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In the second column of the Google+ listing, you may have noticed the Report A Problem link.

There are several options provided plus "Other". "Place does not exist or is private" may be the best choice but you have options.

I agree that tactics like these stain SEO and the SEO industry. Every industry needs feedback like you've provided!

What CMS or hosting platform is being used? Most CMS's allow for "search" to be added to the site (plug-in or add-on). You can add it to the site and then remove it after you're done checking for the old brand name.

Alternatively and depending on your comfort with HTML, use a web editor, specify the URL and download all pages to the folder you specify on your hard-drive. If not familiar with web editors, do a web search on this term or contact a web developer (many not all web developers have one or more web editors for their use). For web editors I've used in the past, it's File / Open or something similar and then you get the option to "import" the contents. Once it's downloaded, most web editors will have a Find/Replace. Use this tool to locate all instances of the old brand name.

Alan

Use "group error messages by type" in Options when using the html validator. It will make it easier to identify primary causes and create solutions. The tag errors are the best place to start when debugging. I've noticed in the past that sometimes the validator identifies an error when in fact, it may be so technical that it doesn't qualify as significant to trigger a 403 error.

Hope that helps - Alan

The web server is most likely specifying a folder and not a web page. Your webmaster should provide results of an assessment to determine if this is the error. Go to http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/403error.htm for more information. Ran one validator test and it reported that the DOCTYPE line is inconsistent with the actual content on the page. The list of accepted DOCTYPE declarations is listed here: http://www.totalvalidator.com/support/doctypes.html

Hope this helps. Let us know.

Alan

Hi Ron,

I am not an expert on topic of HTML validation, but having gone to http://www.freeformatter.com/html-validator.html and entered your URL appears that there are incompatabilities -- these may be minor enough not to be the cause at all of what you're describing). For example, there is HTML5 code in the HTML but the HTML specified in the DOCTYPE (basically tells the browser reader which version of HTML the site is using; see more at w3c.org). Try it yourself and you'll have more information which may be helpful. Even if this is not affecting SERP it's still a good idea to have your code updated so that the site pages work with HTML5 (e.g., Google +1 snippet is coded in HTML5). - Alan

Definitely the business page first. This establishes a presence and complete listing about your business in the Google eco-system. Content you place can be shared in such a way that Google Search results will display snippets such as the number of reviews received and number of positive ones. Your decorating ideas website is ideal for the concept inherent in Communities -- sharing with others who share your passion for decorating. Perhaps others can chime in about the importance of Google Communities for SEO purposes. Like social media in general, the more time you spend the more links you are likely to gain to you site, thereby improving DA/PA.

I would add the importance of not duplicating content -- you don't want blog posts being lifted directly from website text in other words. I've been nailed on this in the past. Second, due to the popularity of WordPress and the unique content generated, it's highly valued by Google Search. IMO, the website's CMS and the WordPress blog are definitely compatible. March on!

Yes, currently unsupported according to help source document on the subject. I believe it's an area of SEO that justifies separate scoring. Of course, analytic software would provide its own metrics.

Thanks. Great feedback. Good to hear some are getting listed. Does anyone know an editor -- what's the time commitment -- has it been a good experience?

I've been waiting 11, almost 12 weeks for several submissions to appear in Open Directory. I research the right category and fill in all fields carefully incl. title and description. What are typical wait times now (4th Qtr 2012)?

I like Corey's ideas very much. I would add: a) don't forget links to those certifying org's, etc. and good anchor text; and b) that your primary audience is people -- include what will reinforce loyalty and interest, e.g., testimonials (which you can link to a testimonial page) and visual cues (logos, images about your services, etc.).

I would encourage you to think of images as a content asset. You can also make use of video that is a similar content asset, yet easier to leverage for SEO purposes. So, consider reserving one or more placeholders on the homepage for one or more videos. Upload to YouTube where you'll get the most link juice and include keywords in your title and description.

Do the search engines disregard or penalize if the order is not title then description in the HTML?

A client's webmaster is a newbie to SEO and did just this. Suggestions?

For one of my clients, the people coding the site added the meta description content to the HTTP-EQUIV tag as part of the "name" attribute. Curious if anyone has seen this practice before?!  I notified them that the description meta tag was not coded properly -- the search engines do not interpret the "name" attribute and the text that is in it. Anyway,  It looks like:

**<meta http-equiv="<a class="attribute-value">Content-Type</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">text/html; charset=utf-8</a>" name="... <a class="attribute-value">and services.
... .</a>" />**

Sure. The site is bayareadrainage.com . Thanks in advance.

Client site is 15 + pages. New site had noindex/nofollow removed prior to last two crawls.