Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Llyod-

I wouldn't recommend the change of address feature. It's meant to be used when you are migrating your main website to a new domain. Your primary (live) domain is intact; you just want to no-index / no-follow your demo site.

The change of address will also only be effective for 180 days, too.

Google recently changed their change of address tool, and Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land walks through it:
http://searchengineland.com/google-revamps-change-address-tool-within-webmaster-tools-205829

The big takeaway:
"Don't use this tool unless you are moving your primary website presence to a new address."

I hope this helps!
-- Jeff

This happens a lot more than you might imagine.  We've even seen times where end users are placing orders on test sites because they're able to find out-of-stock items from an out-of-date demo site.

If you need to have the demo. store up and running so people can test it, I don't think you need to tell Google about the change of address.  I think that the no-index / no-follow status of the site and the robots.txt should prevent Google from indexing it.

That said, there are a few more ways to protect the demo site:

1. You can password protect it, using an .htaccess file.  This might not be ideal, because testing might prevent you from being able to see the whole site properly on different devices.

2. You could IP restrict the site to a small number if IP addresses, using your .htaccess file.  In this way, only people who are whitelisted are able to do this.  You could even get fancier, and have a form that allows testers to be able to add their IP address to the "allowed" list from a browser.  Anyone else would / could be redirected to the normal site.

3. I'd also recommend putting a banner at the top of the demo site, letting people know that any orders placed there are just for testing and won't be fulfilled.

I hope this helps!

-- Jeff

Yes, Magento does have a way of handling search results that are not always SEO-friendly.

To restrict Google from indexing anything in the /catalogsearch/ directory, I'd add this to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /catalogsearch/

Here's a Moz blog about the robots.txt file:
http://moz.com/blog/interactive-guide-to-robots-txt

And also, just in case the "killer" robots ever take over, Google has made sure that their two founders are not able to be indexed by both the T-1000 and T-800 models, with a special killer-robots.txt file:
http://www.google.com/killer-robots.txt

Hope this helps!
-- Jeff

Sam -

Quick question: have you changed your Google+ listing to a Service-area business?

If not, you'll want to set up the business so it not based on the physical location / address (i.e. your business address in Sufolk), but serves a greater area (i.e. London). In order to do this, you will need to set up your Google+ account as a Service-area business on Google.

This is perfect for a trainer, local plumber, tree trimmer or construction crew that works at customer's locations (either homes or businesses) vs. your home address.

My recommendation would be to go here:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038163?hl=en

... and set up your service areas based on the zip codes or cities that the business serves.

You also have the option to check or uncheck, "I serve customers at my business address."

You might need to go through another round of verification to make this change, however.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

• Jeff

When I first read your question, I though that perhaps you might have wanted to personalize content or redirect people based on their geographic location. I've done that before using geo-location information, and the results have been very successful.

But it looks like you want to have a site that will reach people in a specific geographic region. In that case, I agree with Andy (above). You'll need to build pages of content that discuss that region.

For example, your business may be located in Florida, but you may be trying to reach people in Indiana. If that's the case, you don't necessarily need to have a local business address.

Instead, you need to create compelling content that addresses the needs of people in that area.

Let's say that you have a solar power system that you want to sell to people in Indiana, because there are amazing tax subsidies that give the end user 85% savings on an expensive installation. In that case, I'd create content, images, video and more that discuss how the subsidy works, why it's ideal for people in Indiana, and all of that...

I hope this helps!

• Jeff

In my opinion, you'll need to work on both. But I'd start with whomever has the highest amount of domain authority and/or traffic first.

But the most likely case is that people will find out about your B2B app from the Shopify / Bigcommerce / 3dcart sites. The fact that your app is listed there creates a lot of trust and confidence, and is likely the first place that people who have that type of shopping cart system will start to look. I'd make sure that you upload as many screenshots, content, etc, and try to get great rating on these sites first.

Your corporate site, though, is the place that people who really want to know more about your company, before they purchase the app, will then go. Your corporate site, though, is less likely to have as a high a domain authority... but you can help reinforce the app listed on the shopify / big commerce / 3d cart sites with strong content and links directly to those pages.

