Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I selected the plugin called Redirection mostly because it has been downloaded 1.4M times.  My thinking is that popular plugins tend to get more testing and tend to be more compatible with other themes and plugins.  It works fine for me.

Best,
Christopher

I like this site, I really do, which is why I visit multiple times a day.  But I grow weary of these premium sites that require me to log in multiple times a day.  This morning I was simultaneously working at ordercup.com, strengthcoach.com, and moz.com, and all three log me out at every turn.  Argh!!!  What's worse is that some MOZ pages think I'm logged in and others don't.  I don't fully understand the logic behind the curtain, so I wander from page to page trying to get the login in sync.  Why can't these sites work like lynda.com where I can stay logged in for days and weeks?  To top it off, LastPass rolled out a new release that broke auto-login.  All this logging in is getting in the way of me getting anything done.

Hi Karen, it depends.  Are all the links spammy or are there some good links as well?  Given that the site continues to rank well and without additional information, I'd be inclined to try and clean it up and create some new compelling content.  If it does get hit then you can reassess, but again, it depends in part on the value of the good links.

Best,
Christopher

Keep in mind that one ranking factor is freshness.  It's not uncommon to rank well when first published and then to slide downward.  If you are ranking due to freshness, it's important to continue to write new and compelling content.

It's perfectly natural for each page on a site to have a different keyword.  Write good content for each page and both users and Google will give you two thumbs up.

Best,
Christopher

It is my understanding, bases on other responses to this forum, that using nofollow does not improve the link juice passed to the follow links, but that the link juice that would have been passed to the nofollow link is lost.

Best,
Christopher

Great question.  Audio quality is much more important than video quality.  I prefer using a wireless lav.  I use and highly recommend the Sennheisser wireless lav shown here at B&H http://tinyurl.com/24yw234

Most video cameras today, including the cheap ones in the $250 range, include a mic input.  Be sure to check before purchase, but odds are it does.  If the camera has a hot shoe, the Sennheiser receiver will mount on top of the camera and then run the very short wire from the receiver to the camera mic input; otherwise, Velcro tape strips will work fine.

One final important tip.  Get a foam windscreen similar to http://tinyurl.com/lc963pc  If you ever shoot outdoors, it will significantly reduce that annoying wind noise.

Happy shooting,
Christopher

If I publish and page and then later add authorship, it can take a long time before Google adds the author image to the SERP.  However, if I publish a page with the author markup and then Google indexes the page, the author image is included in the SERP when the page appears in the SERP.  So, the lesson I have learned going forward is to make sure the author markup is correct for all newly published pages, because if you get it wrong or add it later after publishing the page, it can take many weeks for Google to use it.

Best,
Christopher

Unless they have released a recent upgrade, xml-sitemaps does not generate proper video sitemaps.  If you have a Word Press site, you should consider Yoast.

Best,
Christopher

I used to spend a lot of time identifying high value sites in our niche and create relationships with the site owners to get back links.  In hindsight I think that was time that could have been better spent.  Now, I spend my time researching and writing articles that I think my users would find interesting, useful, engaging, compelling.  As these articles are published on our site, I post a link to our pages/accounts on Facebook and Twitter to create some buzz, and I may add a few marketing dollars to promote the post as well.  If the content of an article was well-researched and well-written, the shares, retweets, and links will come.  Some of the links are high value, others not, but they are all natural.

Best,
Christopher

Agreed.  If your client has an account with Commission Junction, then they likely have a product or service with good volume.  The DIY affiliate programs are good for new or smaller sites that don't have the volume for a service like Commission Junction.

Best,
Christopher

I agree.  Each should target it's purpose.  If they are the same, fine, if not, fine too.  My excerpts are usually longer than my meta descriptions and for that reason alone they are typically different, but it's not my objective to make them different.

Best,
Christopher

If a link to my site is posted on another site and many people start following that link and they stay on my site for a while, and I also have GA set up, does Google factor that information back into the Google rankings?  In other words, are there ways that Google tries to use clicks and bounce rates and other user behavior to determine page rank and domain rank?

Best,
Christopher

Have you looked at http://www.woopra.com?

Best,
Christopher

what's your opinion on "Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all?"

My answer to questions like this is: what is most compelling for the user.  In the past I would focus on a wide variety of things including good content, but I've been strongly influenced by fellow MOZ member EGOL and in recent months I've devoted considerable time and money to creating really great content and I have already seen the benefits.  Sure, the articles have internal and external links and I do ensure things like G+ authorship are done correctly and other SEO minutia, but I'm always thinking in terms of usefulness to the reader.

As for specific questions regarding follow and nofollow, some of the things I would use nofollow include paid links, forum/blog comments, and a footer link to another site.  I can't think of a reason I would ever nofollow an unpaid link to a reputable and related site that I included in an article or a page that I wrote.  If I included the link then that means I think it has value for my reader.  And, Google has made it very clear that nofollow does not affect the denominator when dividing the page range among the linked articles, so why discard the page rank?

Good discussion.  Thanks for asking.

Best,
Christopher

Understood.  I read EGOL for months before I really grokked what he was saying about how to optimize a site for search engines.

Best,
Christopher

Thanks for the quick response.  I'm not sure I worded my question well.  I'm not asking about follow versus no follow or any other attribute that can be determine by crawling the web.  I'm asking about user behavior.  Does Google monitor user behavior to help determine page and domain rank?

Best,
Christopher

I have a niche site with modest organic search traffic so perhaps this is the exception rather than the rule, but since I've made an effort to engage using social, the social traffic now outperforms the organic.  The organic is up a bit, no doubt because of the surge in social, but the social seems to be paying off as an end to itself rather than a way to increase organic search.

This looks like an interesting idea from Wistia.  Anyone have comments or experience with this?

http://wistia.com/blog/video-backlinks

Best,
Christopher

Yes, the vendor you use (e.g. AddThis), the features you use (e.g. number of likes), and number of icons you use (e.g. FB, Twitter, G+) can affect the performance of your page.  FWIW, I dropped AddThis because it was much too slow.  YMMV.  I recommend testing several vendors and feature settings.  Also, you should retest the page performance periodically.

Best,
Christopher