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Since you have updated your website, have your competitors done the same? It may not be tied directly to a Google update, or all of the changes you have made, but also if your competition has made updates and improvements. Use the moz tools to check for updates to your competitors ranking changes, and visually look at their sites to see if there is an area or particular area of their site that works better for users.

Since you are going to have a /marketing page above the success page, is there a plan to link out to many areas of marketing content within your site? mening are you setting it up this way to have marketing be a top level page, that has many categories? If so, then yes, use this structure.

Form another user: "The thing I'd worry about is "marketing/success" implies marketing has greater importance than success, in the root scheme of things." I agree with this, in that the SE will view "marketing" as a higher priority directory than "success"

For that individual page, I would use the url domain.com/marketing-success, as the keywords will appear often in the content that same way. Search engines will treat the hyphen as a space, rather than a separate directory. It is possible to have the page rank high using the other format, but I forsee the hypenated version working out better for you.

We never place a link without the site owners permission.

301 the old links to the new linking structure. If it is already a high ranking page, the link weight should carry through.

Since it already ranks high, I would keep as many elements as you can the same, unless they dont rank well and need to be improved. Make sure to do a site search for indexed pages, and redirect or create a removal request for any unatural cms-generated links. (component/SAMPLE/123456 etc)

DO NOT just delete the entire folder without seeing how many on page links still link to those pages. Check your on-page links to see if it is generated by the menu system, or if is hard-coded in the content.

Wordpress also has a few items you will want to change in the robots.txt file vs the old Joomla site.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /xmlrpc.php
Disallow: /wp-
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap.xml
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins

or you could also use this one:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /archives/ disallow: /?
Disallow: ?replytocom Disallow: /wp-
Disallow: /author
Disallow: /comments/feed/
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
User-agent: Adsbot-Google
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Allow: /

Hope this helps! Best of luck with your new build.

We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage.

A few ideas that were mentioned:

HURT:
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines.

HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.

So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.

"After looking at Moz tools we have great results, sometimes even better than our competitors. But we are still not getting or improving on our traffic"

It was an assumption of what he meant, as multiple items are mentioned. I think you know as well as I do that the questions are sometimes not clear on here

From another member in this thread:

"I just did 3 random searches and you were on page #1 for all 3.

"pearl+beads" position 4
"glass+beads" position 9 (wiki is at 7!)
"shambala+beads" position 9"

Seems his ranking is doing ok. What we really need to see would be the before and after rankings, which is why I stated he should look at his analytics, and compare time periods. Keywords, entry paths, exit pages, referring sites, root domains, ranking position, all that can be found there, and used to make an assessment of where they went wrong.

I would have all URLs go to the secure version. It makes more sense to have one version indexed.

If there was a purpose for the Secure Socket Layer to begin with I would assume you would only want people to access that version.

I understand. Dealing with cart systems can be very time consuming, depending on how many products you have listed.

Look at what your baseline keywords are, and then add the filters from there. For example, you might want to include "teddy bear"  if that is a more popular phrase in trends and keyword planner, then add your color filters from there. Make sure your product description gives enough detail to back up your page title.

One other thing you may want to investigate. If you are using a cms, see if there is a plug-in or component available that marks up your product info in rich snippets automatically. This will help your listings stand out, while saving you a ton of time. Best of luck!

He stated that they are ranking well, but traffic is lower. I'm thinking that links are not his issue, but rather some other factor ie lack of engagement, listings not standing out, products not marked up, etc.

Have you done a comparison month to month, or year over year since you received the penalty and after it was lifted?

Analytics can tell you where your visitors are leaving. Even if the content was revised, or changed completely, that doesn't mean it's connecting with your visitors. Check your exit pages, and on page time comparison with the following period to see if there are any negative changes that were made. I would look at your impressions as well.

Also, look at your competitors ranking closer, not just using tools. Tools only show a portion of data. If your competitors are using rich snippet markup, even if you outrank them, chances are their listing could stand out more and be getting more clicks.

I would agree on changing the page titles. The way that it's currently set up, it seems like it's pulling from the product description, or that whoever set it up is using the cart product name as the page title. I would revise the page titles to include less general info, focus more on the keyword, and use the description areas to describe the product in detail.

