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More people out there are linking to the www.name version and even if you do the 301 redirect you will still lose some vote %.

Since it's a new brand and you are starting this now you should take your time and consider every aspect from the start and make your call based on all facts.

I always vote for the www version but that, beside the linking and look factor of the url is a personal thing.

Can you share the link ? (to see the format, approach and the organic visibility of the domain that is hosting the article.)

Cheers.

Hi,

Although you are right, "real estate" / placement of the content (above the fold, bellow the fold ..) it's important for ranking - it's not what makes your page rank or don't rank that high - for the ones you've sent as examples. The quality of the content (duplicate or unique), competitors, metrics, on-page approach you are taking, keywords targeted, format of serp for some of the keywords there are way more important then placement ....

Thanks.

Hi,

If it's due to the link and the link is ok then you should't take it down. Google has an algo, the "the spammer hook" when they will drop you if they see some very good links to see if you will take action (drop the links etc). Theer was a good article&video about it by Wil Reynolds when they've manage to get some very good links from major high autority sites like the NY Times and so and rankings drooped... after some time they've spiked up better then before as those links started to "matter".

Now the site you mention has a decent visibility: http://screencast.com/t/sEoLUrQD  but is not NY times or a very high trusted source - so I would say your "issue" is not due to this link.

Your visibility ( http://screencast.com/t/ufoKKBnLBdQ )on the other hand has drooped but it looks is not correlated with links (this one or any other from your link profile).

Hope it helps.

Mike is right but I think it's enough to see if it's listed in google and if it is it doesn't matter if it was blacklisted in the past or not - since it's clean now.

There are different reasons in buying a domain and based on your reason I think you should focus on the research side. (for example: if you buy a domain for the current trafic and the link profile is kind of dark you could expect a full drop after you've bought it but if you buy it for the name of the domain even if it drops, the domain will recover eventually so it won't be an issue )

1. Buying a domain for the name  (brand or keyword).

2. Buying a domain for the history (back links)

3. Buying a domain for the current traffic.

Each of the three has a different "flow" in the review process.

Personally I've bought an old domain for the links in one of my client niche and I've only reviewed the domain for the future potential based on back-links and the investment turned out to be great even if the traffic was very very low.

Does Google treat bit.ly links differently?

** Yes, but the difference is small.

So bit.ly links are good as they use 301 redirects and although the official version is that they don't lose any page rank they do a little. From the 3o01 or else - it doesn't matter from where, but they do loose some. If you get any - that's fine - don't worry about it. If you build a link building strategy on those - that's another story and a good but very grey area

Hi,

As long as the response code returns a valid 404 code - it doesn’t matter how the page looks like or if they are different. Actually having custom different page not found it's a good usability thing - so it's great - but they need to return a valid 404 response code.

Hope it helps.

Sorry i don't have a link to the article or video - it's within moz though .. somewhere

Anyway - there is also a patent from Google with this approach - demoting rankings based on good / any seo tactic to spot natural links / changes and over optimized SEO techniques (so i won't call those spam techniques

The speed load of the entire is site is much more important. That, in correlation with the IP location can help you in some extent with your ranking but overall it's a small signal.

My opinion is to focus on the site speed (related with your question) and I strongly believe that since both Vancouver and Montreal are in Canada there won't be a difference as far as geo location of your host.

More then that if your site is fast, even if you host using a US host your ranking won't be affected. Since you have those options within Canada It's best, in my opinion, to go with the Montreal option as there is no difference as far as SEO benefit between the two options you've mention.

Hope it helps !

One add-on point: if you 301 redirect the co.uk to dot com your client might lose on CTR in the UK as english folks like anywhere else (well maybe France is making an exceptions as tehy only buy from Fr domains  are feeling more friendly towards regional domains (on most of the verticals).

Hi Rob,

You can check in Web master tolls the exact source (as exact urls) for the source of the links. if all are coming from the same domain - there is a problem there. If you think those links are bad for you - just disavow the entire domain, one line - and problem solved.

If you need links from this domain, but "not that many" you should take it up with them to solve it.

However - for this "boiler plate" type of links - I wouldn’t worry that much. If there are some issues with the links, google will just ignore and won't count them.

Cheers.

