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You could check your server stats on who is accessing your site, this should tell you what bots are going to your pages when. I don't know what control panel you are using for your site, but if you are using Cpanel, I am sure there are tutorials online to help you find this information.

That the bot isn't picking up or counting internal links, or the count is just of external links and it is follow vs. nofollow?

An alternate way that I often do competition analysis is using Market Samurai, its only $97 for a great tool.

If there is a discount here at SEOmoz, you would find it in the PRO discount area, which can be found here.

Otherwise the Expo Plus Pass is free if you register before hand and not at the door. More information can be found here.

I haven't experienced them before, but their average review when you type in "Blurbpoint Review" on Google is around 3 to 3.5 stars. I have seen their ads on Facebook and such. Just trying giving them a call. My typical saying is: "If its too good to be true, it probably is."

That's my opinion. Take it for what its worth.

Hope that helps.

I would take a look at both your Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to find where the traffic is coming in for your keywords.

Not always, use the robots.txt to be 100% sure.

No problem, glad I could help. I am in these Q&A forums to make sure people get their questions answered, so please let me know if you have any more.

Not a problem, let me know if there is anything else I can help you with, or if you have any other questions.

Hey Alex,

First off, nice name

Anyways, hyphens have shown to not be of any benefit in the search engines. It has really been exact match domains (with no hyphens) that have done the best. It won't negatively impact you, but it won't help either.

What I would do is focus on building a brand. In a recent blog post by Rand here, he had a presentation going over ranking factors and it has been concluded that exact match domains don't have as much importance as they used to.

I would focus on building a brand. If you look at the SERPs today, you will see that brands are continuing to show up, as they have trust with the users, which that is what Google is looking for.

Now to become a brand in Google's eyes was covered in a PRO webinar, which you can find here. This will ultimately be the best solution for you.

That's my opinion, let me know what you think by replying to me.

I look forward to hearing from you.

-Alex

You can use the search line on Google: site:www.example.com

This will tell you what Google has indexed on the site.

If you are looking for a specific sub-folder, then use: site:www.example.com/forum

Hope that helps.

If you don't want it to be discovered by the search engines cause it has too many links and such, block it with the robots.txt. It will still obviously be visible to the users on the site, but the search engines won't crawl it and possibly penalize it.

I would recommend that you have him lower the amount of links to other pages on and off site. This includes the possible redundant links that are in the header navigation and side navigation. Lower the amount of links on the page/site and you should be golden.

Not a problem, let me know if you have any other questions. I am here to help.

Google doesn't like "cloaking" type things, showing them different stuff than you show the users will get you penalized. Don't do it.

It's not a MAJOR element, but it could certainly help, I would say focus your efforts in building links. In regards, if you do move them, yes 301 them so any ranking value will get passed over time. Lastly, if you do have breadcrumb nav, you will need to change that.

I would say build a "brand" of it. Exact match domains are starting to show less significants in the SERPs. So I would say build a "brand". You can also learn some indications of that in a PRO webinar that was hosted within the past three months. You can also see some of the more recent ranking factors (including info about exact match domains) in a presentation Rand did in a blog post here.

Hi Anthony,

Adding "rel=nofollow" to the link to the certificate won't affect the load time, as the link is still there along with the badge and such. All that will do is make the link not pass any value to where ever it goes. Secondly, "rel=nofollow" cannot sculpt PageRank any longer. That became ineffective over a year ago with some Google updates. They basically didn't want people to manipulate PageRank on their own sites. So the best solution would be to find a different way to display the certificate/get the point across that your site is secure.

Alex

Everything looks good! Just make sure when you submit to UBL.org you have the same address, phone number, information, etc. This will get you better results, because from Google standpoint if a bunch of local sites/directories are all giving the same information about a business, it must be true (so they will give you better rankings).

Google Places has a very different algorithm compared to the organic Google Search algorithm. For Google Places, you will be optimizing their one Google Places page to get it to show up in the search results. The two main driving factors are reviews and citations, but I will go over an overview of the rough process you should do for them.

Quick definition of Citation: A listing in a local directory, online yellow pages, etc.

The Process

1. Claim and fill out or have them fill out their Google Places page COMPLETELY. Add descriptions, pictures, videos, EVERYTHING.

2. Have them proactively collecting (hand written) reviews so you can distribute them later on.

3. Go to UBL.org (Universal Business Listing) and purchase just the simple/basic package for them. TIP: Being a pro member of SEOmoz you have a group discount code that will give you great deals and instead of the basic package costing $39, it'll only cost $23. When registering at UBL.org use the code: seomoz2212. That's a great deal for you. The reason for this, is it will give you some nice citations all across the internet over the course of several weeks.

4. Collect the reviews from the client. At this point, you should be a few weeks in with the citations and you will be able to start posting reviews (DON'T EVER PUT THEM ON THE GOOGLE PLACES PAGE).

5. You will start posting reviews on the places with the citations (Yelp, Superpages, InfoUSA, etc.). How you will do this is, first scan your image and then post it to a place like Posterous.

6. Go to one of the places where your business has a citation and register an account, (on behalf of the client) and then post the transcribed review on the site with a link back to the original written review, that you posted on Posterous.

That's rough the process. Now we are posting on the citation locations because Google syndicates that to the Google Places page.

I know this may be a bit confusing, so definitely respond to this with questions and lets keep this discussion going.

Hi Mike,

I would say go for it. What this sounds like is three-way linking right? Three-way linking will give you a non traceable link profile which will add additional benefits. The automation part may be difficult, but could work. I'd recommend communicating directly with the webmasters though as it may be against TOS of the reciprocal link networks / systems.

Let me know what you think.