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I would like to know is it possible to track a keywords past ranking history? We would like to check the ranking history of some potential vendors, but only get data from the point I add them to Alabs, moz etc. Id like to go back a year to see the trend in their rankings. Is this possible and what tool or process can be used to achieve this. Thanks in advance.

Im not sure the inbound links in GWT is ever accurate. Ive worked with several sites that had links removed over a year ago and they still show up in GWT. Even when linked site no longer existed. I guess such is the penalty for sites that once violated Googles TOS.

I think this would also delay the fixing of an algorythmic penalty if GWT hasnt recognized the newly revised or more accurate inbound links.

Ive been tasked to work on several sites from a client that had some shady past seo work done for them. Weak content, tons of useless links all pointing to home page, etc. Ive gone through site and given a total re-write and worked on removing and dissavowing links.

Majority of the sites home page ranked high on first page google. Now the sites are closer to 100 rank than first page, and the odd thing is that home page cant be found but pages like terms and conditions or disclaimer are ranking. These pages have hardly no content compared to home pages, and while they are still ranked 80 to 100 positions back they are ranking while the home page cant be found.

We have tried changing anchor text to "click here", and "for more info" instead of keyword and nothing much changed yet. Competition still has pretty much keyword anchor text and worthless links and they still rank well.

Am I wasting time with rewrites and link dissavows or should I continue and eventually get the sites home page to come back on the radar? We have added social media presence and a blog that we post to regularly and for 6 months of work have hardly seen a dent for improved rankings.

Am I on the right page or spinning my wheels? Any advise is appreciated.

We have a client that came to us and they recently did a site makeover. Previously they had all their pages in root directory including 75+ spammy article pages. On their makeover, they moved all the article pages into a directory and added 301 redirects. In going over their site we noticed they have redundant articles, like an article on blue-marble-article.htm and blue-marbles-article.htm Playing on singular and plural with dulpicate content for most part with exception to making it plural.

If they have 75 articles, Id say 1/3 are actually somewhat original content. I would like to 301 redirect 2/3's of the articles to better re-written article pages but that would add a whole lot more 301 redirects.

We would then have a 301 redirect from root directory to article directory, then another 301 redirect from spam article to new re-written article.

• My question is, would this be too many redirects for googlebot to sort through and would it be too confusing or send bad signals?
• Or should I create a new directory with all good articles and just redirect the entire old articles directory to the new one?
• Or just delete the redirects and old spammy directory and let those fall on a 404 error page.

Id hate to lose 50-75 pages but I think its in fact those spammy pages that could be why the site fell from top of first page google to third page and now 10th page in a years time.

I know, Im confused just typing this out. Hope it makes sense for some good feedback and advise. Thanks.

My main site has htaccess rewrite condition to force www.

I just added a blog on sub domain and have it www.blog.domain.com

Is this setup correctly or should it be http://blog.domain.com or does it make a difference? A colleague just pointed that out and said it should be non www for blog or any sub domains.

Thanks for any clarification.

I know this individual does this with several sites and then offers them for sale to his competitors. Obviously spammy thru and thru, but how can google reward a site thats not even two months old, with 1900 + links with a ranking of #3 for a highly competitive keyword?

Please dont post the actual name or url of the website as we dont want to give him any more credit but this blows my mind as he has done this several times with other sites and never gets penalized.

http://tinyurl.com/b9jysa5

Any ideas as to how he can accomplish this besides almost 2000 links in less than 2 months? How is that even remotely natural?

I know his other sites have been reported to google but they never did anything about it.

Thanks for any feedback.

Thanks for the replies. Think we have the http fixed and will work on footer area next. Thanks again for the heads up.

We have a site that was ranking well and recently dropped in traffic and ranking. The whole site is https and and not just the shopping pages. Thats the way the server is setup, they make whole site https.

