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Dreamrealemedia,

Use the Enable Media Replace plugin by Måns Jonasson. It will swap out the old image for the new, update all your links, and you'll be good to go. No 404 errors.

It probably shows up when you make a change b/c of the "freshness" factor.

_"It is not a dramatic departure from the original." _

I don't see any point in staging the transition then. Go for broke. Do it all at once. If, as you say, it's not a dramatic departure - the theme, subject matter, content is similar just more extensive - there should not be a huge impact, just the normal rankings fluctuations that we all observe daily. Be careful with your title tag though. It will have the most influence on ranking fluctuations all else being equal.

I agree with Alick,

That's not to say you shouldn't set up a Google My Business listing as well as a few others where you can hide your client's address. Those things lend to the credibility of your business and are factored into your domain authority as well. Just don't focus on citation building. Your plan is a good one.

"Are there more advantages in using Moz Local besides the convenience? For those that use it, what else have you found to be beneficial?"

Hi Eric,

In my mind, there are a couple of advantages to using Moz or one of the other high-quality citation building services over doing it manually.

(1) Consistency - you have a way of ensuring your company name, address, and phone number (NAP) data is consistently distributed to a large proportion of local business directories, GPS devices, and local applications in the United State. Consistency is one of the ways you ensure your business is being credited with all the citations you build.

(2) Accuracy - Moz points out errors, inconsistencies, and duplicates which you then have the opportunity to fix. When you build citations manually, it can be difficult to identify and fix these. (3) Completeness - Moz gives you a single point of contact for distribution of your citation data to the four local data aggregators and Foursquare (which feeds Pinterest and other local search apps).

(3) Completeness - Moz gives you a single point of contact for distribution of your citation data to the four local data aggregators and Foursquare (which feeds Pinterest and other local search apps).

(4) Convenience (as you mentioned) - The single point of contact is especially helpful if you plan on updating supplementary data like photos and menus, have a large number of reviews you want to track and respond to, or if you know the business plans on moving or changing its phone number in the near future.

(5) Support - I personally find the tool and process very confusing but Moz has great support and they get back to you quickly. Local search is very confusing in its own right. This is not necessarily a bad reflection on Moz, as there's always room for improvement.

(6) Cost - The fee is fair and reasonable. Not the cheapest. Also not the most expensive.

I think this is what you're looking for.

"When you shorten a link with Bitly, you are redirecting a click from Bitly to the destination URL."

Bitly uses 301 redirects, which means no page rank or link juice is lost in the process. Google's Gary Illyes confirmed that 3xx redirects no longer lose PageRank in July 2016.

If that doesn't answer your question, please let us know.

Joe,

As EGOL points out, you can make an argument for either side - keep or remove. It's really up to you.

Things to consider:

1. Is there a demand for this in the marketplace?
2. Is your page currently ranking?
3. Is the page useful to your audience? Is it visited repeatedly and for some time? Is it shared with others?
4. Is there something better already out there? Can you beat it?
5. You said your page is already incomplete and outdated. Are you willing to update and maintain it on an ongoing basis?
6. Would you get more bang for your buck spending that time on something else?

I don't see a logical explanation for the results we're seeing Dan.

Your link profile could be stronger, but if that was the root cause I'd expect to see you on page 2 or 3 of search results for e-discovery and yet (as you've mentioned), you're nowhere to be found.

The only thing I can think of, and I don't think it's the explanation either, is that Google is ranking pages that intend to answer the question "WHAT IS e-discovery" and while your content addresses that, it is more focused on HOW TO.

Maybe someone else will see something we're both missing.

In those instances where you do appear on page one for S-EO, is the page displayed the same as the one when searching for SEO or is it a different result?

And my question is about your link profile compared to the top 10 competitors, not the competitiveness of the search term. Not sure if I was clear about that.

Why don't you share the term you're talking about your domain. If you 're not comfortable doing that, feel free to private message me.

Hi Daniel,

I know you said you believe your link profile is clean, but it is strong enough? That's what I'd research first. Do you have enough high-quality incoming links with keyword relevant anchor text to outrank the competition?

I'm not a fan of your plan.

There can be many reasons why a site might "take a hit". For example, if page-to-page redirects were not implemented or the sitemap was not updated, updated correctly, or resubmitted to search engines. I wouldn't assume that will happen in your case. In my experience, if the transition is done correctly and there's a hit, it's short-lived.

