Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Timothy,

I agree with CleverPHD here, a couple hundred crappy links won't likely hurt a strong brand, and the amount of time it took to get them is not indicative of a spammer. In general 150 links from a true link spammer would be few hours or less.

I will add another thought, up until last year when panda come down it was some what routine for people to still use link directories, and in some case there still are a few industry specific directories that actually make sense.

I would certainly ask your freelancer to look up the Google Panda update and ask him to self evaluate what he has been doing. Hopefully, he will see the light. Here is a decent article over on SearchEngineJournal.com

Hope it helps,

Don

Hi Timothy,

Short answer is content.

Easy to say hard to complete. Here are some strategy's I found helpful in the past.

Customer Reviews (moderated):  these provide additional details that customers appreciate reading before making a buying decision. It also adds long-tail keywords that you may have not thought of along with lots of unique content.

Product Schema / microdata: this gives search engines and shopping listing sites a workable schema to list your products on sources you may not have been aware of.

Research and Self Review: This is one way Amazon gets ahead of its competition to illicit customer reviews. They actually send their top reviewers free products to generate unique review content. (Amazon Vine). Most companies probably can't afford to do this, so is why I recommend self reviews. If you're not a strong writer possibly hire a copy writer to proof-read.

Customer Images (Moderated): Adding customer generated images is an easy way to get additional unique photos and alt text.

Some thoughts, hope it helps,

Don

Hi Nicholas,

Moz maintains a list of the top companies they recommend. You know Moz used to be an SEO company all in its own, so those that manage to impress Moz would be well worth a look. Many people who post here, or contribute here are working for or even own some of those companies.

As always ask questions, link building is very merky area if you ask me. You want to find somebody or company that knows your industry and can deliver your content to the right places. That being said, if you're content isn't worth linking to, then no company or person is going to have good long term results.

Link building is an important ranking factor because it is at the core of how Search Engines operate. The more sites linking to a particular page or website the more value it appears to have. With that there are some strong changes to the way search engines treat the value of links, rolled out in the Panda and Penguin updates. Those updates targeted low quality links and sites themselves to eliminate the abuses link builders were using to manipulate sites to the top. And if you think about it that is the way it should be.

Link building is suppose to or should be occurring naturally, when webmaster A really likes what webmaster B has done they should be linking to them. This provides a benefit for both A and B's users. What has happened over the years is people abused the hell out of this mechanic and really pushed some crappy sites into the top rankings. Along with social media sharing the natural way for sites linking to each other has only been complicated. Still the value of link building is still there although much much harder to accomplish. In part because good sites don't want to risk getting penalties by linking to "less popular" sites. This only means if you really want to get those great links, you have to impress the existing sites who may provide them.

Hope this helps,

Don

Brendan's advice is pertinent if your are specifically buying a link, but there is a huge caveat to this information. It is not uncommon for other services such as Yahoo Local, or lead generating resources to provide a service of which includes a link to your website. In these cases you're not actually buying a link but a service.

Google has indeed cracked down on directory type listing websites because they really offer no value to anybody on the web. However when services are attached, such as lead generation, technical advice, consulting etc.. often times a link to your site is part of the service and shouldn't be lumped into calling it a purchased link.. per-say.

Hope this makes sense,

Don

Hi Ben,

You are attempting to fix your SEO issue by using NOINDEX & CANONICAL but you are not fixing the main issue which is the URL's are still there.

NOINDEX will not stop Google from recognizing the link nor will NOFOLLOW. They actually use every link's information in one form or another regardless of the tag attributes.

Here is a direct quote from Matt Cutts about NOINDEX:

"Our highest duty has to be to our users, not to an individual webmaster. When a user does a navigational query and we don’t return the right link because of a NOINDEX tag, it hurts the user experience (plus it looks like a Google issue).....

REF: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-noindex-behavior/

The first solution I would be interested in is working on the architecture of the site to see if there is a way to stop the crazy amount of URL's being generated and/or consolidate them to a single point. The next step would be to see if there is any commonality between these extra URL's and if there is any possibility to use a 301 redirect to consolidate these extra urls.

I think what you're really after was a way to fix this with a tag or patch, but I think the best way to fix this is to replace the engine that is driving these URL's. You're going to have to be a bit more specific in such case as to what kind of site you're using (Joomla, WordPress, Oscommerce, etc) for a more specific answer.

Hope it helps.

Hi Stephen,

My general advice is yes, finish your page optimization before link building and here is why.

When you start your link building process it is likely that you'll be reaching out to other sites to ask for links or to submit pages. Those sites that you want links from, are likely going to review what they are linking to, as such they are going to grade your site in one way or another. You want to put your best face on those pages. Sites are more likely to link to you if you look good and have the content to warrant a link.

