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Dear Dan. THANK YOU for this excellent information. We are still pretty new to this so this helps a lot! We did some work already and now are noticing also strange behaviour around capitalization, which makes no sense to us at all; any thoughts on that? Here some more details: I am finding out some interesting things about G search results as I further explore what has happened to my site. The results are different if you use small case or capital letters such as RC A-10 Warthog or rc a-10 warthog. The results are different at different times of the day, sometimes within minutes.  Before 7 am today most of the pages which I modified were in the top 10 results, now about 1/2 of them have slipped to page two. There is absolutely no logic to all the variables.  For example, my site returned to its normal traffic (the same way it was before the algorithm change) of over 5,000 views per day on Saturday and Sunday.  Just last weekend it barely got to 3,000 views.  And, I haven't changed enough pages to the new format to directly affect those results.  I wonder if Google has made an adjustment and that is why many of my pages are getting back to near where they were before?  I look forward to tonight's final numbers for the day to see if it was solely for the weekend or if it continues. However, using rc a-10 warthog in small letters, the air hogs page is no where to be found, yet my page is no. 4 as of right now. In Caps,  RC A-10 Warthog it is no. 11 right now. The above example may lead you to believe that the pages on my site should all be in the higher search results when using small case.  However, check out Japanese Zero vs japanese zero.  Just the opposite is true.  In this case my page rates higher when entering it with Capital letters. Yet, if you look at RC A-6 Intruder vs rc a-6 intruder, they are both around no. 7 in the search results. Check out how little content is on the page that is higher in the results than mine for the A-6: http://www.dhgate.com/jet-airplane-a-6-intruder-high-grade-rtf/p-ff80808128ed96260128f2db154e1e9f.html Check out my A-6 page: http://www.aviationtrivia.info/Grumman-A-6-Intruder.php I think it is because DH Gate, like Amazon, simply has thousands of pages and G likes that, even if each page has little content.  Do you concur? I think what G is doing is known as the google dance.  It is reminiscent of the cypher codes used to encrypt top secret transmissions for the military in that it is constantly changing so as to discourage detection.  What may be a top page one day can rate up to 10 positions lower on another. Many of my pages have slipped only slightly when G changed their algorithm, such as from no. 1 in the search results to no. 3.  (Virtually all the top rated pages are now ones which have videos.)   However, that has been enough to make a big difference in traffic and sales. Other than start taking videos of some 500 rc airplanes featured on my site, putting the videos on my site and YouTube, and hoping that the videos will be highly rated, I don't know how to get my pages as high in the search results as the YouTube pages. The other pages which usually are higher in G's search results are forums like RC Universe and RC Groups.  They have tens of thousands of pages, none of which have been changed, dating back to the late 1990's.  Not much I can do about that either. My aim is to be in G's search results right after the videos and forums.  I think that someone searching for a rc airplane for sale will go right past them if they know that Aviation Trivia has ALL the rc airplanes of a particular model listed on it on a single page. The changes I've made, ie. no longer dividing the page between the actual aircraft and rc models of it, has gotten those pages back into the top ten search results, but not for both Caps and small letters.

I'd say you can safely put this issue aside. As you've mentioned yourself, xml files don't need title tags, and I presume you aren't trying to have this page rank in the SERPS in the first place anyway. Perhaps one of the SEOmoz fellows can look into this?

For Google Results Page Title: 45 Characters visible, 65 Characters appearance on search results page Meta Description: 100 Characters visible on search results page

There doesn't seem to be much information on this topic. This is what Google has to say about it "Determined algorithmically, these highlighted brand names may help you find what you're looking for faster, and make your research and shopping experience all the more enjoyable." Some discussion on the subject: Official Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/this-week-in-search-5110.html Google Support: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web%20Search/thread?tid=5c29922f70bebfa0&hl=en

Also make sure you 301 redirect every page of the old site to its counterpart on the new .com site. So many people just redirect their home page but forget about the rest or don't know how to do it right. And you don't just want all your old pages redirecting to the new home page. Every page should go to it's .com counterpart. Make sure that is going on and that will help you avoid losing too much in the rankings.

I agree with the response to utilizing social media - especially Google+. This has provided a noticeable increase in traffic for a local real estate agent in our area as well as utilizing Google Maps.

I would investigate your "Link to Root Ratio" based on Anchor Text.  You want a very low ratio, between 1 and 2.  So for each Anchor Text phrase, you will have a certain amount of Root Domains with an amount of Links.  Dived the links by the domains and you will have your ratio. Example: colorado springs realtors = Anchor Text 221 = Root Domains 1664 = Amount of links from those domains Link  to Root Ratio: 7.5 for that Anchor Text "colorado springs realtors" (Way too High) You want to spread out your key phrases, pages being linked to, and remember that Google knows how natural links will look for the anchor text. The overall goal is to have many links coming from many different urls, from many different cblocks, with many different anchor text variations. This most likely is one of many factors.

Hi There, I decided a long time ago that the best way to handle the issue of the client deciding they want things changed is to allow them to decide for themselves that it may not be such a good idea. I have found a very effective way of achieving this. As soon as we receive a request or instruction from the client that we believe to be detrimental to the SEO for the site, we immediately forward to them a Disclaimer and Acknowledgement Form. The form is accompanied by a request for them to sign and return it so that the requested changes can be completed. Similar to Ninjamarketer's disclaimer, the most important part is that the form carries the words "hereby acknowledge and accept" and requires a signature. We make no attempt to dissuade the client - just forward the form and require it to be executed and returned before the work can proceed. It generally takes 5- 10 minutes for the client to call me once the form has been sent and in every case to date, they have decided before I answered the call, that they may not want to make the changes after all It is at this point that I am able to talk it through with them and do a little gentle SEO "Training" which they are very receptive to. It works for me As to partial SEO - we offer on-page services on a per-page basis (minimum 3 pages), but for any project of more than 5 pages, our quotation includes site wide audit, structural review and recommendations for further work. We also provide on-page work via direct access OR as a detailed report which can be handed to the existing developer for action. For clients with limited budgets, this can be helpful as they can attack the work in manageable chunks. We conduct the site assessment and advise them which pages are highest priority for action. It is nice when you have a client coming back to you for more work because they have seen marked improvement from the original project and want some more of that action Hope that helps, Sha

Actually the last couple of YouMOZ posts have dealt with the subject. Might be worth readin and making a decision from there - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc

Are the keyword terms this "SEO Company" is ranking you under receiving any actual searches?

It's all Greek to me!!! Ha ha, I'm hilarious Anyway, Greek characters will give you a lot of headaches, you'll most likely end up with URLs looking like yousite.com/Δήμ after you click on them. I have to work around a very similar issue and use the Greeklish (although not Greek) to have latin characters in the URLs. I'm not sure if Greek characters are w3 approved as things stand and although the web is getting better at non-latin characters, for the time being I wouldn't use them.