Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Check out this article under the Links and off-site Factors section:

http://www.spottedpanda.com/2011/seo-news/confirmed-seo-facts-matt-cutts/

Check out this thread from earlier today for some ideas:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/meta-tag-noindex-nofollow-by-accident

Definitely submit a new sitemap.  This should qualify for a reconsideration through Google Webmaster Tools.  The speed to be back up depends on the size of the site - it is my understanding that requests honored are back up within a week.

In the thread above... Ryan has a great tip about tweeting important links.  That may be of interest to you.  Certainly creating some sort of buzz on relevant sites like Twitter will bring some attention and get you back on track.

-John

Ryan - excellent points!  The benefits of adding a CMS to this site would be quite good, at the very least for providing some sort of grounds for moving forward on a unified platform.

Okay... let's try adjusting that slightly:

RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*).htm$ /

Another option, depending on how many .htm pages you need to redirect, is to place this in your .htaccess file in the directory where your .htm pages are located:

<code>RedirectPermanent /oldpage.htm http://www.example.com/</code>

<code>This should do the trick :)</code>

<code>RedirectMatch 301 (.*).htm$ /</code>

Do you have a Google account with Webmaster Tools?  If not, go ahead and sign up for one (it's free!) then submit your site for reconsideration to Google.  While you're at it, make sure your XML site map is working.  You should be back on Google within a few days to a week.

It sounds like this is a short-term nofollow situation, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

-John

This looks like a great site for applying SEO.  You have some good content to start with.

I'm sure lots of comments will flow in... here are some of my thoughts.

1. Markup.  I would suggest thinning out the code and getting rid of the table-based layout.  Part of good SEO is making sure your page loads nice and fast.
2. Home Page Layout.  I noticed the Used Pumps button at the top takes you off site.  To an affiliated site, I hope?  The image area is just fading images, you could replace the Flash there with a javascript equivalent and get the added benefits of adding alt attributes to the images and perhaps even laying some image titles over the tops of the pics for additional key phrases.
3. Page Layout.  I took a look at the New Concrete Pumps page as an example.  In the HTML, you should list the main content area before the sidebar and use CSS to float the sidebar left.  You already have heaps of links in the navbar.  Coming the this page just looks like more and more links.  Moving the sidebar after would help.
4. Page Titles.  I noticed your Meta Title is <business name="">| New Concrete Pump Trucks, while the anchor text to get there from the home page is New Concrete Pumps, and the page title is Concrete Pumps.  This seems like a lost opportunity.  You have 80 chars to use up in the title... put your key phrases first and be sure to include the phrase (or variation thereof) in the page title.  Is this page about Concrete Pumps or NEW Concrete Pumps?</business>
5. Images & Links.  Alt attributes help to describe the image they are attached to; Title attributes help to describe the link they are attached to.  I'm not really seeing this utilized.

These are just some initial thoughts.  Getting the code in shape will be a great foundation to start building your SEO campaign!

-John

Hi Zan-

Check out this thread:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=23404

Reading it through, I thought comments #8 and #11 might be of interest to you.

-John

I tend to use these guidelines...

1. The KISS method  works wonders (Keep It Simple Stupid).  Say more with less.
2. Keep it Content-Heavy and Code-Light
3. Learn proper HTML structure - think of the ease of adjustments down the road.
4. Make the site be fast-loading
5. Communicate... that's the whole point
6. Maintain clear calls-to-action
7. The web can be hard to read, especially for older eyes.  Design to your audience and have nice contrast.
8. Keep an open mind - push yourself to learn and try new things.  Ask questions and seek answers when you are unsure.
9. Design inspiration can come from anywhere... non-web sources can be great!  Architecture, magazines, nature, you name it!
10. Web design (including page markup) is both parts creative and technical.  There is no single way to lay out a great page.  Some ways work better than others though, so strive to be the best you can!!

I would be interested in taking a look at the site.  Feel free to send me a message to discuss the details.

-John

Digging back through the Q&A... I'm several posts reporting this sort of thing.

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/rogerbot

Perhaps you could try specifically blocking rogerbot?  If that doesn't work, an email to the SEOmoz team may do the trick

Steven - that's a great idea to recycle still-relevant posts.

