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Good to know. Thanks for closing the loop on this.

Guy-OTS, is it possible the dynamic pages have conflicting noindex tags? That could be your problem.

(1) "if this indeed was the issue, now that the redirects from SiteA.com to SiteB.com are gone will my ranking eventually go back to normal?" Yes. If you've nailed the issue.

That said, did you analyse all incoming links to determine if there have been any other suspicious adds or drops recently? Do you want to share the specific page with us to see if anything else jumps out?

Surely you did other redirects from Site A to Site B? You've not suffered any other severe rankings loses?

What Wanatop says is also true. Sometimes there are seemingly unexplained ups and downs in the rankings. It could self-correct.

(2) "is there anything I can do to get Google to notice the change?" You probably know this already given you've presumably disavowed the incoming links from SiteB, but just in case... You can ask Google to recrawl the page using the "Fetch as Google" page in the crawl menu of Webmaster Tools. That might speed things up. No guarantee.

Danarchism raises a good point. Is there a place where crawl impacts are noted? Given the respect that your metric has earned and the number of questions it raises when there are unexpected fluctuations, it would be really helpful if Moz shared their observations.

Also wondering (like Danarchism) if that's already available and I too have missed it. If that's the case, please share.

Lastly, was this a one-time anomoly that's now fixed?

Hi Juun,

You're not alone with this problem. The solution is to establish and implement a content marketing and link and citation building strategy around your two other main services. (It sounds like you've architected the site to partition the services in to different parts of the site already.)

If it were me, I wouldn't spend time updating just two citations. I'd focus my energy on determining the information wants and needs of the hotel and restaurant audiences and come up with a content and promotion strategy to satisfy those. Writing blog posts that speak to those needs and cross reference relevant and helpful internal pages of the site will help, as will making an effort to acquire inbound links from external sources. It's a lot of work, so the sooner you start the better.

Here's a very helpful, step-by-step guide for creating and promoting linkable assets from Search Engine Journal. Here an excellent post from the Moz blog on the same topic with lots of inspirational examples.

Although the best links are earned, it would also be well worth your while to research the best, most valuable link sources of your competitors and make an effort to acquire those. Here's a whiteboard Friday with tips and blog post with guidelines, tools and suggestions on that topic.

Nothing's wrong. That's the way it should be.

Google guidelines are to link your home page to the publisher signifying ownership of the site. POSTs point to individual authors. Here's some background in case you're interested - http://moz.com/ugc/google-plus-authorship-one-critical-thing-you-need-to-know.

I say it depends on how you have your images linked on the site. If they point to media files then yes, you will have to redirect them. If they point to the page on which they are displayed to visitors then you will not because you've already accounted for those.

Hey NYWA,

It's hard to tell based on the information provided. I suggest you experiment a bit with the keywords and locations you're trying to rank for.

For example, if you're trying to rank for "Southampton automotive repair services" and there's very little competition, then there's probably no need to try to rank separate pages for engine repair, heating and AC, brakes and rotors and so on. Just optimize for "Southampton automotive repair services" and be sure to include keywords when describing the different services offered in your page copy. If, on the other hand, there is a lot of competition and they have gone all-out to optimize pages for each of these distinct services, then you'd be best to do the same, only better.

Make sense?

Great to hear you've recovered. Did you ever have a subsequent conversation to learn why this happened? Do you think it might have been an error?

It's beneficial because you're helping your audience and they will appreciate and remember that. Perhaps they'll refer you to others, link to you, bookmark or share your content (getting you more exposure) or come back and visit your site another time.

Is there evidence to support that claim?

• Highlights from the 2014 Search Ranking Factors Study completed by Search Metrics and published in August/September 2014 states that "Although the off page factors were within a margin of error, it was interesting to me to find that volume of nofollow backlinks is now well correlated with higher rankings [emphasis added]. This aligns with the findings that Rand Fishkin and the IMEC Labs team of experimenters uncovered earlier in the year."
• Nicole Kohler from Moz wrote a post just this past June that shares anecdotal evidence that nofollow links have lots of "hidden" power. It's well written, logical and convincing.
• Google (via Matt Cutts) has stated repeatedly that they value "natural" link profiles without ever clearly defining exactly what that is. That said, Webmaster Tools will issue a warning if considers your link profile suspect.