My manager thinks the drop in ranking is due to google not crawling https. I think contrary, but would like some feedback on this. Site is here

Thanks Matt,

The seo agency came into play post penguin / panda. Flags and bells are going off in my head like a four alarm fire in reviewing their monthly reports.All links are using main keyword phrase and linking to home page.  There is no variety in phrase or landing page, and I suspect thats why the client is not ranking well and got a seo agency involved.

Said agency claims to do white hat practices but I just cant find any, as stated above.

Before I post my findings Id like to make sure my approach and suspicions are valid and backed up by others in this fine community.

Looking over a clients site and they have a bunch of link directory links that seem very skeptical to me, but the mozrank and authority seem to be ok on the home page.

One directory is addlinkzfree and they have the same template and layout as a few other directories this client has. Link page has no juice whatsover, but home page has PA 54, MR 5.04 and root domain is DA 45.

At first glance this would appear to be respectable numbers right? But the title of the directory and multitude of links lead me to think its nothing but a link farm.

Should I advise the client to run and try to remove links from these type sites even though home page has decent scores? Im of the mindset that anything diredctory with links, free, partners etc in title need be avoided.

Would appreciate any backup on this or am I just being paranoid?

Ive used both Bruce Clay and SeoMoz toolsets. The one thing I really liked about Bruce Clays tools is that I can punch in a url and get a full analysis report within minutes. Seomoz takes a week. That's a major drawback in my opinion.Seomoz has a great q and a forum so thats a major plus.

We have a site that has had its content copied verbatim to numerous other sites and articles. We were advised to change our content but the content is originally ours. Does google take that into account before they apply duplicate penalties?

And shouldn't copyscape be able to show this information in their reports? It just doesnt seem right that the originating author would have to change content because everyone else is stealing it.

Any clarification on this?

Thanks for your replies.

I have tried freelancer and odesk and have not had the response I was hoping for. I received applicants with one profile name, then when I ask questions another foreign name posts up. And they all seem to think seo is offering thousands of inbound links per month with just as outrageous blog posts and social media likes and tweets. All the while the main focus of content writing and blogging that we are looking for gets left on the back porch.

Gotta be a better source of qualified candidates out there.

We have multiple family lines of products. this one family line has been pretty stagnant and an seo firm pointed that out to us in trying to gain our business. I wanted to see if there is any merit to their suggestion.

We have a line of products that are all using the same template or shell for a website structure. All have different content relating to a specific product or service, but being its a line of different products under one family, we use the same colors and template structure for consistency and branding purposes.

It was just brought to my attention that using a template like this across multiple sites could raise duplicate content flags as google is reading the same template code and may not differentiate that its a family product line of sites.

Does anyone have any feedback on whether this could be true or not?

We are growing faster than expected and are in need of bloggers to keep up with updates for a multitude of websites. Where do you guys go to find reputable bloggers who are well versed in seo, social media and creative writing?

We have tried ads locally but are not getting the quality we would like. Any recommendations or suggestions would be appreciated.

We worked on a website that sells silicone wristbands. Not an exciting product anymore by any means. What we did to help create a buzz was partner with various awareness causes during a given month and posted polls and funds raised results on landing pages. Then we had the awareness cause we worked with link to those landing pages where visitors can see the amount of money raised, read more info about the cause and even place an order to support the cause.

If client has a mailing list of any significant size, you can send out email blasts offering discounts, free upgrades or other incentives that are further explained on landing pages and build traffic and possibly links to that page as well.

Im also looking forward to hearing some strategies others may have to offer.

Excellent answer Adam. Very well done.

What tools do you use for conducting a site audit? I need to do an audit on a site and the seomoz web crawler and on page optimization will takes days if not a full week to return any results.

In past Ive used other tools that I could run on the fly and they would return broken links, missing htags, keyword density, server information and more.

Curious as to what you all use and what you may recommend to use in conjunction with the moz tools.

I think you have the right idea and are on the right track. I believe with 301 redirects to new site you will transfer most if not all link juice and page authority to new domain name. And you should see a boost in rankings having the keyword in there as well. So I think its a win win all the way around for you.