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Hey Mker,

Here are a few things to consider:

1. You are in a sector that is hit pretty hard with an authority domain (Zazzle), you have to remember that the closer to the authority source a link is the more value it holds. Perhaps even opening up a Zazzle shop with an external link, or trying to get some craft blogs to write about your service could be some very valuable routes.

2. Integrate the product schema (http://schema.org/Product) not only will it help your SEO rankings but it's sure to boost your CTR and conversion rates simply because of the additional visual stimuli

3. Do some detailed keyword analysis, perhaps they keywords you are fighting for simply aren't the right fit for you. Try finding a number of easier ones that have smaller traffic but by grabbing a few of them you could equal the traffic of a more challenging word

4. Consider further segmenting your products so that you can have pages that target specific keywords - just like too many cooks spoil the stew, too many keywords spoil the SEO. If it makes sense to split your products and optimize your pages give it a whirl

5. SEO isn't the only strategy, consider inbound marketing some PPC ads or a Facebook fan page running a promotion make work wonders at the holiday season. Believe it or not even if you were ranking first organically some users would still only ever click the ads, and users that are ad shoppers are far higher when it comes to converting.

6. Off-site is going to be key in such a competitive industry, but far to many people make the mistake of trying to go for big high-quality links and as many as they can muster. Remember Google sees everything and hates SEO their main goal is to find sites that naturally and organically gain authority across the internet. When considering such things you may want to look at what seems reasonable for your industry. Appearing on popular mum blogs, craft blogs and holiday blogs or forums would be your best bet. If suddenly you had a ton of wikipedia links it would likely seem a little sketchy!

7. Watch out for any SEO now a days who doesn't talk about inbound marketing and buyer personas. SEO as a tactic is a dying breed, SEO is now a part of a much larger strategy - and the key reason why SEOmoz is now Moz. People who talk to they are blue in the face about building you links and optimizing your on page are likely to hurt you in the long run. Take the time to invest in someone who is going to give you a holistic and complete approach to inbound marketing. When the user is happy, Google is happy and ranks are high!

8. Last but not least use a tool like ahrefs and scan for sketchy links, maybe despite all your hard work something is dragging you down. Try and contact those webmasters of any spammy links you may have to get them removed, and if worst comes to worst try the Google disavow tool

Oh and PS don't forget a site map, eCommerce and a beautiful sitemap with product schema markup is sure to be a great hit!

Hi Torey

For example lets say one of your websites pushed a particular type of pump (not familiar enough with the product vertical to know if that makes sense but bare with me), you'd want gaso.com/pumpa to be the landing page (page specifically dedicated to that pump type) that you direct the old domain that covered that pump too with a 301.

Gaso.com should come back, focus on it and give it sometime I understand that if this is a client site they are probably freaking out (also worth checking if perhaps they've just dropped into a Google dance and are not fully removed from the search results). Build it out with proper landers as entry points (this avoids all your search traffic coming into the main page which isn't ideal) and redirect the old websites to their appropriate internal page. This will give you a real boost over time.

If you need to explain the time process to a client let them know that this is a strategic investment in the future. The consolidation of the sites, and the time it takes for gaso.com to re-appear is about getting it done right to grow their results significantly in the long run, but work on consolidating the sites as soon as possible because it can be a real drag on both time and authority.

If you have a lot of duplicate content (or overlapping content) on the same server it may not be a penalty but Google simply lowering the value of the properties due to a lack of uniqueness.

Make sure as you rid of old domains you are 301 redirecting back to the main site and continue to simplify your site and consolidate it into single landing pages. Also make sure none of these old sites are inter-linking in any method other than a 301 redirect as that would have a negative impact on your SEO.

In a way I wouldn't worry too much - it's kind of what you want a push in the right direction long term. If you are going to have secondary websites they need to be unique enough (by the nature of intent) to actually warrant their on place in the search engines. If you are really just having a slightly different spin to the same intent and content each time then Google is going to continue to lower the value of the sites across the board.

