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Thanks fellas.  Agreed.

Cyrus' webinar yesterday got me thinking about the use of bullet points and Google's increasing affection for context and semantics.

Because of their brevity, I can see bullet points parsing up context/semantics etc.

Some of our competitors (apparently trying to appeal to Google) are writing 2-4 sentences about the product in the desciption section followed by bullet points repeating the same information.  They'll also put a few sentences of description at the top of the page above the price and then repeat it below in the description (this is relatively common).

I put text in the description section and like bullet points as a shopper because I can quickly and easily see important information - therefore I use them heavily in product descriptions.

Is Google smart enough process bullet points and mash together context or would Google prefer content in well written sentences?

Should I be frying bigger fish?

Great stuff Thomas. Made some notes to self.

I'd put all the link building efforts into the main site and scrap the microsites.

As a customer, I don't like clicking on something and being redirected to another site.

As someone who links to stuff, I don't link to something that redirects people to something else.

Google not only knows your backlink profile and perhaps in your case, your motives.

Relatively speaking, your main site doesn't sell a bunch of different stuff.

Our site sells a bunch of different stuff.

I sense you're frustrated that page 1 for "plastic storage bins" is taken over by the biggies like Rubbermaid, Lowes, Walmart, Target, OfficeMax and lesser names with moz rank domain authorities over 50 when yours is at 27.

I think the microsite/doorway strategy was ill conceived.  The time would have been better spent on your main site creating new and improved content and perhaps an on-site blog linking to your products.

Why did you do this in the first place?

Wait a minute...I'm interested in this.

How did you ninjas find the website?  Must've been posted prior to the answers and removed later.

Luke, would you mind pm'ing me with the pages?  I think I could benefit from a look at it.

Is Penguin focused primarily on backlinks or does it also assess internal linking/anchor text?

We've lost about 3,000 visitors a month since the rolling updates were implemented. I'm always careful not to over-react to algo updates but enough time has passed that I think the dust has settled.

I try to stay white in all I do but I think if I've over-done anything its the internal linking related products/categories with exact match.

My backlink profile also has an over-abundance of affiliate links but that's kind of out of my hands isn't it?

Does the mark say, "EGOL?"

There may be some value in branding in that regard depending on what you're selling.

However, If its small and unobtrosive then the viewer probably wouldn't be able to tell what the logo is/says until they open the image.

Edit add - when its that small its easily removed and cropped so it really becomes a matter of whether you think its important as a branding element versus protection.

A watermark won't affect your rank.

In my opinion this is more a matter of the use of your time.

I very rarely see watermarks anymore on ecommerce sites. I think a watermark will do more to pollute the appearance of your product than protect your images from piracy.

From a practical perspective, Google and other shopping feeds may have rules regarding watermarks and artwork associated with products so make sure you are aware of the rules if you use feeds.

Edit add - I can recall 1 ecommerce site I've visited using watermarks and the only other places I see it are sites that sell images and artwork.

Hi Miriam,

I've experienced what you described from a user perspective and I think it depends on the service being provided.

For me, web and phone type services do not require a physical location and it does not bother me to get local results from an outfit that does not have a physical presence.

Services like floral and candy type stuff may make a difference and may not.  If I needed to stop somewhere on the way home and get some goodies for my wife, I obviously need a walk-in store and will get peeved while looking if I see a bunch of virtual stuff.

On the other hand, I needed to send my daughter some chocolate covered strawberries for Valentines day so I Googled an outfit near her home assuming they would get it there quickly. Well, they could do it but their prices were outrageous. I found an outfit based in California with a virtual page one organic listing in the same city that guaranteed next day service so I bought from them.

Finally, if I need a roofer, plumber or heat and air guy I want somebody with a physical location in or near my city. No virtual stuff.  I came across a virtual, type service of this kind that may or may not have had a physical franchise in my city but even if they did I would not use their service. I wouldn't trust them.  It smacks of fly-by-night.  But that's just me.

In sum:

1. Depends on the service. If I'm looking for a geo location with a local street address and can't find one - I don't like it and will skip it.  If I'm looking for flowers, candy, phone service etc. where an email or no physical or vocal service is needed I don't mind it at all.  For example, I was looking for a Mister Sparky in Dallas and I found a site with a map of the dallas area but no street address pinned or stated. Just a city and phone number. Yuck.

2. Thin or duplicate doesn't really matter for me. I went with a heat and air guy who's been doing business in my sub-urb for years. He had a very basic website on a yellow pages cms site. It was about what I expected for a smaller local guy. However, if I was looking in the big city like you suggest, I would expect a better presentation where quality of content would be more of an influence.

3. I wouldn't recommend a virtual company target a bunch of sub-urbs and small cities. I would target 2 or 3 of the major cities in each state and create impressive landing pages.

In local SEO practices, is it best to geotag all images or only specific ones?

For example, if we have images of our retail store on our G+ page (or on our About Us page) it seems like common sense to geotag those images.

However, if you're a local photographer do you want to geotag all of your images or only images shot in locations where you'd like to rank?

I like the question, your answer and I don't get this stuff.

If the definition of semantics is: "the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics , which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics , which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics , which studies the cognitive structure of meaning."

Then, it sounds like I need to use exact plus different partial matches to ad perspective or relevancy to the main keyword.

Then again, I fall into the group of people who don't "get" this stuff.

Link to it from the homepage well above the fold.

I've asked the same thing in the past and told by authoritative users in this forum the following: "If your site is structurally sound, you shouldn't need a sitemap."

I've bought into that principle.

If customers scroll to the bottom of my pages without finding or keyword searching what they need, I've probably not done a good job of setting it up.

Put into practice, we're in the process of revamping to a top navigation with search suggest features and left nav filtering functionality.

Good article. Thanks for posting

I need to read some more on it.

I wondered how the refinement might influence the Title content.

I don't typically include "buy" in the title but I've got to look at our serps and re-think this.

I will definitely do that for Rackspace bots, Chris.

Thank you for taking the time to walk me through this and tweak my filter.

I'll give the site you posted a visit.

Crap.

Well, I guess the vernacular is what I need to know.

Knowing what to put where is the trick isn't it? Is there a dummies guide somewhere that spells this out in kindergarten speak?

I could really see myself botching this filtering business.

Does it need the . before the )