Welcome to the Q&A Forum

http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

If you install that toolbar, you can check to see if links are follow or no follow.

Social Media is correct. I never checked the site, but the links are marked as No-follow so it wont help with your rankings..

If you are wanting to publish an article, I would suggest rather asking a webmaster in your niche to publish it on there website in the form of a guest post.

Do some research here for info on guest posting. Once you have a good understanding, type this in Google for guest posting opportunities.

"Keyword"+“Guest bloggers wanted” OR “guest blogger wanted”

Hi Craig

Keep it structured in a silo by displaying your parents>children>Grand children and cousins and try not to include exact matches of children or parent keywords on the product pages meta tags.

An example would be.

website.com/shoes/ (this is the parent and lists all the children)

website.com/shoes/blue-shoes/ (this lists all the grand children)

website.com/shoes/blue-shoes/red-laces/ (this is the end of the hiarachy, but you can list related products (tap dance shoes etc)

Back to your question...

You want to keep it structured as best you can to keep Google happy, so try your best not to "canabilise" your pages (more than 1 page targeting the same keywords)

In your scenario, the  http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/kitchen-oven-gloves/aztex/barbeque-boss-double-oven-glove-black_ct389bd182pd1968.htm is the end of the line (the grand child) so you dont want this page ranking for generic terms like "black oven gloves" (the page before this should rank for that) etc..

Search for keywords specific to the product, and if you cant find any, then just use the product name and or guess what people would search when looking for that specific product rather than using a generic term as this will cause more hassles than good.

Make a note of the keywords you find that fit Parent and children pages and optimize those pages for the more generic terms.

Make Sense?

Greg

Hi Craig

Simply put, yes you will get the "trust" signal by getting a link on that website.

However, because the page you create has very little authority, there is very little "link juice" that passes onto your website (The stronger the page, the more ranking power you receive)

Get the best of both.. Publish the article, and then build a few back links to your article. This will improve the article pages Authority (page rank) and will in tern filter it into your website..

Just make sure the article is not specifically about the products you sell or it may outrank your website when you promote the article

Greg

Hi Mathew.

Cemper.com Tools are amazing (link Research Tools)... The most advanced Link building tool out there in my opinion...

Chris Cemper has been working on the link detox for a while now, and has explained how to manually find the suspcious links without using the detox tool, but the tool just makes it easier for us.

I have not tried it yet (was only released yesterday) but his advice on identifying link networks and other dodgy links is invaluable.

For the price of a tweet, its well worth giving it a try..

Greg

1. Does Google see this as duplicate content?

Yes, these pages are seen as duplicates.

2. Best to 301 redirect B to A?

Yes, Redirect B to A

You could also create a rule somehow to redirect or add the / to all URL's without a trailing slash just for piece of mind that you wont have to do this again.

Greg

Hi Ben.

Now more than ever Google is focusing on Brands rather than standard "keyword rich" websites.

Brands offer trust more than anything and is by far the best way to go if you plan on building a long lasting online business...

"Budget Car Rental" is a real brand, but then its also a money making term. Google has clearly recognised the term as a brand which is great and if your client can do the same, then no harm done.

It gets manipulative when your brand is "ABC car rental" and your website is "Budget car rental.com"

The only reason exact match domains are still ranking I presume is because Google is still tied up in identifying which are brands, and which are there solely for ranking benefits. Google's not stupid and things are changing fast.

I guess the best way to explain it to your client is to say:

For short term ranks with no guaranteeing on future success, then choose a URL with the sole objective of manipulating Google into ranking you well.

Or

Choose a brand name and built trust that will last for years to come.

If they choose to go the manipulative route, then at least you have done all you can to educate them leaving you with a clean conscious for when they regret the decision made.

Just my 2c worth...

Greg

No no...

Don't redirect all your links, just do it once to one URL

http://jonnyt.me/index.html

Redirect To

http://jonnyt.me

Once you have redirected, jonnyt.me/index.html wont load, but instead will redirect to jonnyt.me

If you know of any links that are pointing to  "jonnyt.me/index.html" change them to point to "jonnyt.me "

If you cant find any, dont worry about it, when google or a user clicks on jonnyt.me/index.html, they will be taken to the correct page.

