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Hi Carlos

I think it's fair to say that yes, there could be a negative SEO effect with a strategy of mass recurring blogging. The risk of that negative effect would I think increase the lower quality and authority the referring sites were.

Peter

Hi Carlos

I think it would be surprising to get 50 to 100 bloggers with high quality blogs all writing posts with links about/to the same site. I'm not saying it's not possible, but you would expect to see that sort of level every month where bloggers were raving and reviewing quality products from a well known brand.

If you haven't got such a brand then I think you would struggle to get that many bloggers willing to write about your site and maintain the quality of those articles/links.

Peter

Hi Carlos

I think it would depend on how many inbound links you were getting from the same group of bloggers and their sites, the authority and relevance of the things they normally blog about, plus what the proportion of what they were blogging about was directed to your site.

It's difficult to predict as there are so many factors. The important thing is if the relationships you are building with bloggers are genuine and the blog links are genuinely organic and not paid for, then it should be in your favour. If these links don't fit this criteria then yes, it could have a negative SEO effect.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi, sorry to see you have been having a problem.

I don't represent Moz directly, but the error page you have received was in response to something you entered. Are you able to say what it was you were entering (as this error page doesn't say what that was) so I can see if I can reproduce it and see what the problem could be?

Peter

Hi Tye

I think you are right, sites/pages like that shouldn't be doing so well, but there are still sites/pages out there that are going under the radar or trying to trick ranking well in SERPs.

I have seen that with a local business in my area too and for a while they were dominating every local search spreading over a 60+ mile radius. In recent months though I have seen their position eroded, maybe because Google got wise to what they were doing.

If you believe a site is spamming by mispractice, then you can file a report with Google to ask them to examine the site and what it is doing. See here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?pli=1

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Prince

The local-based URL you have suggested is good, but the issue is not so much with the URL but how you can effectively target these searches without local offices - at least it would seem by the fact that you don't show any addresses of offices on your site that there are not any. Is that correct?

There is an excellent set of tips from Miriam Ellis on optimising for local searches on this post: https://moz.com/community/q/what-is-the-best-way-to-optimise-the-website-of-a-service-area-business-websites-for-local-search

The essential thing if you want to optimise for local searches is to show local citations of an office in that area. As Miriam says:

The most important thing for SABs (Service Area Businesses) to understand is that Google is heavily biased toward physical location. SABs must have at least one physical location in order to seek inclusion in Google's local index. This can be a home address - that's just fine! But it cannot be a virtual address, P.O. box, etc. And it should not be shared by any other business.

Is this site for a company who operate totally online or from just one phone number which could for anyone knows be offshore? If it is, you are not going to be successful with this strategy if you have no local offices that someone can walk into and buy the service. If it is an online only service being operated then your whole site should reflect that and you should market the site along those lines - with quality unique content being on the site answering the questions people may be searching for - based on the service you are offering.

The Title tag you suggest is OK for a home page yes although it's a little diluted and the "As low as 1%" would be of more value in the Description meta tag. No one will be searching for that key phrase. I don't think these days there is much difference with using pipe, hyphen or comma.

Sorry again to sound like I am being harsh on what you are trying to do. I think you are genuine guy trying to do their best, but with all the hard work you are putting in to this site you are better to direct it at making the site work well for you and your client.

Peter

The issue Prince with adding nofollow tags to those links is that the search engines will then not follow them and if you have no other links to those pages then they will not be indexed.

Peter

Hi Prince

My best advice for SEO is as I said before: focus on creating quality content about lawsuit loans grow your business and website by doing that and through social media.

SEO tricks and tactics won't help the site and will quite possibly hurt it. SEO today is not really about tactics but being strategic and is about having a high quality content strategy that engages with the information people are looking for and not gaming keywords.

The problem is with your pages in general. The inside pages of your site look like they contain a lot of duplicate content, e.g.

http://www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-lasvegas.html v http://www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-cleveland.html

and

http://www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-cleveland.html v http://www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-columbus.html

You have sentences like: _In Cincinnati, the process of lawsuit is often very time consuming and long. _Is that really true and unique of Cincinatti? Surely that would be true of most places.

If I am honest it looks like you have used a content spinner to generate the content on the pages on each of the cities and states. For example on the Columbus page it says: If any plaintiff’s need money and cannot wait to get money from the lawsuit, Lawsuit Funding Cincinnati is here for help.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time Prince. I understand you want to do the best for your client and your client will require you do the best for them. That best is not using the tactics you are now because as I say, these tactics will not help your site to rank for local search in these cities - speak to Miriam Ellis on Moz as she is an expert on local SEO - and at worst you will get hit my warnings from Google.

Sorry, but I hope that helps.

Peter

Hi, I am not sure what to suggest to you other than to be cautious with the way you are optimising your site.

You have posted a few questions on this forum and you are obviously trying hard to SEO you site, but you could run into difficulty and put in a lot of effort with little or no results.

I had a look at your site: topnotchlawsuitloans.com and the tactics you are using will not work. For example, creating custom pages for Lawsuit Loans <city name="">or <state name="">(see attached screenshot) without local offices in those cities and states will not work and is likely to be seen as very spammy by Google.</state></city>

My best advice is to focus on creating quality content about lawsuit loans grow your business and website by doing that and through social media.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Lueh1Gc.png

Hi Lisa

Are  you using Wordpress as your CMS? There is one here for that: http://wordpress.org/plugins/ziplist-recipe-plugin/

There is also a standalone one here

http://www.microdatagenerator.com/recipe-schema/

which says under construction. I tried it and although I didn't check what it created in detail it looked OK so you could maybe use that and adapt it.

