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Hi Luis,

If I understand you correctly you would like to find what keywords your competitors are targeting simply by naming them?

See George's response.. here are some tips.

• Read their Title Tag, most optimized sites will have their keywords in the title tag
• Read their keywords tag, older sites may still have keywords tag, if so they are basically telling you what they are targeting, careful though this can also be used as a red herring to throw off snoopers.
• Read their H1-H4 tags, this is the optimal place to put keywords
• Use a Keyword Density tool, a keyword appearing more then the rest, is likely the one(s) being targeted
• Finally, do keyword research for your own site, the keywords that make sense for you to use, probably also make sense for your competitors to use. Once you have your keyword list just run them to see where your competitors are ranking.

Hope this was helpful

Rel canonical tags should be on the pages that they are dealing with.

In my example above a rel canonical tag would be fine all the pages

awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L&Gender=F

On each of the pages the tag would be

href="http://www.awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14"/>

You would not put it on the page

awebsite.com/t-shirts/ or awebsite.com

Hope that clarifies it for you.

It doesn't need to be, but given the way the tag works, it does not hurt if the page you're on, is the path of the rel canonical.

Since the tag deals with dynamic pages it is very normal for the root page to have the tag as well as the dynamic pages.

Hi Christian that is basically what the REL canonical is for, typically it is used to deal with dynamic urls like
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L&Gender=F

I have seen some ecommerce shops that allow you to copy products from one category to another, if you do this, then yes REL canonical is how I would deal with this myself.

Hope it helps,

Don

In general the technical correct way to tell Search Engines a page no longer exist is to give a 410 response code.

REF: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable.

If the page has no seo value, or user value then a 410 would be preferred.

As Robert pointed out, if the old url has a valid new url then you should 301 redirect it to the new location.

If the page does have SEO value (like good backlinks, high serp ratings for strong keywords), but no new matching page, you should do one of two things:

1. Create the page
2. 301 it to the nearest possible match

Hope that helps,

Don

Hi Scott,

I'm not an expert on Panda but from what I personally have gathered is most of the sites hit were ones involved in some form or another with link exchanges, or "bad" paid seo services. The paid services usually used some severally black hat tricks to get immediate results, get their money and run. Duplicate content is something to worry about but using a template is not going to cause any problem unless you are dynamically creating content based on every possible keyword, resulting in millions of pages with very little differences.

As far gathering the long tail keywords.. I have used Google Ad Words, keyword suggestion tool. Type in some broad keywords, and let them suggest some keywords play with the filtering settings and see what keywords are the most appropriate for your market that also have the best traffic, then optimize for those.

The keyword suggestion tool is located in Google Ad Words > Tools & Analysis > Keyword Tool

Hope this helps

Don

"I do not wanted to rank home page for that particular keyword only."

This does not make sense in English.

I would suggest removing the keyword on the page in question, and resubmit the url to Google / Yahoo / MSN. This may take a few weeks to get corrected.

You don't want to remove the URL from the Search Engines because then you will never show up no matter what keywords you're trying to rank for.

Hi Scott,

I will comment on the template part first. There is no problem with using a template, most websites do. I looked at your site, the content on each page is different enough not to warrant any concern.

I do wonder why you asked the question other then that, are your worried about Google Ad Ratings, or just keyword optimization or just general seo?

Overall I will just add this, if you're trying to rank in the top SERP's for YMM (Year / Make / Model) you may have trouble because those are hugely contested keywords. And your service really isn't something that "most" people would expect to see when searching for their YMM. However, it is something they may want to see if they search for YMM + warranty or extended warranty. Which is why I would suggest evaluating the long-tail keywords and seeing if I can get those to rank first.

Hope that helps,

Don

Interesting, it could be a convenient way to dominate your brand.

I just tried Pepsi, got pepsi.com #1, pepsico.com #2, wikipedia #3, places (local) #4, followed by pepsi-facebook, pepsi-twitter, pepsi-foursquare

That would be great if that was your brand / company, but I think smaller business who may have the same name as another business in a different state / city (Ray's Pizza) may have some trouble, but I think Google throw localized results in those cases.

Nice catch, I hadn't noticed that.

Thanks for updating on your findings. That is interesting, but glad you got it sorted.

Yes 301 is my preferred way to deal with this.

If you can use

**if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && strtolower($_SERVER['HTTPS']) == 'on') {
echo ''. "\n";
}**

REF: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001714.shtml

It is a very common issue, https is needed for sensitive info, but Search Engines don't t need to access.

I disagree with Daniel. Yes $30 isn't that big of deal, but that is exactly the problem. FB needs to hold the person responsible for the problem not you for helping.