Hi,

URL format and length it's a ranking signal - that means shorter URLs are "more important" but only if there is a taxonomy in place. If all your URLs are directly on the root - then this doesn’t play any role. So if your domain has a lot of content and some or most is structured domain/folder/ and domain/folder/folder etc - then moving from /blog to the root will bring some signals that this content might be important.

But note that having short urls on the root directly it's not a roadmap to good rankings

On the user side - if the content is "blog related" - blogging, articles, opinions etc - then I would keep it on the /blog/ as it can influence the CTR in SERPs - that also depending on the queries of course and if it will match what users are expecting - a blog thing or some other resource ...

Hope it makes sense.

Cheers.

I would use rel canonical to make sure you tag the main url and set on the rest of the pages a rel canonical to the main page you've selected from the pool of the duplicate pages . This way those pages won't  compete with each other.

Duplicate content within your own website is not a Panda issue or a penalization issue - you are safe from this point of view but you loose a lot as you compete with yourself with several pages for the same keywords

Hope it helps.

Personally I am not sure what you mean by EE.UU. Can you explain ?

Overall -  regardless of the "target" most of the updates are pushed on all countries with some exception (china and japan) so I would't count on being able to do things that  I am not able to do if I target dot es or dot com or dot de and so on on other "less important" areas.

It's ok to count it like this: Usually Google splits the updates on English Queries and Non-English queries.  That means some updates are releases for dot com, UK, NZ, AU and so on and the same update is pushed on non-english queries ( with the exception of Chiana and Japan) on a separate date. No matter what - any update that was pushed on the English queries side it will find its way to the non english side.

Hi,

Yes, Google Analytics. You can setup site search in Google analytics and connect it with your site search filed and you can then gather the data, filter and work with that data, how did they land to that page, using what keyword and using your site search where do they went, for how long etc - the feedback is very complex and incredible valuable.

Cheers !

LJDigital is spot on.

First you need to create a web master tools account - if you don't have one already.

Here is how: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592?hl=fr

After that look into Web master tools -> Search Traffic -> Manual action and see if you have something there.

That would be a good start.

Hi,

It doesn't matter where you put the code it's all about the display and G can very well determine what is where.

As for the new algo change - it's about ads in general not only banners: adsense, banners, affiliate links etc

He can spot those with no problem as far as source/ placement/ style also based on user behavior and end of the road for the user (determine if the user is hitting the back button after a click or not and so the result can be : it's relevant for the user or not).

It's all about the ratio: content vs ads. You can place ads above the fold but if all / most of your traffic is going out via  those links then there is no reason for your content to be there or the site in the serps as there is no value for the user.

It makes sense overall - and even if in some cases we don't like it we do need to build for the users and then for conversion - whatever that conversion might be.

Hope it helps !

Hi,

First of all if you don't want to target LATAM or Spain you will need to setup in Web master Tools the target as US - even if the language is spanish.

Also very important is the use of hreflang attribute that you need to setup on those translated pages - this is very important. For more on hreflang see the google official resource at: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077

As far as structure /es like you've mention should be more then fine. No need to have any special settings or anything but is good to have everything in a separate folder.

Just my 2c.

Hey,

Each year the highest search volume on this topic is related with the same questions (keywords combinations) :

How to do a long pass ball in fifa 20xx ? How to score from free kicks tips fifa 20xx and so on.

There are tons of resources out there  - it's hard to find something new and the differences that fifa2015 will bring, like you said, they are not available at this stage. So if you want to be in shape by the time fifa 2015 hits the shelves get the best resources and present them in a nice friendly format, a "topic page" type as there is no resources like that so far for fifa fan boys (and girls of course). There are also tons of video but you need to dig for those - if you know your stuff, find those and bring them all together but don't focus too much on Google as that will follow if you do everything very user friendly. I would love to see a resource like that online and I am sure a lot other will too. Just capitalize on what's available: resources, videos and focus on the questions that people will search for related with fifa 2015...

Cheers.

Neither OSE and WMT is providing the real and full link profile. I have the same issue with several accounts.

But both can be a really good indicator if used together. Personally I use a 3 combo: WMT, OSE and the Majestic tool.

With those 3 powers combined (like in Captain Planet) you will have a really good feedback.

I use WMT as a primary tool when I have access and OSE and Majestic as second tier. I use OSE as the main tool for competition analysis and majestic as a backup - filling some gaps.

You can also try Raven for some additional feedback - but a agin, no tool will provide full100% accurate information.

Hope it helps.