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Hi Don, I got web guy to fix the issue. Seems it should be fixed now and I should have 301 redirects. Not sure why I still get that message in Open Site Explorer, but I have raised this with MOZ support. Thanks Don for all your help. Regards, Armands

Thank you Don. Less to worry about.

I agree, you should avoid them at all.

Hi Neil, Open graph tags are different then normal meta tags. It is okay to use both. Open Graph Tags are specific for Social Media, while Meta tags are used for search engines. In some cases you may want to use the same information in them, while in others it would make sense to target your information for the specific platform. Here is a couple articles to help: on moz: https://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123 on iaquire: http://www.iacquire.com/blog/18-meta-tags-every-webpage-should-have-in-2013 Hope this helps, Don

Hi Don, Using these generic blocks for multiple products is an awesome idea, but don't you think it'll end up creating almost duplicate content section on all these product pages? Does bots consider duplicate content across the page, or section wise?

It's pretty hard to say, though in the absence of other factors I would very much doubt that only placing the keyword in the title would be enough to rank. That said, if paired with other factors like a strong, relevant link profile and solid content, you could definitely see some success. It's a bit on the older side, but have you ever read through "How to Rank?" It might help your understanding a bit.

Thanks all for your great suggestions!

Hello Adam, Screaming Frog should give you the full URL. If you're not getting it something is wrong and you should contact their Support team. If you're talking about Google Analytics, which tends to do that, try this fix: https://splitter.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/178552-how-to-show-the-domain-part-of-a-url-in-google-ana

I think that this one is best: https://moz.com/ugc/accidental-seo-tests-how-301-redirects-are-likely-impacting-your-brand (i can describe same, but this is article with diagrams and lot explanation). Also think about this let we have two pages - PageA about Coca Cola and PageB about Pepsi Cola. Let both pages have content optimized for them and have ranking. If we 301 PageA to PageB do you think that PageB will getting same positions about "Coca Cola"? That's right - will be lost positions because content is different. Of course there is special case when you get ranking for some keywords with anchors even if such content doesn't exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb That's why when wise people talk for about "over 200 ranking factors" they're damn right!

But using sitemaps you will not be using this method? The return tag will be in a sitemap...

Thanks for that. This is definitely something for us to consider. We're pretty high up organically in the local pack already, but running a mobile-only call campaign would definitely interest us. Thanks for the suggestion.

Wow, you have a LOT of spam in your backlinks. Have you done a disavow or had a penalty with this site? I think Peter adequately answered your question - PageRank isn't an accurate measure of anything - but keep in mind that DA & PA can be manipulated as well ... with a backlink profile like yours you will probably see a higher DA than you "deserve" because DA doesn't really take spam into account nearly as much as Google does.

Thought provoking discussion Rebecca! I'm with you in thinking there is potential for Google to start using misleadingly labeled images in it's ranking algorithm. Alt tags in particular. They're supposed to be used, in part, to help visually impaired search engines and people understand what's being shown on the page. If they don't do that, if they're just stuffed with keywords, they lessen the value of the page. In that context "Hawaiian sunset" has more value that "church", "travel site" or "inspirational quote", even if dozens or hundreds or thousands of other sites use the same descriptor. I also agree with Egol's opinion that unique content derives value from its perceived popularity; its ability to earn repeat and lengthy visits as well as exposure, links, and shares. I consider it a best practice to use unique images accurately named and described (using alt tags) with a brief and accurate description of the image that incorporates keywords. Not easy or even possible all of the time, but a good target to aim for.

What you touch on is a major flaw with every rank tracking tool I've ever used, because the national results for local focused keywords might not be what actually ranks in that city.  That said, it's one of those "it's as good as it's going to get" kind of things, and it at least gives you a good baseline. Now I want to add to what Martijn suggested above to not track the spin-off pages, because those individual locations are incredibly important to the people at those locations, the focus isn't all on the homepage.  Fortunately Moz has an old tool that can help you, though you will likely hit a limit (my current limit is 100 keywords tracked) based on your account level with Moz. It's the old Rank Tracker, which still exists and it is seperate from the Campaign Level rank tracker, using this tool you can track a single keyword to a single URL, so it's not just showing you keywords for the entire campaign, just a nice straight forward "how does X rank for Y" and it'll e-mail you if you set it up to do that. Moz Rank Tracker - https://moz.com/researchtools/rank-tracker

Yes, thank you so much, I will. What I'm concerned about is how bad this was in the first place. The way this company markets themselves is completely out of line with with the state of the build and the advice they give my employers. My bosses LOVE these guys because they are supposedly #technology #experts that do national speaking engagements about #success What I see from them is mostly paid product endorsements, outsourced workforce, and #broisms on social media. They're fast talking sales people that are delivering a product to people who don't understand what they are getting (or not getting) under the hood.

Hi Neil, What you could do is have your host set the unused domain (.com) as a parked domain, or just park it yourself in the domain management if your host has one. Then just do a redirect from the unused to the used. Then you won't have to worry about the root folder. As a parked domain you won't be creating a "coming soon page" nor would you want to, since its redirected to the actual domain you'll be using. As for other considerations, at this stage I would just say be sure you want to launch with .co.uk over .com. The co.uk is better for UK specific sites, and .com is better for a worldwide audience. However, it sounds like you already know this. Hope this helps, Don