Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Big Name sites are huge and Moz cannot index every page of these sites.  Often the link is buried deep in the Big Name Site and therefore will not be detected.

Try to build links with sites that have good authority, but are a bit more niche.  Remember that links are not everything.  Google is very keen on quality content too.

Hope this helps

Bruce

This is always the challenge for buying multiple domain variations.  Matt Cutts mentioned this on one of his webnars.

As long as the 301 redirects are working and also rel canonicals are in place and href lang tags where appropriate then Google will know which site is the primary site and that they are related. But you may in my opinion loose some quality as this will be shared between the different .com sites.

Google would really prefer that you focus your energies on building "One" strong site and develop links to that site. I am not sure why you would want loads of .coms active though.  I can understand brand protections, so buy the domain but leave them dormant.

If it were (edit typo) me, I would only 301 local domains to the .com site and not .com to .com.  This for me is confusing for the end user.  301 redirect for "www.brandservicename.ca" or www.brandservicename.de" with the right heading href etc. but not  www.brand-service-name.com to www.brandservicename.com.

Other Mozers' opinions will be useful too

Bruce

Hi

Many thanks for all the input we have had from the Moz expert team here.  We have had some great thoughts and we have finally decided that we need to move our site to an new provider and to go back to one single .com site for all our global traffic, as we cannot get round possible duplicate pages as we cannot use canonical nor alternate links with our current website provider and this has meant a big rethink in the last couple of weeks.

We where running two sites, .com which has been running for 7 years and a .co.uk site which was dormant since 2007 until 2013 and used from last year to serve our local customers.

Domain Authority for .com 19 and 23 for .co.uk

Our new site will serve 3 currencies so we can offer £ $ & € without the need for duplicate pages or local pages.

We plan but are flexible about using a 301 from the .co.uk site to the dot com. and have enough data to ensure we can do all 301 redirects at page level from our current .co.uk site to our new .com site.

Can anyone provide any SEO tips on ensure we grow our rankings when we make the switch in about 3 weeks.

Many thanks

Bruce

Hi Sarah

You will end up with two Google + pages, One Google Business Page and also a Google+ Page.

The Google Business page is very important as this is the one that will be verifyed to your website and old Google Places pages.  It is very very confusing.  All our posts on Google Plus go to our page and not to our Business and there is no way to join the too

Google have just launched a new update which starts to map locally to Business pages via local search, for example Timberyard London.  This then also brings in all your Google+ Business info, maps etc. Join a few of the groups and recommended is "Google+ Resource", you have to request to join and they are really helpful.  Create circles and share content from your sites via G+ on your site. Google Plus is very much part of Google search too, so if members of your circles are logged into Google plus too, then when you post, you posts up in any related search results, normally quite high on page 1.

Worth researching and learning more to get the most out of G+, as it looks like it is going to be very important in Googles effort to keep content fresh, new and unique.

Everything points to the first flush of youth.  New site, lots of new content and google loves this.  Now time as started to balance as your rightly say, to settle the site to where it naturally sits as a new kid on the block, but not that new.

What-ever you do, do not tweak, if Moz page rank scores are good for your keywords etc, as this will end up with you being totally confused about the stats you are starting to see.

Make sure each main page scores well for your keywords and build good content and update regularly to your main category pages.  Products pages are static, so use your entry pages to add fresh content.  Improve each page where you can.

Penguin is cannot penalise sites without spammy links, so this is not the problem if you don't have any.

Remember Google is about quality end user content, fresh and unique.

Hope this helps on the journey.  Look forwar to many more questions in due course I am sure.

Bruce

Hi Johnas

In our view add it to the main site.  If you go for a split solution you dilute all the great work done from both sites.  Adding a shopping section to the site will add more traffic to the XXX.com site and therefore will also bring in product specific links and recommendations.

There are some very learned colleagues here on Moz, who will be able to offer more thoughts about your thinking.

As always with SEO, distill the essence of your company and present it in a unique way.  Unique in respect of making sure all reading material is written with your own words, with a moderate sprinkling of keywords.

Adding your ecommerce to the site enhances and leads the reader from reader to buyer

Hope that this helps

Bruce

Hi Sam

They are updated on the 8th day after the campaigns where created and then on the subsequent 8th day, this allows for a full weeks data to be measured.  You should expect to see your update shortly

Moz emails you when all the updates have been run with a summary report once complete.

Bruce

No sure why you would not include the street address.  If this is because the business does not have an office or place for customers to visit then they should make this clear elsewhere on their site..in the contact us section or about us section, stating that the address is a Depot only and does not have a customer service department at this location and to call xxxxxxxxxx for sales etc, will help solve this.

Search engines like complete data, therefore if the full address is ambiguous, then the business might be perceived as ambiguous.

Hope this is useful

Bruce

Have you checked that the competition for these keywords?  When we are at the top it is harder to stay there as everyone else is working on getting to the top too.

It is also worth checking if you have added fresh content to these pages too, as Google knows how often to crawl, so if you are not adding freshness, it might be that your competition are adding regular content and are being crawled more often and therefore are taking some of your ranking places.