I've had the same thing happen to me with old clients that started back in the day that owning multiple domains made sense, a lot of them dropped off and the clients freaked. We streamlined the content into unique and hyper targeted landing pages and 301'd the old domains - within a few weeks not only were we back up and running but we were simply crushing our competition. We shot up in SEO across the board, our traffic was up almost 30% and our users were converting at a higher rate due to ease of use.

Think about it from the user perspective and you'll always win, streamline it, make it easy, make it accessible and the rankings WILL come. (Well worth reading Cyrus' post about that mantra: http://moz.com/blog/seo-satisfaction)

The only thing to watch out for when re-directing mobile users is their lander.

Far too often when a user tries to access www.yoursite.com/thispage.php?=file.pdf they are just redirected to m.yoursite.com rather than m.yoursite.com/thispage.php?=file.pdf

As long as you let them access the content they are seeking on a single clickthrough to your mobile site re-directing them should be fine.

It may be also worthwhile reviewing the common practices in optimizing for smartphones as provided by Google:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/common-mistakes

They point out that it may be worthwhile having your videos in a more global platform such as HTML5 rather than flash!

When ever we talk site structure I love to refer to Rand's Intro SEO slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/introduction-to-seo-5003433) slides 46 & 47 in this case if I remember correctly.

The basic mantra to remember is that when it comes to URL's - keep it simple.

Google loves simple, clean and meaningful URLs and dropping the .aspx extension should actually serve as a plus long term. While Google may initially rank the old page depending on its indexing and crawls just make sure that the .aspx pages are re-directing with 301 redirects (not 302) and eventually they should swap out entirely.

In all the years I've worked in SEO I've only ever seen sites improve their ranking by cleaning their URL's like this. Just make sure to 301 and you're all set!

I think this is one of the first times I get to put my degree in Philosophy of Ethics to use here at Moz!

Your SEO company isn't an SEO company at all it's a blackhat chopshop and they are screwing you over.

Yes that duplicate content is devalued, possibly even to the point that it could have a negative impact on your rankings and therefore ultimately your business. Regardless of how far away your business is from the other Google still sees it.

Should you report your SEO company? If you mean to a marketing firm rating site, or the Better Business Bureau, then yes in a heart beat. There 'service' is a gross miss-practice that is harmful to your business and the last thing that you want others to fall prey too.

Should you warn these other businesses? I would - personally I think it's the right thing to do, some of them may have been aware of it and just opted for cheap and dirty content, others may be in the same boat as you where they had no idea this was happening. If the tables were turned I imagine you would want them to do the same for you!

What is the ideal course of action? From an SEO standpoint delete the content on your site that is duplicate. If its on other blogs that linkback to you try and reach out to those webmasters and get the content removed, if you can't get in touch with anyone try the disavow tool - be honest in explaining what happened and try and get as many links removed as possible. Then build up new fresh and unique content to replace the purge.

From a business stand point immediately halt all further services from this company, have a lawyer review any contracts you may have signed to see if they are in breach of contract anywhere or if you take full liabilities. If you are not claimed fully liable they still may be accountable for negligence and negative impact this had on your business (obviously not worth taking them to court over but great leverage to seek a refund). Reach out to the other effected companies and give them a good Samaritan's heads-up; too many people think SEO is a dirty game so be the good guy! Beyond that clean out house of the bad SEO and work at rebuilding the good!

Sorry to hear about your rough experience!

Personally my tool of choice is Eloqua. It's not strictly an emailing system (if I was limited to ONLY emailing systems I'd probably pick CampaignMonitor).

The beauty of Eloqua is it's deep integration, not only do I build a buyer persona based on my users interactions with emails (in far more detailed metrics than anyone else can provide) but persona cookies allow me to track the user across my website. Unlike Google Analytics I get detailed information and page flow maps of that user. I know which email link they clicked and then what website pages that user in particular visited and how they spent their time on each page (scrolling, page active window, clicks etc)

Eloqua is extremely high-end and pretty new. There aren't many adept technical marketing teams out there that perform well at it but when it comes to email marketing there isn't a more powerful tool for an agency to leverage (http://www.eloqua.com/resources/best-practices/email-marketing.html)

If you've got a big campaign it would be worth while reaching out to an Eloqua partner: http://www.eloqua.com/partners.html

Otherwise if its small email management I'd go with CampaignMonitor, simple flat fee pricing or pay as you go, easy to integrate and an excellent amount of detail when it comes to analytics (personally I'm a numbers nerd). Best of all unlike other systems like Aweber, you aren't locked into a monthly contract in order to maintain a list.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "If you build it they will come" - it's a famous movie quote (I want to say Field of Dreams, but I can't quite remember off the top of my head), but more importantly it's a great mantra to build off of for SEO.