I hope they help,
Peter

Hi, I am not sure I understand what you are asking.

Are you saying that you believe you should have individual pages for each of the three words: kiln, dried and logs?

If that is the case then no, you should optimise for those three words together as a phrase "kiln dried logs" as that is what you can expect people to search for, not those words individually.

Is that is what you are asking? If not, please post back with more information.

Peter

Hi Ricardo

If you want to include district as well and district is part of the city which I think it is, then go for: www.domain.com/category-city-district

I'm sorry but I still do not understand the filters you are speaking about. Do they relate to the category?

Peter

Hi Lori

A 410 code it technically correct in the context you are using it, but for SEO purposes you are better to do something with links that are going to the pages you are currently returning 410 codes for.

If you have a page that relates in some way to the page you have removed, then create a 301 redirect and send the requests to the similar page.

If no similar page exists, you could just redirect to the home page. In some cases though in those circumstances it could be worthwhile sending the link to a custom 404 page similar to the one Moz use as you can see for my invalid page query: http://moz.com/404. Rather than use a 301 redirect in those circumstances, this type of response can be a good opportunity to engage with the visitor to try to guide them to the information they are looking for. The Moz 404 page is a good example of that.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Ricardo

It's best to minimise folder levels if you can so of those you have listed **www.domain.com/category-city **would be more favourable.

I'm not understanding the second part of your question with regard to filters. Do they relate to the category in the above URL structure? Please could you provide more information.

Peter

Hi Denis

Google is much smarter these days at dealing with JavaScript but that doesn't mean to say that excessive Javascript on a page would be OK too. Essentially, the more hoops a search engine has to jump through to find the content it is trying to index the harder it is and the less likely you will achieve the results you want to achieve.

The other aspect to consider of course is user experience which is a ranking factor in Google's algorithm. Sites with lots of bells and whistles can look amazing but sometimes they can be a hindrance to being able to access content too. It's one thing to wow the visitor, but it's another thing to engage with them and prompt them to pick up the phone to call you.

My business do a lot of video production and people often get excited about funky transitions, but in many cases they are just fluff. Most broadcast programmes on TV use just two transitions: straight cut and dissolve.

My point I think is the same as yours, effects can be great, but they need to be used sparingly. You can have the funkiest website but if its not found when someone searches then it's the funkiest website that no-one has ever seen.

Sorry, I have gone around the houses a little, but to answer in summary, yes Javascript heavy templates can be indexed, but maybe not as well as you would want them to be + of course the user experience issue of being able to access content simply to pick up the phone.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi, if possible I would change the **product-320 **to something more human and search engine understandable.

I would suggest something like: www.example.com/casual-shoes/plimsolls where plimsolls is product-320.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi,

There is an explanation of the metrics in the Open Site Explorer here: http://moz.com/help/guides/research-tools/open-site-explorer

The "number of domains linking to domain" is the total number of other domains that have at least one link to the site.

You said, " I'm analyzing our competitors link profile and noticed some numbers as high as 2369232? Yes, 2,369,232 is a high number, but is that number linking domains or some other metric like linking pages?

If it is linking domains then you could only expect those sort of numbers for a very large and significant site. If it isn't a site like that then that number must be an error in the report.

Peter

Hi Daniela

That's almost correct. You need to do the wrap up in two stages really.

When the competition is over just have your "competition is finished" page active on your sub-domain say for a week with a link that people can use to go to your root domain home page.

But then, when you remove that page, because inbound links to your sub-domain would still be active in search engines and on Internet links, you still need to leave your sub-domain in place on your server for a time but with a 301 redirect active stored in the sub-domain folder. That would just need a single redirection in place that automates any visits to your sub-domain to your root domain home page.

After say a month or so, you will probably then be safe to remove the sub-domain.

I hope the above makes sense.

Peter

Hi Guy

Whilst you have said you are using all new inbound marketing practices, it's a difficult question to answer with limited knowledge of the details of what you are doing for an eCommerce site you have not said what it sells. You may be doing some of the inbound things well but others not so well.

You've heard it before I am sure, but high quality unique content is very important - even for an eCommerce site, Does the site have a blog? Have you written articles about how to best use the products the site is selling, or how to look after them, or what people are saying about them, or the story behind how the products are created?

In terms of the sites ranking above yours, take a look at what they are doing, Can your site do it better than them?

And what about the site's brand identity? Are there ways you can grow the brand's fan base or a community of followers around the products you are selling.

Depending on the sector your site is supplying to, some or none of the above may apply, but primarily it is important to get inside the head of you customers, understand what questions are they may be asking and shape what you do on the site for them and not for the search engines.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Daniela

The only impact would be after a sub-domain is deleted. It may be better to leave the sub-domain active for a time afterwards so you can manage the knock on for pages that have been indexed on the sub-domain after the competition/promotion has finished. Also, any links that existed on the sub-domain to your root domain

If you left the sub-domain active you could then just have a single page on there to say something like "The competition has now finished" and directing a visitor who has linked there with a link on the page to the home page of the main domain.

All other links to the sub-domain pages and any resulting from it to the domain which are then redundant, could be managed through 301 redirects back to the main domain to the best landing pages for them.

I hope that helps,
Peter