We are involved in optimizing a site right now that has the same issue, using VirtueMart. It's a lengthy process, but can provide a big payoff

Having a large amount of pages or links shouldn't be an issues, as long as those pages have separate, effective content and titles. Each page should accurately describe what the item is, and be mentioned in your site map.

I would recommend using tossible digits then. Each number is only a few dollars a month, and they have an on site tracking system which allows you to see all calls, with dates,  call duration, and time of call.

Another benefit is you can enable email tracking, which sends an mp3 of the phone call to the email(s)  of your choice once the call is over. Very affordable, excellent features. I think this would work better for what you are trying to accomplish. We have used them for 3 years now with no issues.

Hope this helps!

What is the code you are using to exchange the numbers, or is it hard-coded on each page for tracking purposes?

Is this the same number that is listed on citation sites, and directories?

We use tracking numbers, and use tossible digits as the vendor.

You are welcome! I know the "manual" method often takes the longest, but in reality, it is often the most accurate. Hope this helps!

www.site.com/category-page/product-page

I would prefer this method, because that is what a user would expect, although it can go either way.

Using the bolded method above is better for navigation, as a user and search engine can see how the product relates to the category it placed in. Generally, URL structures like this also include breadcrumbs, allowing for a user to quickly go back to the main category page and begin a new search, if desired. Having simple navagation can increase onsite time, since it's easy to view content and products.

I can also vouch for the other method for a few reasons. Using a shortened URL is more direct, and IMO better for seo. This allows you to set up the top level or category page with anchor text links directed at the subpages or products. When one of those is clicked, the page the user lands on will be the shorter, more direct version, with a clean URL. I think Google likes this method better, as the end URL is more directly related to the product being referenced, without any pollution. (unless you are using markup for breadcrumbs).

Since the onclick event is a Javascript issue it's to all intents and purposes ignored by the search engines. What counts is whether or not your link appears in the href attribute, and whether or not the link is nofollowed. If you do not have it set to nofollow, there is a slight chance they would follow it, but as stated above, Google is pretty good about parsing javascript links.

No, you should not have any issues with dilluting the source URL, and not pass link juice to the other pages.

Here is a short list of ways I've used the span link.

1. For links that only run JavaScript when they are clicked. They don't load a new page into the browser.

   The same thing can be done with href="javascript:..." within an A tag. With the span link, however, any JavaScript that affects the A tags on a page will not affect the span link.

2. For links that only run JavaScript when a mouse hovers over it. They're not supposed to load a new page when the link is clicked.

   The span link in this case is so much more elegant. An A tag must have an href attribute and, if the link is used only for an onmouseover, the href must be constructed to do nothing when the link is clicked.

3. Hide from spiders that another web page is being linked to.

   Perhaps you wish to link to another website for the convenience of your visitors. Yet, the other website is not in the same category as yours and you don't want certain search engines to think your site is similar to that other.

   Or, you simply don't want to provide link juice to the other site.

Source: http://www.willmaster.com/library/web-development/linking-without-an-a-tag.php

Most SSL providers provide the same exact service. The difference in cost is from the levels of insurance, brand name and provider of the SSL, and trust factor of the badge. For example, you can buy a SSL from GoDaddy right now for around $70. As far as I can see it offers no insurance against identity or infomation theft. If you want a SSL from Verisign, its around $1000 and offers a $1,250,000 warranty. Most people know the verisign badge, and trust that their information will be encrypted and secure. When you purchase an SSL from them, you also get daily malware scanning and other features.

It really boils down to what are you getting the SSL for, if you require the additional insurance, what other features you would like to have, and if you think the badge will be the deciding factor of conversion for your users. If I remember correctly, the more expensive SSL's use a different bit rate. For example 128 bit vs 256 bit.

Hope this helps!

Most of the crawl programs we use say to keep on page links (including navigation) to under 100 per page for best crawl-ability and indexing by search engines. Having an excessive amount of anchor links on one page could have the adverse effect of what you are trying to accomplish, and potentially hurt that page's value.

The best way it can be said is: Will having a lot of anchor text links benfit the user of the site? If it makes your site easier to navigate, or serves another purpose, then set up the page that way. DO NOT try and design a page solely around a search engine to artificially gain rank or placement.