In the past few month Google has also rollout out new algorythms so it might also be worth seeing if these reductions are aligned to any of these.  Check the Moz Weather map for specific dates.

Worth checking other competitors pages and also how the whole page is performing with Moz Page Grader.

Have you got your products loaded onto Google Shopping?

Adwords can eat cash if you get the ads wrong, so I would recommend distiling the keywords to be very specific, set a campaign up and test test test.  The Adwords Team are great at helping set up campaigns.

The best thing I can recommend is to really really understand your target customer and research what they search for and use only a handfull of keywords per campaign.  Don't be hasty in deleting keywords as customers buy seasonally so what might work for winter will not work for summer, so pause a keyword if it worked well and then turn it back on when the season is right, if that is how your business works

Like everything else in SEO and Sales: -  Prior Planning Prevents P* Poor Performance

Feel free to ask more about this...

Bruce

Hi Alan

Sounds like a bit of a headache.  First things first...don't assume all drops etc are negative.  Often big drops in search via good SEO are a sign that you might be serviing better content and this must be also compared to other metrics like bounce rates etc.

Domain rank drops can also mean that sites which are also high ranking have been removed, because their links where not related to your content and therefore in the longer term, could be damaging.  Remember links should be from sites which are somehow related to your site.  Google is striving for better service delivery to all searchers and therefore does not want links from a site selling widgets to be linking to sites selling cakes, unless the widget is something to do with cakes.

Press coverage, tends to have no-follow links and therefore check out the value of a link before spending time trying to get the link.

Domain Authority comes from quality linked content and therefore high ranking links in your industry sector should be sought.  Links are like roots, tiny capillary fibres that grow to big anchor roots in time.

Improve your content and make it fresh.  This will do wonders for natural links and google serving up your site.  Track keywords and distil the essence of your site pages to ensure that not one hit is wasted.  I could be wrong but Google also monitors BOUNCE RATE.

Hope that helps somewhat

Bruce

In our opinion,

Distil all the keywords to a handful, Your budget will be swallowed whole if your not careful, pick the best and just stick to to those.  Set your initial budget high for a week and then drop it way down, once you start to see which words work best. Make sure your adverts are linked to the right page and use keyword destination URLs.  Check the quality score for the keyword.  If it's a low score, revisit. Final thought, don't tweak daily unless you can see a problem that is costing money.  Leave the campaign alone for 7 days and then revisit.

Bruce

In essence I would agree with you.

Domain forwarding is a redirect, but it is not going at add value if it is new and also it is not really the right way to use domain forwarding.  There are many more experts on this subject than me, but domain forwarding from my understanding is meant to direct a domain name to a hosting service, a regional territorial domain i.e .co.uk to a com or to forward domain variations to a parent site.

These should then be used with href lang and also rel canonical in the page headers where appropraite

I think Google would really prefer that you build good links and unique content around the  "keywords social skills" and rich content in your original site, creating a page with the URL including xyz.com/socialskills, rather than Domain Forwarding.  New traffic and links built up over time to the main site will be worth the time and effort.

Hope this is useful and I am sure others will qualify some of my points ref Domains if I am slightly off the mark.

Bruce

Agreed.

Find new unique angles to keep the site content unique and fresh,  For most business's seasons, annual or quarterly events either in the business or outside can provide insites and a great reason to add more current content to the existing content already provided.

If you are a bit stuck, let us a bit more about the industry so we can perhaps give a few more angles to help give you some ideas.

Bruce

Not sure of all the facts so very hard to make a call on what to do.

Initial thoughts:-  Why is moving warehouse stopping ordering?  If this is because you cannot ship fast enough, extend your lead time to ship to cover these days.

To recreate an old phrase of "Out of stock is out of business" to "Offline is out of business"....if a customer makes the effort to get to the site and then cannot buy, what is stopping this and is the reason really really valid. Can you give a few more details about what why and how come?

Warmest regards

Bruce

Hi Dan

What are you wanting to get out of the advertising?

CPC advertising on Facebook is straightforward enough, so if you can elaborate a bit more, that would be useful

Bruce

HI

Do you have a blog?  If so is it on your site sub-domain?  Create new blogs regularly and google will pick up the new information and crawl more often.  if the blog is linked to your current site that is good enough.

There is not much more you can do with products, but you can certainly make the core pages seasonal, so adding new content for each season which give the site a fresh updated look without trying to re-invent the wheel.

Bruce

Hi Demi

Is the blog on a sub-domain of the main site or a separate domain.

If it is on a sub domain, then this counts as fresh content.  if it is not you might want to think about moving the Blog to a sub domain.

Can you let us know

Bruce.

I would disavow them also.  Matt Cutts commented on this a while ago and recommended in essence " any doubt" disavow.

Do this via GWT. (edit Added) Google Webmaster Tools

Bruce

Are you talking about Brands on other Sites or Brands on the same site?

If you have two site sharing links is not bad as reciprocal links gives great customer experience, but if one is for example plumbing hardware and the other for Knitting Machines, then you should ensure that the pages that link the two sites make sense.  So you might share the link on a page called " Our Other Brands" or the like

Just dropping a link on the homepage within the context of that page, unless relevant, is not beneficial to the experience.

Bruce