I hope this helps!
-- Jeff

Before you do any testing, I'd recommend first reading this You Moz post, "Are You Hurting SEO with These 5 Split Testing Mistakes":
http://moz.com/ugc/are-you-hurting-seo-with-these-5-splittesting-mistakes

From this article, I'd recommend creating a separate version of your category page, but make sure to:

• No index / no follow the test page
• use rel = canonical on your test page to the control page

I hope this helps!

-- Jeff

Here's my quick thoughts on this:

http:

Pro:

• Quick, fast and easy
• No SSL fees
• Super fast
• Most content pages don't really need to be encrypted

Cons:

• Anyone snooping on your connection at a coffee shop can see what you're seeing.
• NSA can read what you're doing

https:

Pro:

• Nobody will be able to see that you're reading a blog post about how to cure your herpes.
• Google was pissed off at the NSA, and is now using sites that have SSL as a ranking signal (but it's not a silver bullet). Here's an article I wrote about that: http://www.customerparadigm.com/google-boosting-ssl-encrypted-sites-in-their-search-results/
• Done right, it's nearly as fast as non-secure pages

Cons:

• It's expensive to buy an SSL certificate (although there may be a non-profit starting next year that will give them away for free)
• It's a pain to generate keys, install intermediate certificates.
• It sucks when your SSL certificate expires on your site, even if you're not using it anymore (Google will show a big error to many users: http://www.customerparadigm.com/how-an-expired-ssl-certificate-can-drive-traffic-away-even-if-youre-not-using-it/)
• It can be slower, because of the math required to encrypt and decrypt information.
• You have to be better at coding sites, because if you have things like non-secure images, css or other resources on your secure page, it will throw an error.

Hope that helps...
-- Jeff

In my experience, the best way to do this would be to set up the .fr domain separately as it's own separate WordPress installation, and have it hosted at a hosting company with a presence in France.

However, what's best for SEO sometimes creates more work for administering a site, vs. having it all available from one login in one WordPress instance.

As far as using a .fr domain, there are many schools of thought on this.

This Moz blog goes into the top strategies:
http://moz.com/blog/international-seo-dropping-the-information-dust

Amazon uses ccTld (Country Code, Top Level Domains). For example, Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, etc.

Apple uses a subdomain / sub-carpet strategy: (i.e. store.apple.com/es)

In my past experience building out eCommerce and other stores, if you host locally, and use different ccTld (i.e. domain.fr), you won't have to worry about the duplicate content issue, as Google and other search engines will see this as it's own site, especially if it's translated (well) into another language.

Here's more on International SEO best practices:
http://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo

I hope this helps!
-- Jeff

The only time I've seen this type of thing happen - all of the pages in a site are no longer indexed, yet PPC still works, is when something on the site has been set to no-index / no-follow.

If you had a manual penalty from Google, that would show up in Google Webmaster Tools.  Plus, the site would still be indexed, just ranked really, really low.  If everything was missing from Google's cache, then the most likely explanation is that it was set accidentally to no-index / no-follow.

This is a very easy thing to mess up, and it's possible that someone might have hit the wrong button by accident, or updated the robots.txt file.

In the past, I had a project manager who messed this up for a client while doing a content update on the site, and it was about a week before anyone noticed.  She's no longer here (not due just to that issue).  But this is so critical for me and my company that we've put an automated and human testing check in place each day:

For our company, we have an automated script that runs through all of our sites (and client's sites) each day to make sure that the site is set to index / follow, both on the pages and in the robot.txt file.  We also check the title tag and make sure that the name servers haven't changed.

I also pay someone on my team to run through a 12 step checklist each and every day to make sure that things like the site search are working, contact forms go through properly, and that pages are set to index / follow.

I hope this helps...

Thanks,

-- Jeff

I'll throw my recommendations in for videos:  One  of the most successful video series ever was the "Will It Blend" series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_It_Blend%3F

(You know a video campaign has gone viral when it has it's own Wikipedia page that documents it.)

Hope this helps...

• Jeff

Laura -

Okay... I took a look at the original page, as well as the page that has the sorting done to it.  In both cases, I was able to see that it had a page title displayed:

<title>Serviced Apartments in Greater London | Central London Apartments</title>

However, I wasn't sure if it was a browser issue, so I ran the URL through the Screaming Frog app, and found that it, too, is seeing valid page titles when items are sorted (please see attached screenshot).

I hope this helps... from my end, it looks like the page titles are showing up properly.