When you are trying too hard to improve your rankings you are going to fail. The most important thing you can do to improve your SEO is improve your site for your users. Google will identify your poor grammar stuffing time and time again - and let me tell you that's going to hurt you in the long run.

If you are a golf store in leeds then make sure you have an address in your footer including your city name, make sure your business is listed (and verified) on Google Places (<cite>www.google.com/local/add/</cite>‎) and if you have a trusted and notable business listing directory in your area like YellowPages make sure your business is listed with their digital directory. (Do NOT ever take the time to list on directories that aren't big notable companies it will actually have a negative impact)

Next it may be worthwhile implementing the Local Business schema markup (found here: http://schema.org/LocalBusiness) or schema events as they geotag as well (http://schema.org/Event)

Other than that keep your content organic, focus on your visitors needs, don't try and stuff in keywords and hit percents it all looks unnatural. Focus on getting your users the website they want to see and your CTR, Time on Site, and Bounce metrics should alter in a positive fashion lending themselves to a bit of an SEO boost anyway.

To stray away from the SEO and get a little inbound it's worth while to set up a Facebook profile with website and address information for your business as well, not only driving traffic but giving you more locational and social authority.

This isn't so much an SEO question as it is a personal policy question.

Obviously declaring something as No-Follow allows you to retain the PR flow from your website. Yet this isn't always something that guest posters are happy with.

The other thing worth considering if your guest posters are only willing to write for you in exchange for a Do-Follow link is maybe they aren't the best guest posters. Not only will similar guest articles and do-follow links from them be popping up on a number of sites as this is their active strategy, but there end goal isn't user experience it's SEO.

To improve YOUR seo and ultimately your business you want a guest poster who cares more about improving their personal brand than their search engine ranking. This way you will find a user committed to quality and user experience, someone that search engines and people a like want to read, and someone who won't require you to give a do-follow link, because regardless of link status their brand grows.

Remember inbound marketing isn't all about SEO, you need to debate where the technical side of your business ends and the branding begins and how that effects your policy!

If you've already reached out to them asking them to remove these and had no luck, and you've seen a negative impact on your site it may be time to use the Google disavow tool.

However I wouldn't actually take the time to do this unless it is negatively impacting your site. Google understands that you don't control the links that go to your site, and as part of sites organic growth and sharing pattern you will certainly see occasional spammy links. If they weren't links you created, and they really were spammier blogs simply picking up your copy then I doubt you have anything to worry about.

Obviously if this is a botched blackhat SEO campaign it will be noticeable in the anchors, property times and property relations and that will hurt you long term, but if you were also picked up by some legitimate good quality blogs I wouldn't fret too much about the spammy links.

Yeah these are indeed different metrics.

Think of it like someone following your brand on Twitter. Followers follow (quite obviously) and the +1's are like favoriting a tweet.

Followers would fall under the site trust category of the algorithm much like verifying with webmaster tools or Google authorship.

A +1 on the other hand is a social signal that tells Google "this page delivered what I was looking for". A sort of validation that you matched the users intent for that key term.

While I am sure they both play into the algorithm in much more complex manners and have multiple bearings on trust, intent and social sharing this example should at least help you make the distinction.

That all kind of depends on what your vertical is, and what you mean by the number one spot.

The News Carousel show up first, when it shows up. That being said it is pulling information in a different manner than the organic results so being #1 organically wouldn't include you in that system automatically. Imagine it like when Youtube results or Google maps results show up in the search. They are an additional search element that is run separately than the organic system.