I hope this makes more sense.

Greg

That makes it even more complicated... Well spotted Martijn

Based on were the majority of your links are currently pointing, you need to choose which to go with and redirect the other.

jonnyt.me

jonnyt.me/index.html

These are duplications which you need to sort out.  (I suggest redirecting jonnyt.me/index.html to jonnyt.me/)

Greg

Hi

You do in-fact have internal Followed links and its just a matter of changing the "pages to" field in OSE

Dont ask me why, but when choosing "to this page" nothing gets displayed. When you choose "pages on this root domain" all internal links are displayed.

The selection that works includes all variations of URL's that point to jonnyt.me and not just URL's pointing to jonnyt.me in that makes any sense..

Show > ALL > from > ONLY INTERNAL > to > PAGES ON THIS ROOT DOMAIN >

Greg

I second what Maximise has said.

Going forward, start promoting your websites brand rather than its keywords. Concentrate on obtaining quality links with the anchor "GMR transctiption Services" or simply GMR transcription services.com

Have a look at your backlink profile and remove site wide links or atleast vary the anchor text were you can.

Your back link profile Ideally should be made up of about 70% branded terms, and 30% "money terms" otherwise it looks un natural to Google. (Generally speaking, its not an exact science)

Greg

I haven't noticed any problems on my side....

In terms of SEO, any CMS can be optimised for SEO /CRO benefits so it essentially boils down to the size flexibility and style of the website you want to set up.

In my experience, Expression engine is great if you have developers and graphics designers working on your site. (which would be built from the ground up, custom templates etc)

If you have your standard bloggers with little HTML/programming/Graphics design skills, wordpress is the way to go as its the most user friendly platform in my opinion. (Free and paid templates available for download)

As mentioned, any CMS can incorporate SEO/CRO best practices, its up to the type of website and the skills you have at your disposal.

Diane, try contact the author and request that they reference the original source and threaten that if they don't, you will report them to Google.

You can file a DMCA request with Google to remove pages that are stealing your content.

Read here for more info: http://www.ecreativeim.com/blog/2011/12/report-stolen-content-to-google/

Dana, I just want to chip in on Point 1..

Ignoring your 404 pages is fine. But make sure to remove all links on your website pointing to the 404 page.

When google bot crawls your pages, and finds a link to a 404 page, it doesnt care if the 404 page is optimised for users, It's still a 404 so G bot wont be happy.. With these 404's you also get duplicate content/Titles and meta descriptions as there are many of them.

In other words, be sure to removal all links pointing to 404 pages. Link Sleuth makes this easy..

Greg

Unless your talking about the "show links ungrouped" option...

This will show the top 25 links per domain, and your own domain always comes up first.

Greg

Incorrect!

The "Top Pages" tab at the top just points out the most valuable and strongest pages of your website..

This tab doesnt report on links, it just reports on your best pages.

Greg

I agree with Alice.

I ignore most link exchange requests, however i do find the odd website with great authority and rather than simply exchanging links on links pages, I try to to discuss and negotiate exchanging links via guest articles or editing an existing (relevant) piece of content with our link.

This doesn't happen often though, but its sometimes worth analyzing each request to find the gems. (Real webmasters promoting their REAL websites, and not some agency creating websites just for link exchange)

Greg

Hi,

You do need to be a pro member to see/download all incoming back links

I checked and found 10 000 incoming links to www.comm100.com/livechat

Im guessing you want to change the link to point to http://livechat.comm100.com/index1.aspx?utm_expid=19023959-0 ??

If this is the case, the link juice will still flow via the redirect. (not as much, but the value from these links are still being counted)

Greg

Yes it does effect your rankings.

I cant say how much, but is definately a factor that Google considers when ranking your pages.

Make sure you are using a reliable host as not only Google gets mad when pages become unavailable.

Greg

It depends on the content in my opinion.

It would be ideal If you could cover a topic and conclude with a max of 2000 words but If you cant, I would break it up into parts or chapters that you could maybe publish over a few days .

There are pro's and cons to both, but In my opinion, keep it to a max of 2000 words per page.