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Hi Nick,

You're probably best looking around for some more detailed articles on different types of keyword research. It's a broad area with lots of different approaches and tools.

Here's a few links to SEOmoz articles to get you started. I'm sure more people will give their opinions on tools etc.

http://www.seomoz.org/article/keyword-research-guide

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

Ben

You wouldn't be able to judge your sites rankings on this metric alone.

How long are the URLs? I would say this factor has a very small weighting when it comes to rankings. If you have a strong domain the search engines shouldn't have a problem with ranking it.

The main issue directly affecting rankings is diluting the keyword match in the URL. This article has a section on URL length which you will probably find helpful:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seo

Hi Dave,

I am personally against the idea of article spinning as a whole. It's strange to see the Market Samurai guys positioning this as a tactic. I would be interested in knowing if there are firms out there who do employ this tactic.

I myself am a fan of content creation, but I much prefer "real" websites as opposed to article directories and find that the entry level for these sites requires better content. This requires unique, higher quality content which really rules out the spinning side of things.

I tried spinning a couple of times and got very disappointing results, but if these guys are saying it is one of the most effective tactics it would be useful to hear a few more opinions. It can be quite dangerous when guys with that much weight suggest tactics like this if they aren't based on real results.

Ben

It has the potential to go either way. You would really need to look at these links as a percentage of the overall backlink profile.

If 90% of the links have this in then it's probably going to look manipulative - on the other hand, they are going to be semi branded links if the company is called something like "superb web design" and these may be considered Brand links.

A good article to have a look at is one posted on search engine journal recently -

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http://www.searchenginejournal.com/post-penguin-seo-link-building-the-naked-url-truth/

Also you would want to have a look at Open Site Explorer to see the diversity of anchor text to the site:

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

Ben

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Hi Daniel,

Links from your target location will help, both in terms of IP and TLD (.co.uk). I wouldn't overlook the opportunity to get links from international sites though as they will all pass value and strengthen your domain.

Also it's important to get links from other areas, not just directories.

Hi Daniel,

A 301 redirect is the best way to preserve the weight of the pages. If you are only taking down a few pages (and not the whole site) you would want to redirect these pages to the most relevant pages on your other sites. You can do a redirect from a URL to URL so you don't have to move the whole site.

Alternatively, consider whether you can use these pages as they are. I know you mentioned you no longer have affiliations with these sites, but if the pages are still ranking and driving traffic then it may be worth thinking about how you can best use them. You may be able to redirect customers to other areas of your site and convert them this way.

In that case I would suggest changing a couple and reviewing any changes in rankings as a result. This is one to approach slowly.

Not sure how you have access (are they paid?), but by changing a large amount of links at the same time it may alert Google to some suspicious activity. Large changes in anchor text can be a sign of changes to bought links.

Personally, I wouldn't change them all either. Even though the year is wrong, there's still going to be benefits. e.g. if you are trying to rank for "holiday in new york 2013", your rankings will still benefit from keywords saying "holiday in new york 2012".

Take it steady and keep reviewing the results, but bear in mind you may be better focusing your efforts on building new links with new anchor text.

Hope that helps,

Ben

Have you tried using a .htaccess file to redirect individual URLs and then a sitewide one for the others?

If it doesn't let you do this at the same time, redirect the individual pages first, wait until the SEs have picked up on the redirect and then redirect the rest of the site. I would have thought you should be able to do both at the same time though.