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Hi,

I have a client who is thinking about selling ads on one site they own via something like textlinkads.com. Do you think they run any risk of exposing their other sites to scrutiny, penalties  or problems?

About the only thing on these pages worth saving is their url. There's no content on them that is user relevant. The 8, altogether, have one link from another site. They get a total of about 60 visits a month... between all eight.They're old pages from some really bad seo articles that made little sense then and less now.

I have a couple of other pages I was thinking about doing this with, but also moving their text content to the homepage... to make the homepage a little deeper text-wise.

Any way that ditching pages around a shared subject could make Google think the whole thing is less relevant... even the surviving homepage?

It doesn't sound like you think much of the forwarding to the homepage thing for the link juice.

I have a website that has some good rank on competitive terms. Most of the organic search traffic goes to the homepage, but some generally newer and better constructed, more user-friendly sub pages get organic rank/traffic for a variety of different terms/subjects as well.

Then, I have about 8 pages that are older and suck. They fail in the SERPs and there's nothing much of interest from a user point of view. Rather than do the work to completely re-do these pages, I'm thinking of just 301ing them to the homepage. My hope is that this will help the homepages terms/rank which are similar to these pages subject & terms.

Do you think this will help the homepage and it's terms or merely end the existence of some old pages and sort of evaporate the link juice?

Is there some way that Google might see the site on the whole as being less relevant to their shared subject matter, if these pages go away?

Thanks!

You're a genius! Thanks!!

Hey Brent,

Following those steps, do I then choose:

"Remove Page From Search Results & Cache"

"Remove Page From Cache Only"

"Remove Directory"

Thanks, Brent!

Wow, one url at a time? Is there a bulk upload?

Hey Brent,

Thanks for the message.

How do I remove them from the index?

Thanks!

Was looking at a site's webmaster tools where there are a few hundred 404s for a site. God only knows where all those urls came from or what they once were or what. Two questions;

• How bad is all this for the site's overall ranking?

• Should I just make sure they go nowhere and 301 them all to the homepage or some other possibly relevant page? Anything bad that could happen with 301ing all this away?

• Also, the site has no sitemap submitted to Google. Any tips on that?

Thanks!

Hey, thanks Sheldon!

Yes, time counts. The site is six years old. The page is a few months.

Greetings!

Is there an advantage in no-following links to pages like "Terms Of Use" and "Privacy Policy"... pages one isn't trying to rank for? Of course, the idea would be to not waste link juice on unimportant pages. Your thoughts? Thanks!

Hi,

I only check the highest instance of it. Today, it was at #17, which is where it's been for a while.

To answer your question, it's an interior page, not the home page.

Thanks!

On that level, brevity might be a plus... easier to watch 20 seconds than two minutes.

Hi,

Thanks for the message.

I agree, certainly from a users point of view. Any evidence Google likes it longer?

Hi,

Are there any facts, opinions or anecdotal evidence to suggest that a video on YouTube has to have at least x length to rank as a result in Google?

Everything else being exactly equal, is a 20 second video about as likely to rank as 2 minute video?

Thanks! Best...Mike

Thanks Ryan!

I think it's a technique that could lend itself to borderline grey hatness, just because it doesn't really seem geared to the user and you could really bury a ton of links. In this particular example, the links don't appear as links until you roll over them. Maybe just a design goof. Thanks!

I'm probably not explaining it very well. Sorry.

You go here: http://www.goincase.com/products/detail/CL57925/

You click on the "Specs" tab. You get a new tab which breaks down info by "Compatability, Color, Styles & Sku". Under "Styles" there's a line that reads:

"black, CMJ, convertible, ipad, iPad2, iPad 2, snap, snap case"

Those links.

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the message. I only say "hiding" in the sense of making text links less prominent design-wise. So, instead of having columns of text links, to do something more attractive, maybe with images or tabs or something.

On the example under the "Specs" tab, there's a line for "Styles." Those terms are links to other pages.

Do you think those links under "Styles" get picked up by a Google bot and valued as well as any other kind of link?

Thanks! Best...Mike

I'm working with a site that finds standard linking to spread authority to interior pages ugly. Here's what they don't like:

• footers

• tag clouds

• sidebar lists of links

• text heavy paragraphs with links

• a gallery of images with alt text/links

So, I'm looking for other ways to link from their homepage to these less prominent pages inside the site. Here are my two questions:

1. Would something like this work, with the links under the "Specs" tab (p.s., this is just a random example and not my client):

http://www.goincase.com/products/detail/CL57925/

2. Any other ideas for spreading the authority via links from their homepage and other pages on the site to less powerful pages?

Thanks! Best...Mike