Another idea, perhaps a way to handle more date-specific posts, would be a "Looking Back" type of callout on a page.  "Here's what we were talking about a year ago..." or five years, etc.

EGOL, you mentioned having 10 recent posts.  You could extend this out a little more and have another batch of ten that are related tags posts - even posts you set as specific that you'd like to renew again.

Have you specified a User-Agent?

Yes, I would definitely agree... looks rather spammy.  Much of the anchor text is a throw away on some of the links: "Click here to view the..."; "Feel free to browse the..."; "Click here to access..."; etc.  No value there!

The "See what Cerritos Nissan customers...." anchor text is pretty lengthy.  If I understand correctly, the 6 - 8 word max or less than 55-60 character rule of thumb should apply to the anchor text.  Like most other things related, keeping it in check seems to make the most sense.  If the anchor text is more descriptive this will give the link more weight.

On the shorter side of things though... How many times have we seen "click here" to download.  Is the link value "click here"... or rather is it about the page or item we're clicking to get to?

-John

You should have a meta tag for the page language (adjust language code as needed):

As far as the URLs go... many sites are converting these to non-escaped variants on save.  Magento, for example, treats e, é, and ê as e in the url.  Check out Lemonde.fr, french news source.  They are just stripping the accents as well.

To adjust for the accents, you would need to transliterate them.  First, find the function that is generating the URL.  Next, if your system allows has the iconv() function:

$new_url = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//IGNORE//TRANSLIT', $old_url);

If not... then you could go this sort of route:

$table = array(

'Š'=>'S', 'š'=>'s', 'Đ'=>'Dj', 'đ'=>'dj', 'Ž'=>'Z',

'ž'=>'z', 'Č'=>'C', 'č'=>'c', 'Ć'=>'C', 'ć'=>'c',

'À'=>'A', 'Á'=>'A', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ã'=>'A', 'Ä'=>'Ae',

'Å'=>'A', 'Æ'=>'A', 'Ç'=>'C', 'È'=>'E', 'É'=>'E',

'Ê'=>'E', 'Ë'=>'E', 'Ì'=>'I', 'Í'=>'I', 'Î'=>'I',

'Ï'=>'I', 'Ñ'=>'N', 'Ò'=>'O', 'Ó'=>'O', 'Ô'=>'O',

'Õ'=>'O', 'Ö'=>'Oe', 'Ø'=>'O', 'Ù'=>'U', 'Ú'=>'U',

'Û'=>'U', 'Ü'=>'Ue', 'Ý'=>'Y', 'Þ'=>'B', 'ß'=>'ss',

'à'=>'a', 'á'=>'a', 'â'=>'a', 'ã'=>'a', 'ä'=>'ae',

'å'=>'a', 'æ'=>'ae', 'ç'=>'c', 'è'=>'e', 'é'=>'e',

'ê'=>'e', 'ë'=>'e', 'ì'=>'i', 'í'=>'i', 'î'=>'i',

'ï'=>'i', 'ð'=>'o', 'ñ'=>'n', 'ò'=>'o', 'ó'=>'o',

'ô'=>'o', 'õ'=>'o', 'ö'=>'oe', 'ø'=>'o', 'ù'=>'u',

'ú'=>'u', 'û'=>'u', 'ü'=>'ue', 'ý'=>'y', 'ý'=>'y',

'þ'=>'b', 'ÿ'=>'y', 'Ŕ'=>'R', 'ŕ'=>'r', 'Ā'=>'A',

'ā'=>'a', 'Ē'=>'E', 'ē'=>'e', 'Ī'=>'I', 'ī'=>'i',

'Ō'=>'O', 'ō'=>'o', 'Ū'=>'U', 'ū'=>'u', 'œ'=>'oe',

'ß'=>'ss', 'ij'=>'ij'

); $new_url = strtr($old_url, $table);

I'm not sure about Korean handling - perhaps someone else knows how these are being handled?

-John

Hey Ryan-

What software are you using?

Depending on your coding experience, you may be able to set up replacements for the foreign characters and override the URL generating function.

Just let me know, I may be able to help you out.

-John