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Honestly, I don't think anyone can respond to that because it depends on your experience, talent, and what you think is fair.

Thanks,

It appears to have no value to me. I don't know if I would necessarily disavow it, although I would't expect much negative impact because of its DA (if removed). It just depends on your link profile.

But yes, it appears to have no value for the user and spammy.

ETA: If you drop out of rankings because of this disavowing this link (I doubt you will), you can go back and remove the disavow file. I've seen sites jump right back to where they were in the rankings.

Hello, this sounds pretty urgent.

You can see the updates here - http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Google Penguin update hit sites that have poor backlinking or spam links.

Google Panda update hit thin sites (with thin content) or any duplicate content.

Moving forward: Find the problem (could be more than one). Disavow the links. Produce relevant, high quality (not high quantity) content.

Moving a site is always a valid concern, double check your redirects (both pages and media - such as images and pdfs) and double check your on-site optimization.

Hope this helps.

Hello,

I wouldn't ever pay for links quite frankly. Search engines will continue to get more advanced and understand the world wide web better as time goes on.

I would dive deep into creativity and pursue possibly some of the following backlink options:

• reach out to universities to publish links on their websites for graduates (both undergrad and grad websites - that's possibly two links for .edu)
• I would possibly have a similar job posting on Craigslist (another valuable link) - beware of duplicate content
• Create content focused on local people getting local jobs and reach out to your local chamber of commerce or local government to see if you can garner some "attention" to these jobs. Possibly some .gov / valuable links here.
• Your content should be focused on helping people find jobs
• Your outreach should probably take most of your SEO time spent.
• Track those links! Therefore, validating your efforts.

I hope this helps.

Cole

Did you 301 redirect all the old pages to the new pages (assuming URL structure was changed)?

What were they ranking for previously? And what page was ranking?

I may would advise having a more specific keyword for the home page considering it probably has a higher Domain Authority.

Thanks,

Cole

I'm open to correction from other Mozzers but I don't think you've been hit with a penalty because of your keyword optimization.

I would consider one thing - what is best for the user?

It may look like this (targeting Website Design):

Title Tag Keyword Phrase | Brand Name - For example: Website Designer - Seattle, Washington

H1 Keyword Phrase in a question form - Website Design Made Easy (followed by content)

H2 Keyword Phrase asking where it originated, etc. - Website Design Services and Pricing (followed by content)

Basically, provide relevant content. I wouldn't worry too much here; just slightly alter it so it's not exact match all the way down the page.

As far as a penalty, you may have been recently hit with the new panda update or the penguin update.

I hope this helps. Thanks, Cole.

Another thing to do is to double check Google Analytics code on the new website, double check robots.txt on the new website, make sure the new website is being indexed (I'm assuming there are new pages), double check anything and everything.

It is common for new launches to lose traffic for a little bit then come back to a better place. It happened to me on a large media site. The traffic dropped a 30% then recovered for a gain of 15%. Not sure why. But that's what happened.

I hope you find something or hold tight!

Thanks,

Cole

I've looked at the following:

• your DA and PA of home page is at the same level if not better than your competitors.
• your website speed is fine.
• you don't have any backlinks that are spammy.
• Your on-site optimization is good
• you have good content
• your site is visually appealing so it can't be CTR and bouncing.
• you appear to have good indexation
• your robots.txt file isn't the issue

Man, I'm very curious as to what others say. How long have you owned that domain? Could it be that someone previously had it and received a penalty?

ETA:

*the site that appear to rank higher than you have part of the keyword search query in their domain name but this isn't a "be all" scenario. So that can't FULLY be it either. It doesn't explain why you don't show up on second or third page.

*I didn't see you on the second or third page of "coffee vending machines south africa." I really wonder if this site has had a penalty before.

Have you ever disavowed any backlinks in GWT before? If so, what sites?

robots.txt:

Disallow:

/wp-admin/

/wp-content/plugins/

Then, deindex them as mentioned in the first response.

You'll create a Google Places (Business) page. It will automatically creates a Google Plus page.

Update both fully with information. Now reviews will by synced to both (send them to Google Plus to leave reviews).

For duplicates, manage other Google Plus pages -> settings -> delete page. Keep the Google Plus page that is linked to Google Places.

I hope this helps!

Cole

Simply put, yes it's a problem.

How to fix?

First, What is the purpose of having those 4 domains with the same content?

Yeah I wonder if your domain name has been given a manual penalty.

I would do a reconsideration request now - (having done the two disavows already).

GWT will still show those links that have been disavowed. Don't let that worry you - they've still been disavowed.

I agree with Andy.

However, you could look at new visitors vs returning visitors within direct traffic. Typically returning visitors are coming back DIRECTLY to your site and new visitors (assuming they didn't see an advertisement elsewhere) aren't coming DIRECTLY to your site.

That's my best approach; if I see a large number of new visitors, (assuming not a large ad just ran), then I can assume fairly reasonably that those are long tail keyword search terms.

They don't do the same thing. Google Places is for maps listings (often referred to as local listings). Google Plus is a social platform.

If you have reviews on your old Google Plus page, I would see about possibly moving them over. Why? So they show up under your Places account to be rated (get 5 reviews and you become rated). Getting rated gets you the stars which means you're awesome, right?

I would reach out to Google via "Contact Us." It may take several days for Google to get back with you. I'm not 100% sure if reviews are transferrable. If not, then ask what Google recommends.

I hope this helps.

Hi,

If you're changing the Page Title to represent an accurate keyword for that page (or what that page is about), then I would suggest actually changing the URL (or in this case allowing the URL) to represent that targeted keyword.

For example, I have a page about an alzheimer's game for people diagnosed with alzheimer's. My page title will be "Fun Alzheimer's Game for Loving Family Members with Alzheimer's." My URL may be "fun-alzheimers-game-for-family-members.  (something along those lines - I am creating something here that may not be accurate of course).

So you would want your URL and Title Tag to be not necessarily be exactly the same (although plenty of mine are) but very, very similar to tell search engines what this page is about.

Keep in mind that if you do change the URL (from changing the Title Tag), to do a 301 redirect. That is to tell search engines that the old URL now is this new URL.

I hope this helps.

Cole

I'd be interested to know this as well. As far as local SEO, see my other posts on your other question.

Thanks and look forward to seeing responses

You can still do Google Places for Business and build reviews.

Often times the parent company will give you a subdomain, I'd try that. Or they have a page within the website dedicated to that location. There's several options here. I'd communicate to the parent company.

As far as link building, ideally you would want to send links to the subdomain (assuming they will give you one).

Thanks Erica!

Sounds like I want to move forward with Moz Local for most of our customers.

Awesome feedback.

Would the user benefit from the forum? If yes, then I would proceed with the forum (create no follows for all comments).

Google cares about the user. Thus, if the forum benefits the user, then yes.

It appears you're keeping in mind the user and I applaud you. It could be example.com/forum (with sub categories following forum to clearly indicate this is a FORUM). We aren't trying to manipulate (create no follows as mentioned above).

I think this would be good for your site, assuming you have good engagement.