If you're thinking the redirects will cause you to lose SEO equity, that is no longer the case. Gary Illyes, a Google webmaster trends analyst, tweeted on July 26, 2016 "30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore."

One of the biggest risks (in my mind) of staging the migration the way you suggest is that the "waves" never happen. I see that a lot - a situation where an organization agrees to postpone work to a future date that never arrives. New and competing priorities take precedence resulting in an endless postponement. If you have the management commitment, funding and resources to do the work now, I say bite the bullet and go for it. Make a plan. Stick to it. Check and double check your work.

Harini, you're asking a pretty broad question and the answer is likely a long a complex one only to be arrived at after careful analysis and consideration.

That said, when I read your question I got the sense that you're focusing on on-page ranking factors only; that you may be forgetting about all the other things that go into boosting your rankings and conversions. For example, your site seems to be light on external backlinks compared to others competing for the same term (mobile app development company in India) and you seem to be using a mix of www and non-www URLs. If I've misunderstood, can you rephrase your question? You might get more specific responses.

Kodiiac,

If you want your Google business listing to be a service area listing, you're going to have to verify your business using Facebook because Moz can only validate Google-listed businesses with visible addresses. Service area listings hide your address.

So although your Moz local score will be lower than you'd probably like, I've been told your local data will still be distributed to Moz's total network of recipients so long as it has been verified using Facebook. Hopefully lisapeterman will chime back in if I've unintentionally misled you, but that's my understanding.

"The concern is that, due to the http>https 301 redirects that will be in place, are we putting ourselves at unnecessary risk by effectively carrying out 2 migrations in the space of a year (in terms of loss of potential authority caused by redirects)?"

In February 2016, Google’s John Mueller announced that SEO equity or PageRank will no longer be lost when a 301 or 302 redirect is used in conjunction with an HTTP to HTTPS migration. While some of us doubted this statement, Gary Illyes tweeted the same thing in July 2016 and Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land confirmed it. There is no loss of authority caused by redirects when you implement HTTPS.

"Would we be better to wait, and implement https at point of platform migration instead?"

I think the approach you're taking (convert to https first) is a good one. It affords you better control and is a good use of available resources.

Think holistically. Think strategically.

For example, if I was a supplier, I wouldn't want a link profile that consisted largely of customer footer links cause those can be manipulated and carry less weight with the search engines. As Martin and George have pointed out, you could create goodwill with valued suppliers and perhaps some leverage for yourself if you were to follow those links and position them higher on the page with surrounding text.

Follow links pass link juice. It's a currency you can sometimes use to your advantage.

I've seen that happen before Martin. Is it possible the old (.nl) version of the site is still sitting on a server somewhere and getting accessed (and indexed) by Google?

Great suggestions by Oleg.

Yoast wrote an article last fall that talks about some of the reasons a site might be slow getting indexed and how to get it indexed faster. They have some worthwhile suggestions.

Did you submit the new (https) version of your website to both google search console and google analytics? Is that what you're looking at? Was the https version of the site fully indexed before you noticed the noindex tags?

Have you confirmed every page on the site was converted to https and there aren't any remaining pages (images or pdfs, for example) that are still http and therefore not showing up in your reports?

As Martin has said (and others in the helpful link he provided), it's perfectly normal for fluctuations to occur. Before you decide that it's a problem with your site or page, you should check to if your competition is experiencing similar fluctuations. Check out Mozcast too. There has been a lot of fluctuation in the SERPs lately.

I agree with Kevin. Ahref has that capability assuming you don't run into size constraints. Here's a quick post that explains where to find it. (See https://ahrefs.com/blog/turning-broken-links-site-powerful-links-ahrefs-broken-link-checker/.)

Hi Kimberley,

1- Should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner?

You're right, the answer is "yes" but the objective of creating a single page per location is not so your franchisee shows up in local search results (on Google Maps), but so they show up in organic search results.

Can they just use a friend's/relative's address?

You need a unique mailing address for each location you want to show up in maps. A place where someone will answer the phone during business hours with a typical business greeting like "XYZ Business. How can I help you." I don't recommend using friends/relatives addresses for lots of reasons including the fact that friends and relatives move and you'd still have to incur the cost of getting a unique phone number and optimizing a business listing for each location.

2. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same?

More is better. Google favors fresh, active, and growing websites. Many businesses build a one-page-fits-all solution due to budget constraints. That can work in niche / non-competitive markets, but rarely does otherwise. You should assess your budget, resources, and competition and then decide on an approach.