Hope that makes sense, and helps,

Don

Google will index more as they find value in more links. The last ecommerce site I worked on had 12,000 pages as of the end of the year they were 85% indexed.

It is quite common from my experience for larger sites to take awhile to be fully indexed if ever at all. Here is what Goolge says about ensuring proper setup, but other then what they say, its all about content and uniqueness. A particular challenge for some e-commerce sites whom sell items that are similar in nature. Like 1/2"x1" screw vs 5/8" x 1" screw. Its very hard to develop unique content for items that similar.

Hi Ben,

Is it possible to create a basic sold page with some dynamic info about the vehicle. After the vehicle becomes sold or no longer available then 301 the old page to the sold page populated with the vehicle info with parameters and some possible other buying choices.

For example:

siteblah.com/Make/Moldel/Year/short-car-desciption
When sold, 301 page to:

siteblah.com/Vehicles/Sold/Vehicle-Sold.php?listing-id='12222190'

The benefit here is the old page sends the new page the link juice so you don't lose that. With content the customer understands the car is sold, and providing them with actionable options. The search engines learn about the new page and can treat as such. Additionally you'd only have to create one new page and plugin the parameters. Every 3 months or so you can probably remove the old pages and the 301 redirect depending on server performance.

HI Andy,

The default answer would be this is not advised. The reason being is even though the second site is more focused you still are competing with yourself for rank on all the focused items. What is also alarming is that the statement "with the same descriptions etc". Now you are running into duplicate content issues. Search Engines try to give credit to the original author, when you put duplicate content on the web the search engines get to pick who the original author is. Lastly, you said it is going to be managed by the same CMS, which can mean that it maybe on a different domain but it will be on the same server, making it far more likely that it will considered duplicate content.

That is the default answer, but there are cases where it can make sense to run two websites that sell the same product. In fact that is what I manage. In our case, we are the manufacturer and a distributor. The manufacturing site doesn't sell products just explains how they are made and refers to the distribution sites for low volume orders. While the distribution site acknowledges the manufacture's site and refers custom applications back to them. These are two different classes of customers.

Another example would be in the service industry, lets say you run a concrete and cement mixing service. You may sell certain brands of concrete and cement and also physically deliver this product to job locations. Delivering cement can be an industry in and of itself, if you offer this service as standalone (bring your own cement) then it would make sense to run two websites, one offering the deliver service and one offering the actual product. In both cases you can cross reference each other for potential vertical integration.

Okay, now for standard practices. If you're going to run two domains pick two completely different host. You want your domains on different C-blocks. Second it is very strongly suggested that you do NOT use the same descriptions, write new content for each site. Lastly evaluate if the time and effort you spend to create a second site could not be better spent updating, optimizing, promoting your first site, it just may turn out that re-focusing efforts on a single site wins in the long run.

Remember Google is getting smarter every day they want to provide the very best results for every search that is entered into their system. If you can be creative and make your site the go to site for "whatever" then Google will eventually recognize that and return you as #1. Google is being proactive looking for business and people who are trying to trick them into serving erroneous top results. Gone are the days of "build it and they will come" now it is "build the best and they will come".

I hope this helps you,

Don

Hi,

1. Yes, http and https are considered different urls and duplicate content is an issue.

2. You should redirect all http traffic to https inside your .htaccess file located in your root directory usually public_html

 <code>RewriteEngine On
 RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
 RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]</code>

3. You could use rel canonical but a 301 redirect is certain. It is safe to rel canonnical from http to https .

You will also want to follow up and make sure you have a robots.txt in the https version

Hope that helps!

Don

EDIT FOR A LINK: https://sites.google.com/site/onlyvalidation/page/301-redirect-https-to-http-on-apache-server

Hi Andrei,

Link building is important. How you go about it may have been evolved since you last looked at the subject.

When you break it down Link Building was and still is all about building associations on the web to your site. Evaluating a link, the Anchor Text on the link, how many other links are on the referring page, how popular the referring page is, and now if the referring page is part of a spam network determines exactly how valuable that association is.

Knowing that you can also surmise that if you get a link on a popular site it will have much more value than that of a low value site. The trick is how do you actually get that link? The answer really depends on the site.

Guest blogging gained popularity because anybody could write an article and generate a link to their own site or content. Now blogs are a little less forgiving about giving out links and many will nofollow all user generated links. However, you can still find your quality content linked by website authors with follow links. This in a sense is how it always should have worked.

The original vision of web authority remains; the web masters give credit with follow links to things they feel are relevant. In turn search engines recognize this and give more authority to the pages and domains. This method of ranking was well before Social Media even was a blip on the screen. Today the search engine factor in so many other things like social signals, viral content, ad-blocks, user engagement and much more. But the fact is that the underlying vision is still intact. The associations you build via links are important signals to your site.

