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well you need to find someone good - and that is hard - i suppose its word of mouth - and now you have just endorsed EGOL and Alan - they may get more work!

This is a great question and feel that some type of disclaimer or warning should be placed somewhere quite clearly on the QA.

I strongly recommend paying for advice - and make sure the individual has done what you are trying to do.

thanks to you too Alan

Ryan thanks for your help !!!!!

ok thanks ...will think about this

Ryan - yep sorry did not mean to sound critical - apologies -

I found your sugesstions very helpful -

...you are right ... I need to forget about my old blog .but part of the reason I posted this problem is to illustrate the complexities of moving from worpdress.com to .org - in fact I was prompted by Lara's questions and the following responses http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-are-the-issues-with-changing-my-domain

I just felt she was heading into a whole range of issues that were not being flagged - really if you ahve never moved an established wordpress blog to a .org shouldnt you at lesat declare that point to Lara - i am not trying to be harsh but just pointing out you dont know what you dont know

...well i find the 301 confusing so I would like to remove it....but my blog only got position 3 after it joined the main website - its not like the blog was powerful on its own - surely I need to manipulate the internal linking or changing the key term of the garden art blog category as suggested by Ryan Kent (response 1)? is that OK?

http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/

hey thanks for your detailed response

Issue 1 - the 301 redirect is in the htaccess - redirecting http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/category/garden-art/ to http://www.gardenbeet.com - that is OK is it not?

I dont think changing the focus of the key search terms for the blog articles is a great idea - but I may be wrong..Oh just re-read your advice ...OK will do ..thanks good response

.but am also thinking perhaps my blog should have stayed on the wordpress domain because the blog architecture mirrors the website . The blog's categories were all broken into the search terms that the website was chasing - ie the blog was supporting my main site for its key terms. Each time I wrote an artciicle on garden art I would link back to www.gardenbeet.com on the words garden art as my home page was optimised for garden art

Issue Two - the meta desriptions are missing for each tag of the blog - i was not aware that each tag and category even got a url - this is a huge amount of work - but I suppose I just have to fix

Issue three - once again I just have  to fix?

What I am trying to highlight (plus get some help) to others -  its not that easy to migrate a well established blog into your website - but responses on this forum seem to indicate that its not that difficult -

Hi there

A while back I asked whether I should move my established blog on wordpress over to my main website http://www.gardenbeet.com.

The overwhelming response was to move it.

I still have not seen any benefit other than problems (2mths later). Maybe something is Not Quite Right?

Here is a list of issues? Any insights would be welcome. I have installed Yeost SEO plugins

1. A blog category (garden art) ended up outranking my main website for the term Garden Art - so I did a 301 on the garden art category - main website has now regained its ranking in the top 3 position (was number 2 before the move).

2. I have removed the categories from the blog as a 301 on the Garden Art catgegory would not make sense to a user. I decided to use tags as a navigational tool instead. I figured that because I have over 500 tags I could not have had the tags out rank my main website for any key term.  So far correct. But now i have wanings from SEO moz

500 missing meta tags,(for the tags) - do i really have to write over 500 meta?

over 160 long urls and titles - when i commenced the blog I had no idea that Urls and headings were linked in wordpress ( my developer does not think i should rename the urls and use a 301 as I already have a tonne due to a site rebuild) - is it OK to leave the long urls and fix the title only?

On wordpress I had bewteen 400-900 users on my blog a day (using wordpress analytics) - now only 200 (using GA) -

Yes I now have increased links to my website but have seen no imrpovement on my SERPS - will i see an improvement in my rankings? my wordpress  site use to have page rank of 3 -

Lara - no not really - my developer and I have been fumbling around - really if you find someone tell me!!!!

i have just posted a question about my problems - hopefully this may help you http://www.seomoz.org/q/moving-wordpress-to-main-website-errors-galore

Hey Lara - I had a similar situation whereby I moved a well established blog from wordpress to my main business domain - I have had numerous problems (eg my blog began to outrank my main website for critical search terms). The tags and categories get their own url (at least mine did) which means  you need to optimise each of those tags/categories or you start getting a tonne of warnings from SEOmoz - I have over 200 tags, 6 categories plus around 300 posts - that is a lot of optimising -

I am sure all these points are resolvable but I am just wishing to point out its not that easy if you dont fully understand the implications of what you are doing - I would get help from someone who has done it before-

by the way since moving my blog over I have lost visitors and key search positions on my main website -some of it is now settling but I dont feel out of the woods yet - it has been very bumpy for me

hey thanks - i have found it works very well too - but just began to wonder what the general feeling was amongst SEO people

Is it OK to repeat the Meta Title as the H1 - word for word?

ooo take that back - there are posts under garden art without a link to home page - thank you for picking that up!!!

i have already done 301's from my old wordpress site to my new blog location on my main domain..

also I cant really use a cross domain canonical to direct traffic from my blog to home page - its not the same content?

yes, thatnks - that is the long term plan

hey thanks for your response - in general if i have written a post about garden art I would have a link back to the home page on the term garden art in the post

also the top menu has a link to the home page through the SHOP

where else should i place a link?

My blog was on wordpress.com for over 18mnths and I have just moved it to my domain - rankings are charging as a result - up and down!

My current concern is my google.co.uk search position for garden art - my home page http://www.gardenbeet.com  has been number 2 for over 12 mnths - now my blog is number 2 http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/garden-art/

this is not the best landing page to generate sales from my shop - any suggestions?