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Spinning and article distribution are not necessarily anything to do with a PR0 site. What you were doing was not what is considered an ethical practice, and I am not surprised you were penalised.
PR0 sites can have good content and can be worthy of links back, but you want niche sites related to yours, not random ones that take spun content.
Regards,
Andy
Rich snippets are what come from HTML markup from the likes of Schema. And yes, there are a number of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to create markup very easily. This will then (hopefully) be used by Google to create rich snippets.
It is confusing at first 
-Andy
Hi Shervin,
If you already have 301 redirects setup, you don't need to do anything else and you don't need to make changes to your htaccess file either.
By all means, use the URL removal tool to tell Google that the pages are gone and remove them from the index, but rebuild your sitemap and re-upload that again as well.
You don't need to do anything with your robots.txt file either.
-Andy
That sounds to me like you are wanting to start your own little link-farm - I would advise you steer well clear of this!
Regards,
Andy
Hi Steve,
First, I would suggest looking at Yoast's SEO plugin. This offers much more in terms of customisation and function.
Do you mind listing the URL so I can take a look at the homepage? It might be Google (probably is) but just need to be sure.
-Andy
Yes, even though it says temporary, when it comes back to re-crawl, it won't find the old page. You will be fine
-Andy
Avoid the sites that got hit with the Google stick. You will spend waste time chasing your tail for nil / minimal gains.
Regards,
Andy
Hi Adam,
I would remove those footer tabs. I have never been a fan of these as there is always speculation over what Google can and can't see, depending on how they are implemented.
Try to resist the urge to get your key phrases into the page too many times. Google are pretty smart at figuring these things out and as you said, your competitors are ranking well without the need to do this.
I would also be focussing on link-building for the site as that will be one of the biggest contributors next to content. Have you done much of this for the site?
-Andy
Hi Andrew,
I would definitely avoid throwing everything at Google all at once. This won't give any article time to gain traction and severely limit your chances to share everything through social channels.
There isn't a magic timescale where you should publish this over, but if there is that much, then you should be looking at months rather than days or weeks.
Leave the season-sensitive articles until those seasons to maximise on the impact they can have.
I would also update any articles that might have out-dated information, so look at these before they go live.
-Andy
Hi Vasil,
Don't forget that mentions as as much a part of any link building campaign as actual links themselves now. Google doesn't want to see lots of the same link in an article so go for some mentions as well as links.
I can't help you with the sites directly as this isn't a technique I employ.
Regards,
Andy
Great to hear you have recovered Adam.
Also, it is worth remembering that as good a job as MOZ do, they aren't Google so you can't really use that as a definitive gauge of how well you are doing in that department. It's a 3rd party indicator (albeit a good one), nothing more.
If you wish, I can run a quick scan of your backlink profile to see how it looks?
-Andy
Hi Karl,
Google doesn't mind a bit of content that is the same page on page - they have said so in the page. If the page requires that there is a bit of the content that is duplicated, as long as it serves a purpose, you will be absolutely fine.
Look at the pages and see if what is there would be considered beneficial to the page.
The issues for duplication tend to arise when you are copying huge swathes of text from one page to another, plagiarising others work or even spinning.
By what you have said, it sounds like you will be absolutely fine, but feel free to post an example here or PM it to me if you wish and I will happily take a look
-Andy
Just do a find and replace in Excel...
Find http://www
Replace with domain:
Then hit "replace all" - It will go off and do them all for you.
Andy
No problem at all. I will set a crawl going and see what I find when it finishes
-Andy
Hi Gal,
I always advise in these cases, that the links are no-followed. This removes any doubt and concern over if Google will object. You are right to be cautious because you don't want any penalties to come from this, but it is highly unlikely that any would anyway. Footer links are largely ignored by Google.
There is a reason for the links to show to the different businesses, but I would just err on the side of caution.
-Andy
I'm on a Mac as well Marie but have MS Excel so can't help you on the others I'm afraid.
However, if you get stuck, you are more than welcome to mail me the spreadsheet and I will do the find and replace for you, then mail it back again.
Andy
Dropped you a PM with some specifics Adam, but isn't looking too healthy.
-Andy
Have a read through the latest Whiteboard Friday from Rand - you might pick up some good pointers from that
https://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranks-for-keywords-whiteboard-friday
-Andy
Try Open Site Explorer here Jason.
Also, building links to a wide selection of pages, and not all to the home page, is a positive, not a negative. However, diverse anchor texts and related referring sites play a big part in this and as long as a link has a good reason to exist on a page, I am sure Google will see this as a plus.
Andy
Hi Issac,
In these circumstances, there are a few things to look at.
See how you get on with those. There are other lesser possibilities, but these should give you some good starting points.
-Andy