Thanks,

• Jeff

Page-Titles-SEO-Search-Question.jpg

Pablo -

Yes, it would be better to have all of your domain authority under one main domain name, instead of spreading it thinly using subdomains.

Thanks,

-- Jeff

My $0.02 is that javascript might work for your site, but it's not going to give you the benefits that 301 redirects will offer to you.

According to Google's Official Webmaster Central Blog, as of May 23, 2014, Google is able to execute Javascript:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html

That said, if you have your javascript or CSS in separate files, and are blocked with robots.txt, according to Google, they won't be able to execute it. And according to the post, they can't process all javascript.

It's not a bad thing to have 404 pages for pages that you want to kill off and let die. If you do have important inbound links, though, it's better to 301 redirect them and keep 85% of the link strength. More backup on this:

According to Rand Fishkin's Moz blog writeup, Are 404 Pages Always Bad for SEO?
http://moz.com/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo

"When faced with 404s, my thinking is that unless the page:

A) Receives important links to it from external sources (Google Webmaster Tools is great for this)
B) Is receiving a substantive quantity of visitor traffic
and/or C) Has an obvious URL that visitors/links intended to reach

It's OK to let it 404."

According to Moz's Redirection SEO Best Practice:
http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
... you want to use a 301 redirect to indicate that the content has moved permanently.

I hope this helps!

-- Jeff

Laura -

If you can share an instance of one of the pages that has a title tag, but doesn't show up in Moz, that might help to troubleshoot?

It could be a redirect issue with the canonical tags, perhaps... but if you can post something I'd be happy to take a quick look...

-- Jeff

Yes, unfortunately if you change the address that you have listed on your Website, along with the address you have for a Google+ page, then you might start to have issues with local search results migrating to Sufolk instead of London.

My recommendation: Change your Google+ listing to a Service-area business

For local business search, you'll want to set up the business so it not based on the physical location / address (i.e. your new home in Sufolk), but serves a greater area (i.e. London). In order to do this, you will need to set up your Google+ account as a Service-area business on Google.

This is perfect for a trainer, local plumber, tree trimmer or construction crew that works at customer's locations (either homes or businesses) vs. your home address.

My recommendation would be to go here:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038163?hl=en

... and set up your service areas based on the zip codes or cities that the business serves.

You also have the option to check or uncheck, "I serve customers at my business address."

You might need to go through another round of verification to make this change, however.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

• Jeff

There are two main ways to do something like this.

1. The easiest way to organize them would be to build a page on your site that has a list of your presentations, and then each presentation you can link to as either a .PDF or .PPTX file (or both).

2. If you really want to take it to the next level, build out each presentation as a page in HTML. Have each slide displayed as a graphic, where they end user can click for the full page view. Place your comments / what you'd say during the talk below each slide, listed on one long page. This is a lot like the Moz whiteboard video talk, where the transcript from the video is below on the page.

I hope this helps!
-- Jeff

So, if this is a huge brand name with a high domain authority...  it honestly won't matter as much how their category and URL structure is set up.

However, if they are using two different directories with specific information about each product, this would be fine as well.  I think that having a site with two big / strong categories, but no general categories should be okay, especially if their DA is really strong.

Hope this helps!

• Jeff

Microsites can either be a separate domain name (i.e. www.domain-light-tablet-laptops.com) or a subdirectory off of your existing domain (i.e. www.domain.com/light-tablet/)

It sounds like you're going with the subdirectory option for the microsite. I think that this will be helpful, and add more SEO value to the microsite. Here's a link to a post on subdomains vs. subdirectories:
http://moz.com/community/q/revisited-the-subdomain-vs-subdirectory-question

My recommendation, if you are to use a sub-directory, would be to have one top level, such as:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/

If you don't need to have the home.asp, that might be better... but that's going to depend on your site and page system settings.

For your categories, you might go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/manufacturer/

And for your product, you might go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/manufacturer/tablet-XYZ/

For the contact page, I'd go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/contact/

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
-- Jeff

For Adwords, there's two different URLS you need to know about:

Display URL: what shows up in the ad at the bottom
Destination URL: what page the end user actually is taken to

According to Google's Adwords Policy here:
https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6021546?hl=en

"The display URL for your site cannot be an IP address (such as 123.45.678.90) or use non-standard characters (such as !, *, #, _, @)."

Hope this helps!

-- Jeff