Hope that helps.

Hi Thom,

I don't know anything about "endpoints", but you maybe don't need a Yahoo store specialist, but just a regular SEO who can help you diagnose some of your problems. Moz has recommended companies you could reach out to ask if any offer hourly consulting. If they don't, try going thru the Q&A searching for any questions related to ecommerce and see who pipes in with helpful advice. (There is no ecommerce category in the Moz Q&A. I checked.) You could try approaching them.

I say that b/c I did a scan of your site and saw some duplicate pages, for example, http://www.atlasphones.com/reli.html, http://www.atlasphones.com/reli1.html and http://www.atlasphones.com/reli2.html, two of which look like they might be errors or oversights. It could just be that you need someone to help guide you through the process of discovering root causes and potential fixes. I worked with Yahoo store a few years ago, it has its querks, but is much like any other online store so if you can translate Yahoo terminology working with a SEO you might be able to make some great headway.

A second thought is whether you might be able to tag your "endpoints" or "items" as canonical and see whether that deals with the problem.

It's a start anyway.

Good luck!

Hard to say. What is the business problem you're trying to solve?

Cyrixr, Can you tell us the site and page you're referring to?

Lulu,

You ask a really good question. How to do local keyword research is a question that comes up time and again in local circles. Bottom line is that while there are a bunch of keyword research tools out there, none are aimed specifically at helping achieve your goal. Moz's tool is no different. So my answer is not to recommend a specific tool, but rather to suggest you take a look at a couple of source of really helpful how-to information from Moz and Bright Local.

(1) Someone else asked a similar question on Moz back in May 2014. Miriam Ellis, a Moz staffer, gave an excellent answer. Check it out!

(2) Bright Local published a how-to article with some really helpful tips and tricks in July of this year - http://www.brightlocal.com/2014/07/22/effective-local-keyword-research/. It's well worth reading.

Hope that helps.

Here's a Q&A that Matt Cutts published in October 2010. The specific question asked was "how does Google determine domain age". In it Matt talks about the fact that Google uses a variety of means to determine domain (and page) age such as when Google first saw a link to a domain or page or when domain or page was first crawled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnpg00FWJY

I think the point he's making is that Google doesn't rely on a single variable when making ranking decisions. A change to the DC.date.created will likely be noted, but the fact that your site was previously found and indexed will carry more weight.

I don't know that definitely. I did do a search on Bill Slawski's site (seobythesea.com) to see if he an opinion that was patent-based but didn't find anything.

Hey CenturyBiz,

There have been a few articles written by reputable companies like Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch and Seer Interactive on that very topic; one as recent as June 2014. Try doing a Google search for "link building" and "boring". They'll pop to the top.

I suggest taking a look at those. Then, if you have specific questions, come back and ask again. You'll probably get better direction that way.

Hi KempRuge,

I, like others, have been using an excel spreadsheet. But you're looking for a shared tool, I recommend taking a look at the following articles that I previously bookmarked for when the need arises:

• https://blog.bufferapp.com/all-about-content-calendar - examples, tools, and templates;
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/editorial-calendar-tools/ - tools; and
• http://www.sproutcontent.com/blog/bid/148309/7-Editorial-Calendar-Tools-to-Keep-Your-Content-Marketing-on-Track - more tools.

I'd also consider something as basic as Trello, a simple, portable project management tool that would enable shared tracking of the various phases of content development similar to what EGOL has described.

Yes.

Don't understand what you mean by a "dead link with # symbol".

Regardless, I misspoke. What you have with your current structure is NOT overkill. (I was looking at the line below, what you were considering as an alternative, when commenting.)

You only have "st-louis" once in your current structure. I say leave it as is and don't incorporate the city name again in subfolders and file names.

You should include St. Louis in the page copy and meta data and, from your example above, I can see you're doing that. You're on the right path.

No. I tried several long tail searches that turned up zero ads and there was no survey displayed.

Sometimes Google narrows it's testing, for example, to include only certain geographies. You could be seeing something others are not.