Can you expand on this question, siting some examples?

Hi Capitol,

This isn't a fair question.

HTML is a browser language. Wordpress is a CMS (Content Management System).

Wordpress uses HTML, html doesn't use Wordpress.

The purpose of Wordpress is to make web pages easier to generate, manage and archive. A website built outside of a CMS system can work great but can require more time to create. My company's website is done in straight development (HTML/PHP/JAVASCRIPT/JQUERY), but we also run a site that uses a CMS (Oscommerce). Each one requires specific requirements. The main site requires more of my time, but the CMS requires knowledge of specific Oscommerce requirements, Wordpress would be the same.

I really tried to touch on this in your other question you asked right after this one.

I think you recognize that there is a difference between seo and web development and also understand each should know that a little about each others work. This is why SEO companies hire web guys as well as marketing and seo folk. A web guy needs to understand the basics of SEO and not step on their toes while developing and a SEO  needs to understand some basic web development issues.

I think an article on the difference of roles of seo folk and web development folk would be a good read.

SEO is an ongoing process and never ends. There is always content, analysis and search engine changes that needs to be managed.

Web development is more of an this is what you asked for so here it is type of deal. However, since SEO never ends, then web development should be readily available to make any needed changes.

Understand, content is key, offering something that nobody else is, and everybody wants to copy is the main goal, this is where web development / content writers come in. Getting this work seen by the masses is where SEO comes in.

First off, as a developer.. you should note there is a difference between web developers and SEO experts.  I do understand a fair bit about SEO but personally wish we had an SEO guy here besides myself.

If you're looking for a developer just make sure he or she understand the basics of SEO as well as the job you need done, and leave SEO to the experts.

So with your exact question in mind, your main questions should be about the job that needs done, but your questions should also make sure that he understands your intent is on making seo optimized pages.

I would not limit my questions to five, I would make sure that the web developer is at the very least understanding of how search engines work. I don't know your level of knowledge, but if it is minimal then you may want to familiarize yourself with the SEO basics to tailor your questions around them. Understanding that the most important aspect if their job is the web development, but in such a way that it doesn't impede future SEO work.

So I would make sure he/she knows,

• How to create an appropriate title / description tag
• H1-H6 tags and how each influences a page.
• The Importance of Image Naming
• Understanding dynamic URLS and when to use canonical tags
• The importance of anchor text, and link title text

In summary don't expect your web developer to be an expert in SEO and don't expect your SEO guy to be an expert in web development. However, each should understand the fundamentals of each others jobs and your job as the person paying their wages is to understand how to make each other work together.

This was a very good question and I hope my answer helps.

70 Characters is max length of a title that will be recognized.

That doesn't mean you can't have longer titles, just that only the first 70 characters are going to matter.

Look at the title of this thread for example

Moz says the 17 title elements too long but they are part of my blog title?  |  SEOmoz Q&A

If you're trying to optimize your titles for SEO then you may have to look at your CMS (Content Management System) to see if you can add specific titles. Or you can simply ignore the warnings as this forum does.

Linking to an authoritative site is part of SEO given the link is relevant to what is being discussed, are you certain they are being paid to do so?

It is just never cut and dry

Right so, asking somebody for a review is the first half, offering free; points, merchandise, credit, discounts, or a super nice product for the best "review" contest style, would be a creative way to develop unique content and thus I would say 100% white hat.

The second half, asking for a link and offering the same sort of incentives is kin to buying a link, and IMO black hat. In this sense you are trying artificially inflate your ranking by "trading" something for a link. In this case somebody linking to you is by no means saying I like this site, they are saying I like the free stuff they give.

Your question coupled the two together, but I thought it best to look at each case individually.

Hope it helps.

I've actually seen this question before (I looked but couldn't find the discussion) sorry.

What I seen some folks offer as advice is to try and rotate your anchor text if possible. Nobody gave a solid yes or no don't do it, but most cautioned that it seemed risky.

My thoughts are to try and use some dynamic anchor text, about the only thing that will be different from site to site is the domain name so....

Website Design of XXX.com By DonFord.com just use php or asp to pull the domain name for the anchor text.

Furthermore, it may be prudent to create a page for the client on your site and point the link there. A simple outline of their service, and your service a few images and maybe ask the client for small snippet about the work you did for them. This would prevent kathousand links going to the same page, and still bring in traffic from people who like the site you designed. Most people probably can figure out to hit your logo or something to go to your homepage. The added benefit is it makes it easy to see how much traffic each one of these sites sends your way.

My 2 cents, hope it helps.