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No, I am afraid this isn't something that Google would do Muhammad. You will always be taken to the top of the page.

-Andy

Remember that google can't distinguish between that of a brand or a small website. They work on algorithms, so throw out of the window what you think should be right and go do some research on it. Matt Cutts from Google was part of a discussion on this. You can't get any closer to the source and was quoted as saying that they have been giving too much away to sites with keywords in the domain. Read between the lines here and you have another change on your hands. I think my time trying to offer advice in this Q&A has reached it's limit so good luck on your search. Andy

Hi Bob,

As long as site A hasn't had a penalty of any kind, this will be your quickest route. Don't worry about no content being updated on there for some time - lots of sites don't get updated all the time. Google will see when work is started and come back to crawl more often.

Also, don't worry about buying a domain to match keywords - EMD lost any real benefit some time back.

-Andy

Hi Gal,

Google local and organic results are almost never related. Not having a local account is not something that will affect your organic listings.

In theory, once the change and verification card has come through, the change should be quick and you shouldn't notice anything disappearing. The locations are staying the same, just the business name is changing.

However, if there needs to be a change in classification, don'f forget to do this as well.

Google is pretty good at getting this right and I have never personally had any issues when changing details for clients like this.

-Andy

Hi Jack,

I used Screaming Frog Spider to run the report, which is still going and up to about 9k pages so far.

-Andy

Hi Chris,

There is a chance this could happen. I have seen a high bounce rate affect the whole site (probably for many different reasons). However, this was a site that then was given a manual penalty because of what they were trying to do, but it wasn't that dissimilar to yours.

-Andy

This previous question might give you some answers Sara.

Andy

**"Does Google absolutely hold you to making every attempt you can at getting those links removed? Add how does it know? No one responds so it seems to be such a waste of time. And many now actually charge to remove your links." **

Ah, that old chestnut

Do Google know if you have been trying to contact sites to try and get links removed? Simple answer is no. They have no way to tell this. They can't base this on any successes you might have, because as you said, most never reply, or hold you to ransom.

I have completed a lot of disavows now and the vast majority of these are clients just wanting the disavow file creating and then uploading. Of course, there is a fair bit of work in doing this, because you don't want to get rid of god sites, but even so, I have had a huge amount of success in fixing Penguin and manual penalties without having to go out and chase sites for a link removal.

Could it be anything else? It's possible, but as you said, there are a lot of very poor links, so this is certainly where I would be looking to start.

However, don't just stop there. After the disavow, you should be creating new site content, linkable assets and heading out to complete some outreach and gain them some good quality links to offset what was there previously.

-Andy

Hi Steve,

Don't worry too much about the addresses because many businesses work from the the offices these days, but rather than go through lots of possibles here, I would like you to have a read through this post on Search Engine Land, because it carries lots of information and stumbling blocks that others come across.

If you still have questions after this, please do post back in here, but I hope it helps.

-Andy

Great stuff. Hop back if you are still having problems

-Andy

That is a very open ended question and one I wouldn't even try to answer.

Tell your client that there are hundreds of factors at work with Google's algorithms and this is something that is completely out of your control. Even Google couldn't tell you the answer to that one.

If they want to know more, then tell them that each of the 200+ primary ranking signals, have their own set of criteria. I think it was 'assessing how links appear on a page', had something like 2,000+ individual signals that Google used. Now imagine that each of the 200 primary signals each have 2,000 of their own signals - this is hundreds of thousands of possibilities that Google will be looking at when ranking a site.

-Andy

Hi Clair,

How is your Google local listing? Has this been confirmed? It is also worth looking for some localised listings and cocitations from sites dedicated to London - Google will still use these sites to confirm your site and contact details.

i would also suggest having a look at http://www.whitespark.ca/ as they are a great way to find local listings. This has helped me many times in the past.

-Andy

Should we report this proactively to the web spam team using the guidelines here? No

**Should we request a malware review as recommended within the same guidelines, keeping in mind the site hasn't been given a 'hacked' snippet in the search results? **

No

**Is submitting a massive disavow links file right now, including the 490k-something domains, the only way we can escape the wrath of Google when these links are discovered? Is it too hopeful to imagine their algorithm will detect the negative-SEO nature of these links and not give them any credit? **

Yes

This sounds to me like you need to be thinking 'damage limitation', and by submitting a disavow now, you will be doing just this. Don't worry about the fact there are so many domains there, that is what the tool is all about. However, Penguin hasn't had a refresh in some time (12 months), so one might consider this and think that while you have time on your side to fix it, a refresh could be round the corner - so hop on it

-Andy

Not something I have tried Miriam, but I have a new client who would be a good one to try with this as they have just opened a shop that repairs iPhones, iPads etc., and at the moment, have no listings anywhere.

Seems like a useful feature that should get some use

-Andy

Well, as I said, open the forum up to Google, but no-one can give a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no impact to the main from Google. It's unlikely to cause issues, but that is as much of a guarantee as I could give.

-Andy

This is what scares me about some 'SEO's'...

"An SEO has advised we redirect all pages to the homepage, but won't that mess up the link profile?"

Terrible advice!

I hope you have all sorted out now James.

-Andy

Hi Oxana,

It is very easy to go too far with SEO and over optimise, so I wouldn't suggest making everything the same. If you do this on multiple pages, then you will fall into keyword duplication / cannibalisation and you will have internal pages competing against each other.

If you have no variety on the site and don't create other pages that add supporting content, then you will struggle. Google doesn't just want to see the same phrase over and over. It is about intent, information, unique (and amazing) content and making sure you answer the questions that people are asking.

The best best thing you could do right now, if have a read of the MOZ beginners guide to SEO. This will give you a wealth of information and help you craft your pages to follow Google best practice.

-Andy

Or 301 redirect these pages to home page?

This is something of a no-no. Google states that a 301 should be used to redirect one page to another that is similar. If you can't find a good match, you are better leaving it as a 404.

I heard there's a Wordpress plugin that 301 redirects all the 404 errors successfully preserving all the potential link juice.

As above, if you have a plugin do this for you then you could find that old URL's are redirected 'en-masse' to the same place, which will do you no favours.

-Andy

Hi Rhys,

No, you can't dictate which links are shown. As Google says, they are automated, but there are ways to influence this such as internal linking, but this can be hard work to get just right. You can get some ideas here, but be careful what you do as this could go wrong if you over-do something.

-Andy

Copyscape throws the same up as you have there - your YouTube page.

Perhaps consider a revision of this on YouTube?

-Andy