My basic recommendation on link building is as follows. Know your market. Know where your customers are engaging their peers, and establish yourself as an authority at those spots. Create unique creative content on your site. When appropriate drop links to your content. As an authority on the subject you will find your audience more receptive and may find your links being picked up in other spots all on their own.

Rand hosted a whiteboard Friday about Content and SEO on 10/24/2014. I encourage everyone to read Jeff Ferguson's comment (first) about this white board. It is very informative and provides a different take on how and where link building is going.

Good luck,

Don

Great response Egol.

I'm always impressed with people who can think outside the box. Our company was recently purchased by a much larger corporation and instead of trying to roll us together they recognized that separately with their additional resources we are more valuable.

Laura's answer is great spot on about the age and link building advice.

I will also emphasis a point she made about your statement that you said you're not doing any link building until you page is ranking.

You don't wait for a page to rank to start link building, you start link building to get a page to rank.

Other questions about is it over optimized: Moz's Page grader shows a couple issues.

• Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document (Ref Rand's Post Here)
• Optimal Use of Keywords in H1 Tags

One other suggestion I have that is not in the page grader, and I have seen this a lot lately, is the way this template is putting the main text way below the header and image elements. You want your unique text to be above these elements showing it is important not tucked away under a ton of images and links. It would be much better to get your internal category images and links section off the main page all together (you already have them in the navigation).

Hope this helps,

Don

Hi Jonathan,

Didn't realize this was possible now. For the reasons you stated it still would be advised to get a dedicated IP. The last time I looked at prices they were relatively in-expensive.

Hi Jon,

It looks like it is because that "tag" is being explicitly blocked by your Robots.txt file.

REF: http://www.balihaiphoto.com/robots.txt

See Rule(s)

Disallow:/?tag=
Disallow:/&tag=

Removing those rules should allow Moz access.

Hope this helps,

Don

Hi Nik,

The answer to the question is very simple, the fix maybe not so much.

Q: Does anybody know why we don't rank well without the city added to the keyword?
A: Google returns what they fill is the most relevant results for any search. In such case using the keyword in the city of Perth for example, the site is not the most relevant.

Okay maybe that is a bit crass, but what is actually going on may help take the sting out of it. Understand Google's goal is to give searchers the very best result for any search term. To do this they have to understand not only what each search term means but also try and interpret the searchers intent. So in your example when a person in Perth searches for Outdoor Mirrors Google may choose to show local results, national results, images, or combinations thereof.

It's quite clear there are differences in what type of results you'll see, for example in the US (Dayton, Ohio) Google thinks I want to view images of mirrors (2nd result images), followed by Pinrest results rank 3, and 4. The number 1 result is shows me outdoor wall art, but offers no outdoor mirrors whatsoever. Further research shows that term "outdoor mirror" has a bit of a negative connotation here as I'm seeing results about dead birds and other wildlife.

Culturally Australia maybe a bit different which Google may interpret the intent of the term "Outdoor Mirrors" as being somebody wanting to buy them locally. In which case they would show localized results.

I hope that helps you understand what is going on there...

So onto the fix.. how do you get your site to rank in these cities? First, you need to understand what Google thinks people want to see when they type in the keyword in those areas. Analyze the results, are they showing local retailers, local showrooms, just images? Once you understand what Google thinks people are looking for with that term, you can then develop content to become more relevant then the competition.

For example, if they are showing local retailers. You could write content that highlights delivery cost, time in transit, and local area installations for each city.

I hope this helps,

Don

Hello ypl,

You asked:

1. how would you factor in their page rank, visitors, page view and social media info?

2. if they don't have much traffic, with PR3 (we are PR4), which means we can't count on too much traffic from them, but, will backlink from such places deemed as quality link by Google?  I do  understand the higher number in PR and traffic is better, but, in our case, they don't come by often.  Is it still worthwhile to do the lower sites?

The 3 things I am conscience of when getting a backlink from any source are as follows:

1. Is the site or the particular content on their site being discussed relevant to your site? Meaning you don't want to ask a blog site that specifically talks about politics linking to your site if you sell bicycles. If the site blogs about a wide range of topics it certainly would be acceptable to get a link from a post that is discussing bicycles. There is a caveat to this, and that is it is perfectly acceptable for a few links from non-relevant sites or articles to link to you. I mention this so folks may understand links that are coming from non-related sites or topics can negatively impact your site if they are in the majority.

2. What is their pagerank and how many other external links are on the page where you will appear? If your site is have a PR4 page they want to link to and they are PR 0/1 I would be a little standoffish. However PR 2 or 3, certainly appropriate.  All things equal it would take about 600 PR3 links to push you from 4 to 5. Throw a couple 4's or 5's in there and that number goes down. (ref:: http://curiouslittleperson.com/backlinks-for-google-pagerank/) .

