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Yah this is an odd issue. I've seen some people with their Google + profile face next to their business homepage. A little strange. Google also has the rel=publisher tag, but I'm honestly not sure what it does. I guess it is supposed to work like the rel=author tag... Obama uses it on the homepage:
In terms of the social signal aspect, no one can really answer that. Just try to be active in the Circles relevant to your industry. That's probably your best bet.
They're a big brand. That's it. They knew what they were doing, got caught, got out. Very simple when you're a big brand. Same thing with iAquire. They were buying links, knew they were being naughty, got caught, got out. Big brand with big connections. Same story with most big brands. I actually just talked to a guy from Dunn & Bradstreet about this. All these big brands know black hat SEO and know they can get away with it so they do it.
To further confirm your feelings I completly agree with this answer. Wait until the penalty comes and then be proactive. In the meantime build high quality links.
You're in a competitive space. How are you going to stand out? Since you're starting fresh I'd do a lot of short video content (under 4 min).
Well Google prefers relevant page-by-page level redirects.... Do what Google wants and you will be rewarded. Your client is investing in SEO so he/she should understand that the work you're doing, no matter how costly, is an investment in his or her business. Sometimes the 'right' decision isn't always the most cost-effective, but it's still the right thing to do.
"move to a new ecomm cart that allows a blog on the domain and migrate over all the content?"
I would do that. Put the content from www.islesurfboardsblog.com on your primary domain www.islesurfboards.com. Make sure to do a 301 redirect on a page-by-page level from www.islesurfboardsblog.com to www.islesurfboards.com once the content has been moved. Don't just do a blanket 301 to the homepage of www.islesurfboards.com.
Watch this video on how to do the 301 redirect correctly:
Some people swear by setting up the blog on a separate domain to give it its own identity, but any SEO would likely say to have it on your own domain.
One of the reasons you create content is to attract links to your site so you can rank higher for your 'money' keywords - ex. 'buy isle surf boards'. If the content is being created on a different domain, those links will point to the other domain and not your site.
The best solution is www.islesurfboards.com/blog
The second best solution is blog.islesurfboards.com
The separate domain strategy does have merit, but only for brands who are willing to invest SIGNIFICANT (100k +) cash into the blog.
If the content is different you don't need a canonical
In addition to what you have, maybe something about mobile SEO. How to make the phone number clickable on your site on a mobile device. Maybe something about responsive.
How about something about <a class="attribute-value">http://schema.org/LocalBusiness. A little advanced, but hey it's a meetup. If they wanted the basics they can just Google it.</a>
Hmm,
Well first off a 301 is preferred over a canonical when dealing with cross domains. Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI6L2N4A0hA
I doubt 1 backlink is the cause of this. I think maybe you have the canonical set-up incorrectly? I'd go the 301 route and see what happens.
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but if two different URLs contain the same content then yes you should use the canonical tag. Here's Google's help page on the topic:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
There are many legitimate EMDs. They're harder to brand, but it's possible. For example, FreeCreditReport.com. They're only toxic if they're idiotic like best-pay-day-loans.info.
Whoops, I should have taken out:
That is phase 2.
Yup. Specifically,
This is very difficult to answer as others have said. I hate to do this, but shameless plug for my post here:
How To Recover From Google Penalties & Filters
It will help you figure out if you're looking at a penalty or not.
Thanks,
Dave
Phases work or you could sell things as packages. For example,
Keyword & Competitor Research - Price
Comprehensive Site Analysis - Price
50 pages of on-site optimization - Price
1 Premium Blog Article (700+ words) - higher price
1 Standard Blog Article (>500 words) - lower price
I usually estimate about an hour a page for on-site optimization. The comprehensive site analysis is based on how big the site is. Keyword & Competitor research is also based on how big the site is - I usually do about 20 hours though.
As for backlinking & social media - I never quote these up front. WAY too complicated and it requires that your client REALLY trusts you because hourly is really the only way to price this. Pricing per link will come back and bite you in the rear... trust me.
Hey Stephen,
I don't really agree with you here. It's quite easy to make a calculable difference with a blog for a small business owner. Not everyone needs to be OK Cupid. Not everyone needs a following of people who read the blog daily or come back to the blog often. Some businesses, such as small (local) businesses, only need a few posts on their blog to make a difference. If there is worry about it not getting updated perhaps they can simply make more content pages on their site rather than a full-blown blog effort. Content creation doesn't always mean blog. Perhaps they can do some keyword research and look for long-tails to write blog posts about. Perhaps they could target a local keyword. These evergreen posts will continue to provide benefits for their business for years.... if the keyword research is done correctly.
If you're worried about it not getting updated you can always remove the dates on the posts. That way, people won't know you haven't been updating it.
Also, you can find writers on Elance and Odesk who will write great content for you for about $50-$100. Good way to keep the writing going for a cheap cost.
I'm not sure, but what's great about AdWords is that you can call Google and they will help you. I've never waited more than a minute to speak with someone. The phone number is:1-866-2GOOGLE (1-866-246-6453).
Check out this case study:
It will answer your question and will be better than any opinion you read here.