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When a site doesn't rank for their brand, but has done previously, this can often be attributed to a penalty of some kind. I searched for "Smartpress" and didn't find them in the first 2 pages. However, this can also happen if they are a new site.

Other times this can happen, are when they brand themselves based on an already well-used industry terms that others are already ranking for. Imagine me calling myself "SEO Company" and hoping that would appear first because it was my brand? It wouldn't work this way.

Looking at the penalty possibility first, do you know if there have been any manual or algorithmic actions taken against the site? Does Google Analytics show you anything like this? Has their traffic dropped?

-Andy

Hi Robert,

Do you have any external tracking setup that would confirm this for you? I'm always very cautious with always trusting results from my own desktop and like to have these verified.

-Andy

Hi Tariq,

There are so many possibilities for this. However, can you give me a little info please?

• How old is the site? If it is quite new, then it is common for rankings to fluctuate a lot while Google is figuring out where you should be.
• How have you managed your SEO so far? Have you read any guides? This is always a great place to start.
• Take a look at your content. Where did this come from? Is it written for the site?
• Check your pages and page speeds. I was on a page and it was still trying to load items 15-20 seconds later. However, Google is fairly happy here it seems as Page Speed Insights shows a decent-ish score
• Have you done any keyword research for the site?
• Is there any linkbuilding been undertaken at all?

I could probably go on and on, but see how you get on with those and check your Private Messages for a little more info.

-Andy

Yes, I would create separate accounts if you have different brands and services to allow people to distinguish between your offerings.

Hi Reed,

I would do this more from a usability point of view than for ranking increase. If you were to get any increase, it would be minimal. If the URL's were long (4, 5, 6+ words), then yes, it would make more sense, but something short like this will be fine either way.

-Andy

What Dave said.

/index.php, .html, .htm, .asp, et al, are all pretty much outdated now. Not in the way that the pages wont get spidered and indexed, but URL's are certainly much cleaner when they are like this page, for example:

_http://moz.com/community/q/which-is-better-section-or-section-index-php_

Looks much better than _http://moz.com/community/q/which-is-better-section-or-section-index-php/index.php_

-Andy

Hey Dan,

Glad I read to the end as I was about to suggest looking at this. A client of mine was also hit very recently with something similar and it was rogue code that was carried over from one version to another.

Glad all is sorted

-Andy

Hi Luke,

Google is smarter than ever when it comes to links, so if something is freely given and isn't advertising, I wouldn't necessarily be no-following all of these.

Have a read through Google's guidelines on what they suggest for no-following here.

How is the site actually performing? Are they ranking badly in Google? Is visibility low? Are there any manual penalties? Have the site recently undergone any big changes?

Lots of other questions to look at before rushing at links.

-Andy

I dont use Addthis, but do you not have an admin area to track clicks?

Try and always keep Social up high where possible, unless it isn't feasible

Here is something that might be worth showing them Mark. Matt Cutts was talking about this exact matter last month.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-seo-desktop-18271.html

There doesn't appear to be a clear cut answer here - if there is one, Google aren't confirming one way or the other, but i would certainly be erring on the side of caution.

-Andy

I haven't actually done this myself, but I suspect that pattern matching is your solution here.

However, what you want to be able to do is disallow the whole pattern and then allow just the first page:

Allow: /?p=1
Disallow: /?p=*

The thing I don't have the answer to, is if this will work by first allowing the page 1, and then blocking all others. I don't have a method for this in blocking via robots as this is normally handed with other solutions you mention.

You can try it though through Webmaster tools:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156449?hl=en

1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.
2. Under Crawl, click Blocked URLs.
3. If it's not already selected, click the** Test robots.txt** tab.
4. Copy the content of your robots.txt file, and paste it into the first box.
5. In the URLs box, list the site to test against.
6. In the User-agents list, select the user-agents you want.

-Andy

This definitely looks like it is being guided by Markup. However, don't underestimate Google's ability to find a structure it likes and deliver that in the SERP results.

Without investigating fully, it is a little difficult to say exactly what is driving this.

-Andy

It is indeed. One the one hand, err on the side of caution - on the other, links are required, but with that many affiliate links, I would have though Google was ignoring them.

-Andy

Hey James,

From what I can gather from Google on this, a business page can be set as the rel publisher from the homepage only, and subsequent pages assigned to an individual for authorship.

However, I wouldn't worry about transferring social accounts over as you can, if you wish, just add these as links which will show in the G+ business page About, including a link to your website.

As long as Google can see the 'circle-of-trust' from your site, to your G+ account and back again, then all is good.

Perhaps I haven't been watching or taking notice, but I cant see I have ever seen a brand picked up as an author for anything.

Hope this helps,

Andy

Hi Conrad,

Aside from internal linking, it is also important to look at the page titles, and these could do with some work.

When crafting page titles, you want to remember that Google has changed how they calculate how much is now shown, and this equates to 56 characters (512 pixels). MOZ has a tool to show you what would be seen here.

You say that when someone searches for "active new zealand", then you want this page to be returned http://activeadventures.com/new-zealand

However, the page title of that page is "New Zealand Hiking & Adventure Tours & Vacations | Active Adventure".

This title is also a little spammy, and you need to get your desired phrase in there as well, if you can. Rather than what is there, I would have "Active New Zealand adventure tours | Active Adventure". This gets both key phrases in and fits into the 512 pixel limit that Google now has.

Internal linking can also help by explaining more to Google about the pages as well. A strong anchor text around each phrase would be desirable here.

If you want a hand with any of this, just drop me a PM and will be happy to give you some pointers.

-Andy

Google said some time ago that sites with hyphens in are more of a spam signal to them - more so with .com's

That said, your URL will have no impact on SEO at all. If you were a brand, then there are benefits to doing this then. I would also drop the -nv at the end (unless that isn't available).

-Andy

Rather than go into duplicate details here, Dr Pete did a post on just this a little while back.

Read it in all its glory here

-Andy

HI,

First of all, have a watch / read of this Whiteboard Friday where Marie talks all about links and what can work for you.

https://moz.com/blog/what-links-comply-googles-guidelines-whiteboard-friday

In my view, if someone has linked to your site without you asking, then there is never usually a problem, but it depends on the the type of links / quantity of links.

There is too much at play to give a generic answer that will fit everything you ask here. You should look at each site on its own merits, but with the introduction of Penguin into the main algorithm and this now running in real time, there is less of a need to be worried about these kinds of things. There is less of a need to disavow links because Google has improved how it scores these and if it spots a spammy link, is more likely to just devalue it.

-Andy

I think that most would see this as a spammy way to communicate. I have seen these before and all I do is delete them.

You may get a small amount of success, but it's the same as the Twitter invites - they get looked on as spam by just about everyone who receives them.

Andy

Hi Simon,

I have seen a very similar issue with another site I have been working on, and by no-following the links to the external sites, this cured the problem. These just opened in a new browser window, rather than being modal.

It is the same as just no-following links so you aren't seen as either an affiliate or selling links and passing page rank.

-Andy