Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi! Are you using clientside or serverside redirects? Since you talk about 301, I assume you use serverside redirects. I think if the rewrite rule is setup correct, then it should preserve the referrer info. But if this is added as e.g. utm_source parameters to the URL, then perhaps you can experiment with the flags set for the redirect rule? Assuming you are working with an Apache server: Looking at https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/rewrite/flags.html#flag_qsa, it looks as if parameters can be kept/appended to the target URL. Else, the setting [L,R=301] should probably work OK with regards to keeping the referrer. Hope this helps Best regards, Anders

Hey 1902, I'm a small business owner, with little to no experience in SEO. I've learned the basics just by doing research online and reading a lot of articles. I rely on my website to get new clients and generate pretty much all of my business. When I first got started, I avoided trying to get backlinks by writing articles and guest posting on other sites because I thought it was too time consuming and difficult to write "kickass" content. I didn't think I had anything amazing to say and didn't think I'd ever be able to get published on sites with really high domain authority. After spending a lot of money on pay per click campaigns, I finally decided to try it. Before I really started focusing on writing articles (about 3 months ago), my site was showing up on page 5 or 6 of organic search results on Google for my focus keywords. After about 2 months of focusing solely on writing, my page is now showing up on page 1 for several of my focus keywords. Guest posting on other sites has by far been the best return on investment for me in getting meaningful backlinks that have increased my organic presence on Google. It did take time, but it wasn't as hard as I thought. I just started Googling reputable sites that posted articles relevant to my industry. I emailed those sites and asked if they accepted guest submissions for publication. A lot said no (or didn't even respond), but enough said yes. I'd say I have about 5 solid sites that I can now submit content to and they provide a bio in each article with do follow links back to multiple pages on my site. These key sites have domain authorities of 60 and above--the best sites have domain authorities of 82 and 92. My content is not anything amazing or groundbreaking. My articles probably aren't going to become the go-to authority on their topics. But they are relevant and they are publishable. I thought it would be nearly impossible to write for the really reputable sites, but I'm now a regular contributor to U.S. News. All I did was email and ask if they'd be willing to accept guest posts and submitted a writing sample on a suggested article. Moral of the story is that, at least for me, writing articles to get back links has by far been the most effective way of boosting my site. Definitely worth the effort and not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I saw significant results after just a couple months of focused effort. Hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you!

Hey there, The first thing I'd definitely do would be (1) **creating unique content **on the main pages. Then, you want to start (2) writing relevant articles for your industry. After that, you will have something to link to from other websites. Without that, they wouldn't have any reason to link to your site. Of course, they could always link to your homepage but the back link profile should be diverse to look naturally, not only the homepage. At this point, you can start (3) reaching out to other websites in the way you found out in the videos and the training sessions you've had. Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Thanks Wyatt, I was curious about author tags as well.

Hey Roman, Thanks very much for your response - our issue is not so much with multiple currencies within the same website (we're only selling in $CAD). The issue is that our products ship out from various warehouses located across the country. Promos and special deals are available, but they can be different in different provinces.Since we want to reduce shipping costs and it's important that customers see deals that are relevant to their regions (provinces), we need their postal (zip) code in order to give them relevant products and promos. The problem is that asking someone for their postal code reduces our conversion rate and lowers our sales, so we are looking for a way to geographically locate a visitor to the site without them having to fill in their postal code. Hope this helps to clarify! Thanks, Rob

Hey there, If it's done correctly, you shouldn't see any ranking drops for longer period of time. Of course, there's always risk when you're playing with the redirecting but I'd follow the Google guidelines (as you correctly mentioned) and it should work smoothly. Let me know how it worked. Cheers, Martin

Hi Platinum, Thanks for the clarification. Okay, so if you've got multiple brick-and-mortar locations, the typical local marketing strategy would look like this: One website with a page for each physical location, reached either via a main menu or via a store locator widget. A unique set of citations for each of the physical locations. Suggest to your boss that he think big, like Whole Foods or McDonalds, with a single website that builds the brand, while connecting local consumers with the appropriate location via a store locator widget. Everything that the brand does (earning media attention, links, etc.) goes toward building the overall authority of the website, benefiting all of its locations. There is no need to duplicate content because each store can have a single page with its own content (photos, reviews, special offers, staff interviews, local news/advice, etc.). What your boss is suggesting you do, however, is to forego the idea of creating a powerful brand by attempting to take a shortcut. His shortcut of building duplicate websites will likely result in Google's duplicate content filter affecting the company's rankings, and will fail to achieve the visibility he is likely hoping for. Even if he was prepared not to take a total shortcut and to build unique content on each microsite, the strategy wouldn't be one most Local SEO experts would advise, because it is simply a better use of resources to pour all efforts into a single website rather than trying to divide your resources up between 5, 10, 100 websites. Your boss is already sensing that it would be overwhelming to properly manage multiple websites, and so he's considering taking an unadvised shortcut by serving up duplicate content to his consumers and search engines. So, actually, I think he's already part of the way there to realizing something just doesn't add up in the multi-site approach; he can already see without being told that doing it authentically would be unmanageable, so if you're going to step up and tell him you're worried about his strategy, this would be something to keep in mind. Depending on your role at the company, the best advice that could be given to this owner at this critical point of decision is to ask him how much faith he has in the brand. If he believes in it, he should build it to maximum strength via the real work of building a reputation for sterling service, both online and offline. There is no shortcut to doing this, but to say he's going to rely, instead, on a risky strategy that has been specifically targeted by Google as a no-no is like an admission that the boss doesn't believe in the brand and can only prop it up with funky techniques that will not pay off in the long run. You'd be doing him a massive favor by pointing this out to him, but whether he's open to hearing this is another question, right?

Hi Anthony, Thanks for that response, that makes a lot of sense. Best, Zack

Thanks for responding.  Do you know any reason why somebody not see it? Thanks

Hi Kris! We just had a good discussion about this in June. Please check this out: https://moz.com/community/q/local-search-can-i-use-a-shortened-company-name

I just installed the pro version of https://reviewsonmywebsite.com/ and I think it looks great! http://getonthemap.us/about/

Hi Ian, Thanks for your support!

Hey there! Sam from Moz's Help Team here! I'm sorry to hear about the trouble! So we can investigate this for you, could you pop an email over to help@moz.com with the name of the affected campaign? Looking forward to hearing from you!

Well, yeah, you should avoid linking to your homepage from content. But there should be at least one link to your homepage on every page. In the header. Header + Footer also works.