The second part is how many other external links are you looking at. If you are offered a spot on a wall of links even if the PR is 4 or 5, the juice passed to each one is watered down. I find it most appropriate to be on a page where there are at most 5 other external links. This really depends on the amount of content on the page, for example http://www.instructables.com/ writers often articulate very well on how to build a gizmo from scratch, these articles can be quite long and sometimes are paginated. If you sell a product they use and purchase from you, you may end up on a list detailing the parts needed on page 1 of the article along with 10 other companies, or they may link to  you in article with anchor text. The latter is better of course.

3. Does the site look like a site that you would appreciate a link from? What I'm really getting at here is does look to spammy, allow in-appropriate ads (xxx),  look like a dynamic smattering of content, or hasn't updated content since Clinton's first term? I will go on to finish answering your second question in that, even if the site doesn't see a lot of traffic, if you get 2 or 3 visits from them and they turn into customers the link was well worth it for that alone. There is something to said about quality rather then quantity.

The short answer is yes a pr3 link to pr4 is great and actually about what you should expect. Don't get caught up to much with traffic, while it is important it isn't the end all of the value of the link. In general if the site is well laid out, not spammy and will offer you anchor text rich backlink and the site or article is relevant to your page or domain then certainly take it.

Apple could being doing it, to make other webmasters try it.

Apple is Apple I mean they could probably pass on most of the little stuff that so many people obsess over. They could be running a nefarious plot to make other sites follow bad seo practices thus diluting those sites rankings. Who knows, but it would be hard to hurt their selves with little things.

Hello Again,

Okay so it looks like what is happening is:
the http www version is 302 to the https.www version and the https.www version is 301 to the non-www. So what you have is one redirect pointing to another redirect.

This is likely confusing Moz, or Moz has in the past crawled a different version and has more data for that so it wants to show you it instead.

The headers are:

http://www.a-fotografy.co.uk/

---

302 Found

Status:    302 Found
Code:    302
Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Server:    Apache
X-FRAME-OPTIONS:    DENY
X-XSS-Protection:    1; mode=block
Location:    https://www.a-fotografy.co.uk/
Cache-Control:    max-age=0
Expires:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Vary:    Accept-Encoding
Content-Length:    214
Keep-Alive:    timeout=10, max=200
Content-Type:    text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Connection:    close

https://www.a-fotografy.co.uk/

---

301 Moved Permanently

Status:    301 Moved Permanently
Code:    301
Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Server:    Apache
X-FRAME-OPTIONS:    DENY
X-XSS-Protection:    1; mode=block
Location:    https://a-fotografy.co.uk/
Cache-Control:    max-age=0
Expires:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Vary:    Accept-Encoding
Content-Length:    234
Connection:    close
Content-Type:    text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

https://a-fotografy.co.uk/

---

200 OK

Status:    200 OK
Code:    200
Date:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Server:    Apache
X-FRAME-OPTIONS:    DENY
X-XSS-Protection:    1; mode=block
Accept-Ranges:    bytes
Content-Length:    21886
Cache-Control:    max-age=0, public
Expires:    Thu, 31 Dec 2015 12:43:08 GMT
Vary:    Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
X-Powered-By:    WP Rocket/2.6.15
Connection:    close
Content-Type:    text/html; charset=UTF-8

What you want to do is get all your redirects to 301 to the correct version.

This should cover it in your .htaccess file
EDIT 01/07/2016: Please see the below responses for corrected code.

#If http is requested (ie https off) then redirect to https none www
  RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.)$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
#If https is requested (ie https on) then redirect to https none www
  RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.)$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.)$ https://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Hope this helps,

Don

The Grades are assigned by Keyword & Page.

To save others some time I believe we're talking about Google.co.uk not Google.com

Spy Devices = Your Home Page Rank #4
electronic surveillance = Your Home Page Rank #2
spy systems = Your Home Page Rank #1
surveillance systems = Your Home Page Rank #2

Your domain has a high authority and your home page enjoys a nice page authority. This helps you rank well for I would assume a lot of keywords on google.co.uk

Now that said, if you're evaluating a specific page for a specific keyword the grade report expects that the page is optimized for that specific keyword. When you start looking at multiple different keywords for a single page there is no way to optimize perfectly for each one.

This is because you can't put every keyword in the first part of your title, description, use it atleast 4 times on the page, emphasis it with bold or strong tags and give it top location in the h1/h2 tags.

The short, is you can't expect that a page can be perfectly optimized for anything but a single keyword with the grade reporter, by the nature of what it looks at.

Also remember if you were grading a non-homepage on the keywords listed, you actually don't know where Google is returning that page for that keyword because your homepage is more relevant then any other page according to Google.

Hope that helps, and there are some other things I noticed as far as SEO goes on the homepage, but the site looks good and  imagine it has done well for you.