As far as if these are going to see more clicks - quite naturally they will. Just like Google Rich Snippets profiles see an increase in CTR beyond the normal results listing. People are more apt to click these results for three reasons:

1. You've presented them with additional information which in the long run is what they are trying to access
2. The majority people fall into a visual learning type. When you show them a picture they will pick it over text every time
3. It's new, and people have a natural curiosity with that which is new and will click on it simply to explore.

When you understand the background process that leads to the click decisions these people make it's not a huge leap to think that they'll be plenty click happy on the news carousel!

Hi Gagan,

Try using the Rich Snippets testing tool http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets let me know if you can see the photo there when you type in the sample URL. If not then there is an issue with your code setup as this pulls fresh on each request.

If however you do see it there then it's possible that it's an issue on either your local cache or how your site is caching on Google. Are you sure the latest edits are live and crawlable?

When questions like this pop up I feel its best to reference Rand's intro to SEO slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/introduction-to-seo-5003433) specifically slides 40-47 which cover site structure.

Separate sub-domains are often viewed as separate sites so you are now building separate value identities instead of one. If it's important to you to give them all a separate blog rather than a central one with multiple authors, then you can still achieve this by simply giving them separate sub-directories.

Sub-domains will not pass value the same way, and will be focused on different content and not associated with the main site.

Back when we had popular sub-domain hosting services like Lycos this is what seperated sitea.lycos.com from siteb.lycos.com and the same sort of thing would happen to your blogs.

If you want them to self promote and the SEO value and content association of the mainsite to flow down to them (and theirs to flow back up) structure it as www.yoursite.com/blog/author1 for each author and you'll be good to go!

The disavow tool should not be your first result and it isn't a magic fix all button.

Before using the disavow tool you are expected to try and reach out to webmasters and make manual link removal requests to try and remove as many negative links as possible before using the disavow tool. After all you can't expect Google to just batch dump all the data it sees for your site otherwise their penalties would be worthless.

After that disavow the links, be honest and open in why the links are there and what caused them. If you are lying about it it will be pretty obvious and your disavow likely won't get granted; and if you have been doing something shady that wasn't yet caught it will be when your site is reviewed.

All in all if you have a clean white-hat campaign and have come under some link spam flack then using the disavow tool will be helpful. It's helped a few of my clients survive competitive negative SEO - however, sometimes this simply isn't enough. It won't fix everything, it won't remove all your links and it won't help against any manual penalties.

Once you've cleaned up as much as you can, and ensure you are employing white-hat SEO methods and have your facts in order give it a whirl and hope for the best. That's how the disavow tool plays out.

Due to the information we have this response is obviously going to be some educated speculation. You said 1.5 months ago that you changed the structure in how you present your language options to the user and I think this has a great deal to do with the index pages your seeing.

If you check out Rand's SEO slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/introduction-to-seo-5003433) from slides 39-47 you'll see his discussion on the importance of site structure in the eyes of Google. While translated content may be all the same to the user, the search engines take the structure to mean different matters of intent.

For example, sub-domain information is often taken to be duplicated translate purpose only content. It's also often categorized as a separate site.

When you went from sub-domains to language directories you went from three separate sites to one site with flow-down accessible information. In Google's eyes you just expanded your website with new fresh and valuable information. While some of the indexed pages may drop off I think this structural change is the main reason you've had such a pick up in indexing and hopefully it plays well for your on your international SEO campaign!

Cheers,
Adam

There certainly should be much of an impact in your ranking. However there are a couple things worth considering in this matter:

-Location value: If you are a working on a campaign that is focused on a specific international region then having an IP from that country can be beneficial in the eyes of some search engines in regards to local searches

-Link Value: You'll also want to make sure that you aren't switching to a shared IP which hosts websites that are linking to you already - while in all honesty something that would be extremely rare, if it were the case it would likely lead to the devaluation of those links

-IP History: It's also important to know that you aren't moving to a digital neighborhood that's known in the search engines eyes for housing spam. Think about it like sharing your identity, you wouldn't want someone under your name giving talks about illicit topics. Look up your neighbors with a reverse IP lookup tool such as yougetsignal.com before making the jump.

All in all you likely won't see a big impact from switching your IP address - you just want to do a little due diligence to insure that your new digital home is one that's squeaky clean before moving in!

Cheers,
Adam