Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Try this!

http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/

YES!!!

This is critical and a common mistake many SEO's overlook. Make sure you use a number that is trackable so you can see the kind of return it generates and go from there.

You can even put it in the title, depending upon the circumstances. I have specific experience utilizing both of these methods and they both worked well for generating leads for my clients!

You load links into it, it then creates an RSS feed on their end that gets pinged. You can load any kind of link into it and it'll ping them.

Seems unlikely he would drop 90% of indexed pages and regain them back soon after if it was a PR thing, don't you think? Aren't PR updates generally quarterly?

If you're having an issue with a tool, I would recommend contacting SEOmoz support!

sitesupport@seomoz.org

I also think it's very possible his previous experiences with rankings dropping and pages getting de-indexed could have been at key algo udpates as well. Mayday, etc...

Right, like I said in my post, they'll devalue an EMD, which in and of itself should reduce the ranking, depending upon how much they devalue an EMD.

I agree, worry about the rest and it'll come together!

The answer could easily be the Google Farmer update. If you are not familiar with this, read the latest post by Rand: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers

That will help you understand the latest algorithm update and how you can do something about it.

It sounds like you dropped off due to the algo update and that leads me to believe that Google thought your content was not high enough quality?

I would read Rand's post, evaluate your website, and then have the content analyzed and see if you need to hire a really good writer to build high quality content that is valuable to the users. If you were building mediocre content to target thousands of keywords, specifically long-tail, you need to revamp that strategy and focus on amazing content first!

Hope that helps.

Definitely use subfolders!

By using your subfolders you pass all link juice and PR to the main domain which is mainsite.com. If you have say 10 subdomains, you are splitting the authority/link-juice/PR.

I know there are others who say Google passes the juice between a domain and subdomain, and it does pass some, but not all.

You cannot go wrong using subfolders. You build up one main domain, it's clean, user-friendly, etc...

SUBFOLDERS!

I know exactly what you mean, I have a few of my own websites in this similar situation. You have higher DA, PA, MR, MT, more inbound links, but they still outrank you? Remember, # of links is not always indicative of rankings.

To try and bust through this, I would focus on writing more content. Write exceptional content. Then try and get authoritative links to that content. Sometimes one or two really authoritative links can bust through plateau's very easily.

The other issue is that you need to look at your link pyramid, are you too heavy in certain areas? It's important to have a well-rounded linking campaign. Don't try and force things. Natural links are best!

Also, Matt Cutts has said that they are going to look at Exact Match Domains and if they make any changes to the algo for EMD's, you may get your boost easily!

Something that helps a lot? Get some links with the local modifier in the anchor text. Once you get a few of those, you'll see your rankings increase for local searches.

While I definitely agree with you, I find that you can rank easier and faster for local terms by optimizing for local keywords as well. It adds relevancy to your result and can result in better rankings for other local keywords that you are NOT targeting. I've experienced this first hand.

If you are a 100% local business, why not focus on everything local? It's much easier to rank and it should help establish that your website is local so any terms with the local modifier in it, are much easier to rank!

Just my 2 cents.

You have a few options.

You could build out one website and whenever a visitor comes from a specific country you could show that visitor separate pieces of the site, different products, etc... but this is not easily done and is a nightmare to manage.

You can keep the two separate websites and focus on rewriting the content. This is my first option, if it were me. You have two websites that are in separate countries selling products that are the same but with different offers, discounts, currencies, etc... so this makes the most sense to have a clear line of separation. However, it shouldn't be too difficult to hire a freelancer writer to go through one of the websites and rewrite the content. Make it more relevant to that countries users, add in videos, helpful information, etc... you only have to rewrite content for one of the sites, that would make sure they are not full of dupe content. Then, you could down the road hire the same writer to optimize the content for the other website but approach it with different content that is just as relevant and you should have a win-win-win situation.

Does that make sense?

I would recommend linking to static pages, not dynamically generated pages if you can help it. From my perspective, /biology/ is going to be much better for SEO purposes than /search?q=keyword. Even the SEOmoz Crawler has a metric for overly dynamic URLs/Links and I think Google would much prefer a cleaner link.

Just my 2 cents.

This service works well, I've personally tested it: http://linklicious.me/

Try that or another pinging service, there are a ton of them out there.

Good luck!

To my knowledge there isn't a tool that does this exactly. How big is the website? You could manually do this but it would take awhile if you have a larger website.

The best way would be to create your own crawler, have it crawl all pages and store them in a database, afterwards run through a PageRank checker, run them through SEOmoz's database, then compile the data and display into a visual chart using a mind mapping software, excel, or something similar.

Sorry if that isn't the greatest help!

You sure can!

Try this tool out: http://www.majesticseo.com/reports/compare-domain-backlink-history

Just enter your URL, and it'll show you in a nifty little chart how your link building strategy appears over the course of time.

Enjoy!

I recommend using this tool: http://www.mindmeister.com/

It could do both what you want. Not sure what you mean by "automated", but I think this should meet your needs. I use it myself for both! There are alternatives that are free as well, just do a google search for "mind mapping software" and you'll find what you need for free too.

I recommend this because it is packed full of features.

Enjoy!

It definitely wouldn't hurt to run reports on both, but look at your overall objectives before investing the time and energy.

If you run a website that is 100% local-orientated, no sense trying to rank for a national term as 1) Your site is not relevant to the national term, 2) It splits your efforts trying to rank for a national term.

I would focus on what you think is the most relevant. If it's a true local business forum, worry about dominating that market first! Once you are #1 for everything and anyone in your area types in your keywords and all they see is you, you can venture out at that point for more broad terms that yield higher #'s of traffic.

Hopefully that makes sense? Still tired

Matt Cutts made mention that in 2011 they would be taking a look at why Exact Match Domains rank so well. You can read more here: http://searchengineland.com/key-takeaways-from-googles-matt-cutts-talk-at-pubcon-55457

There is no guarantee they'll devalue an EMD, but it would make sense if they did. I would use it while it lasts but do not bank on it... start building links and ramping up the authority the natural way by writing amazing content that is valuable to users and unique, then try getting links from high authoritative websites. The best way? Create amazing content that people link to on their own. Those links go a LONG way.

Good luck!