down with a bug last night.. Here is the basis for my comments that I am thinking that link juice is about Page Rank and not some much with  the resulting Search Rank, as well as that Page Rank may actually not be a big deal anymore with overall Search Rank--and so my concern about dilution is overblown.  Regardless of the truth on the matter, I appreciate your advice about content and relevancy: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-we-dropped-the-100-links-per-page-guideline-but-we-may-take-action-if-it-is-too-spammy-178197 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5535/Why-Google-Page-Rank-is-Now-Irrelevant.aspx Thanks again, Ted