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Makes a little more sense. I'll get it eventually

Thanks Megan!

Hi Megan,

Thank you for the response, but I still don't know if that answers my question.

Does this mean in my particular case that I can navigate through the full 889 reported links only in Open Site Explorer, but I cannot export that full 889 (well below the 100,000 links) to CSV? If I export to CSV then I only see 695?

Can you speak a little more about the difference between viewing external links in OSE vs. exporting links to CSV?

Thanks!

Noob question. I'm using Open Site Explorer to hunt down some external links for a website. In the attached image (post-pressing the filter button), it says I have 889 external links, but after I've downloaded the CSV, I only get 695 links.

Why the difference in number? And if I'm doing something wrong, how do I make sure I'm getting the full amount of external links to my client's website?

Thanks!

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And this is definitely what I was talking about when I said you get great advice on the forums.

EGOL and Salmon brought something to the table that I haven't thought about, and I'm definitely going to use in the future. That's why I love using this forum. I've learned so much by interacting on here, and that's how you advance.

Don't give up on the Q&A orion68, and always keep an open mind.

Hi Dan,

If you're comfortable with it, post your client's website and sitemap link here for people to take a look at.

Hi Nick,

You can try private messaging some Mozzers who have demonstrated interest in this sort of thing in previous threads.

Or, if you're feeling completely open, try posting your websites URL in your thread and any associated links to external content you've created (Does the site have a blog? Are you submitting guest blogs?)

Other than that, there are paid consulting services you could try, but there are many willing and helpful people in this Q&A forum who will always give you great advice!

Thanks Joel!

To determine whether the profile links are indexed, do a site search using your profile link on Twellow or Manta. I picked a random business on Manta "Romana Cake House"

Attached is a screenshot of the site search which shows that the page is in Google's index.

The second screenshot shows a brand search (history disabled, incognito) for "Romana Cake House" and it shows the Manta listing on the first page.

Any of these listings will most certainly strengthen your NAP (name, address, phone number) and help with local search results for your business.

Do these profile links pass value?

I ran the profile link through open site explorer and that page does have page authority and the link to the company's website on that page DOESN'T contain a "no follow" tag, so the profile link is saying, in a way, "I vouch for this business"

You should also see if you get any referral traffic from these sites in your Web Analytics tools, but so far, with Manta at least it looks like the right move, especially if it can get you a SERP on the front page for your business name that could push down another, not so nice listing about your business.

Hope that helps.

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Thanks Joel. And just to confirm, it will pull in historical data too even if I disconnect it and reconnect it?

I have no answer for you but I'm very interested in this subject! I'll be following this thread to see if anything new crops up to your answer. Great question!

I would add 301 redirects as a best practice even if they don't have any juice to pass on to the new links. Just make sure they are being redirected to a similar relevant page or a page that makes sense.

Also, the way you're searching is not going to be how a consumer searches, so to see if these older pages are currently hindering your keyword strategy (I'm assuming you might be worried that two pages would be jockeying for one term?), perform a search as your customer would using the keyword only.

If you see these old pages in the search results and they're ranking higher than your newly optimized pages (which would better serve the customer), then you might have an issue only as it relates to conversion and bounce rate.

I would strongly recommend you 301 the old pages.

Thanks TommyTan.

I am definitely referring to the search engines.

I do use Google Webmaster Tools, and haven't seen any email notifications from GWT regarding any spammy link profiles, etc.

I'm more concerned with finding out if it's just normal fluctuation in keyword ranking and traffic, or if there is something else going on.

Sometimes there's so many factors that all could be playing a role outside of any penalties, it would be great to find a guide to help you diagnose if it's just seasonal traffic, keyword rank fluctuation or something more serious.

Has anyone come across any great guides to pair with client data to help you determine if their website has been penalized?

I'm also not talking about an obvious drop in traffic/rankings, but I want to know if there's a guide out there for detecting the subtleties that may be found in a client's website data. One that also helps you take into account all the different variables that may not be related to the engines.

Thanks!

Also, a link is still a link. Even if it's a no follow link on an external website, it can still help your website from a user experience. If website B has a lot of dedicated visitors and traffic, they could follow your link back to your website and become fans of yours. Just something else to keep in mind.

Hi littleshobo,

Rel=author seems like it would be more beneficial to you in your personal guest-blogging than, as you had said, to attach your face to your clients' blog posts. You do want them to be attached to someone at the business. A different story might be if you are writing content that indirectly benefits the client: Say you guest blog on an external website about something you're interested in and you link to your client's blog as an example of your work. In that case, you'd want your face to be attached to that blog.

I would try to keep the client's blog attached to the client.

I am going through the same thing right now. What we are implementing is the rel=publisher tag on our clients' websites, using the clients' Google+ Profile ID. Though it's not being recognized right now by Google, we hope in the future Google will begin using it and show the dealership's logo in the rich snippets.

The other option for you is to find a person at the company who wouldn't mind their face being the face of the company, and you could "ghostwrite" for that person. You could then use the rel=author tag for that person and explain to them how they would need to add the corresponding link to his or her Google+ profile. The only issue with this is trying to find someone who would be at the company for awhile (avoid turnover) and also someone who would enjoy having their face plastered across Google. Some higher levels in the company might be okay with this.

Also, check out this link about using rel=publisher and rel=author from Mike Blumenthal's blog. http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/02/03/google-local-rel-publisher-or-relauthor-you-should-do-both/

Hope this helps!

Thanks Takeshi!

I want to know if it's possible to add a canonical tag to a URL that points to a URL under a different folder. Content is just about the same.

Here's an example

(fake urls and product, but structure and parameters are similar to my client's website):

domain.com/toy-ducks-results.aspx?color=Purple&model=Elvis

domain.com/toy-ducks-details.aspx?color=Purple&model=Elvis&style=Sparkly

Let's say that my purple Elvis ducks are really popular. Is there any harm in putting a rel=canonical on the Sparkly Elvis ducks page to the purple Elvis ducks page?

Even though they are two different folders?

/toy-ducks-results and /toy-ducks-details

So, in effect, the preferred folder is /toy-ducks-results

Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks SanketPatel. Do you have a pay-for account with ahrefs.com or are you using the free version? Do you like it better than opensiteexplorer?

Thanks SankelPatel! I'll check them out. So do you not use any location + keyword on the clients' websites?

Is there any harm in using javascript so a user can "toggle" open or closed additional text on a website?

For example, if a user wants to read more about something, they can click on "More Info" and the text would then appear.

Google is able to read the text, because I chose a random 8 word section of the text within the More Info and pasted it into a Google Search and the website showed up in search results.

Just wondering if using this technique would have any negative impact.

Here's what the code would look like: 
<a <span="">title</a><a <span="">="Show Tables" href="</a><a class=" " target="_blank">javascript:toggleDisplay('table1')</a>">More Info

style="display: none;" id="table1"> this is where the text would be, and from this section was where I grabbed text to search with in google.

Then in the footer, here is the script needed so the more info will work:

I am by no means an expert in coding/html/javascript.

Thanks!