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I don't know that there is "structure" that you can implement as far as having categorical pages. However, an easy way to fix this would be to use the canonical tag. Moz defines it as "A canonical tag (aka "rel canonical") is a way of telling search engines that a specific URL represents the master copy of a page. Using the **canonical tag **prevents problems caused by identical or "duplicate" content appearing on multiple URLs."

That way you can tell google which of the two you really want them to index. Otherwise you have to change the content enough that google see's it as different content.

Hey!

I'm seeing that you have 1,300 Domains linking to you and 21,000 individual links going towards your site. Are you seeing different numbers?

You will never have an exact answer as to how many backlinks there are to your site. Moz, ahrefs, Majestic, and Search Console will all tell you different answers. So you decide what your source of truth is. I personally feel that Google Search Console is the ultimate authority. Moz is my second source of truth because Moz find the most similar answer to Google. You can download a backlink report from Search Console as well!

EGOL, along with a few others on this board, aided me in a similar situation, and no matter how many times I tried to ask the question by altering my language or spinning it in a different light the bottom line was simple, I needed outside assistance. If you are being penalized, there is a very different course of action to be taken given the circumstances. If the competing website is merely ranking better because it was optimized more effectively, that opens another avenue of action.

Again, these are questions that ultimately are much bigger than the forum can answer. In my situation we had 1500 domains that had been built into a link wheel. After a lot of analysis and slowly unraveling the web, we were/are left with 5 domains that are still active, and we have built a plan around 301s. A lot of content movement, content cutting, relinking, etc. Also building new links to replace a lot of the old ones that were removed.

This process has been going on for the past 8 months and continues to be monitored pretty consistently.

If you are not getting receiving Manual Actions from Google, and you are still making some income I personally would act swiftly but be smart. I'm happy to share our solution with you if you want as well!

So this is just a thought. I am not Rand, therefor I am not the Moz man himself, and therefor I am not telling anybody how to run this website or forum. But, I've been thinking... and usually that a dangerous thing. So many times when I answer a question I end it with:

• "Keep me posted"
• "Keep us updated"
• "Good Luck"

In the same light there have been plenty of times when I have had my questions answered by people like EGOL, RobertFIsher, KeriMorget and they have said that they have wanted me to keep them posted.

Now sure, some of you are sitting there being Melancholy Mozzers thinking that all those wonderful people are just being polite by adding some nice parting words... but what if I they are being Sincere Seoers? What if I WANT to fill them in and don't want to ask a question? What if... THEY REALLY LIKE ME?!?!

I could also send a DM to those 3 people, I mean let's get honest I'm not THAT popular.... but I can dream can't I?

Again, this isn't really an SEO question, more of a thought on where I'm supposed to give updates on my project. In all honesty I do want feedback on what I'm doing, and sometimes I don't even know what questions I'm supposed to ask!

Well, you have a few options....

oDesk is an example of a great resource. It's basically an online marketplace to pitch projects overseas. They have a few systems set in place to make sure the person is actually working as opposed to checking Facebook or answering Moz questions all day.

eLance essentially the same thing as above. Started out more design heavy as I remember it and more US oriented although that may have changed.

Craigslist, Glassdoor, Monster, SimplyHired.com- Search for SEO Consultant, SEO Manager etc.

What you have laid out are pretty simple SEO upkeep, as far as stuff like title tags, redirects, anchor text etc. and MOZ is an amazing program to help you find all of those things, the problem is getting someone to actually utilize MOZ in a way that helps you. Moz in the hands of my father, is a really cool program that looks nice and makes some really nice email reports that he forwards me numerous times a day. Moz in my hands, becomes an actual tool that can be manipulated. And trust me when I say, I am a peon in comparison to most on these boards.

The problem with the SEO industry that I am a part of, as well as the Graphic Design industry, as well as Social Media is that everybody is either The Best, #1, Guarantees Results, or something like that and in turn can't perform, and ends up giving the rest of us a bad name. At the end of the day, you will have to find someone who you trust, or go with an agency.

LinkedIn is a great resource. The power of referrals is pretty amazing. And honestly these forums from what I have observed are pretty amazing too.

I will leave you with this... You pay with bananas, you are gonna get monkeys.

James,

Google is smart. Very smart. I would wager that Google is able to identify the difference between the usage of word in plural form, rather than a separate word all together.

When was the last time you searched for one word? People don't use Google/Yahoo/Bing for one or 2 word searches anymore, so my immediate suggestion is optimize for which ever term makes the most sense for the phrase you are optimizing for.

Use the keyword tools. Are people searching for "Green watermelon lollipop" or "cheap, bulk, lollipops" and then optimize from there. As far as it being an other language, you will just have to find out whats the most common term.

If I start a website that sells glasses I'm not gonna call it SpectacleShop.com, unless I want to target the geriatric community. Regardless, find what the most common term for lollipop is, and then optimize for the phrase that works for what you are selling. For what people are searching. Google is in the business of providing information. You need to make it as easy as possible for Google to provide YOUR information.

Also this is a good Moz thread on this same topic http://moz.com/community/q/singular-vs-plural-seo

Hope this helps!

Dirk brings up a great point. No tool is the same, and although there is crossover there is always going to be differences. Personally I always found Majestic to be the most exhaustive for simply backlinks, SEMRush for simply SEM/PPC and Moz is the best solution as an all inclusive tool with a little bit of everything.

That being said, there is no actual timeline for indexing backlinks. If you had a backlink from Apple/CNBC, I would bet that would be indexed almost immediately because Google sees value in those websites and knows they are updated often. If you have a backlink from a website that hasn't been updated in the past year, and they have no traffic, it will take a little before the link gets indexed.

Only Google knows the answers to your question, only we can speculate. If it is showing up, and you don't have any nofollow titles on your links then the backlinks will show up.

Also, I have to comment, the link example you gave, isn't exactly the pinnacle of a healthy website. It looks rather spammy. Now I may be wrong, but there Is minimal organization and no apparent relation between the topics, I personally, would hesitate to accept a link from that source.

Yeah, I did notice that, I wasn't exactly sure as to how it functioned. Thank you for clarifying the timeline too!

Brad,

"I'm sorry this Moz Response is so long, I didn't have the time to make it short" -Blaise Pascal

I agree with everything said above and I want to expand on what Mike said about replacing the pages. Just looking at the two pages from an analytic standpoint your PA drops 10 points. That is probably a combination of how the pages are optimized, the amount of links going out, links coming in, etc.

In my humble opinion, and trust me I am merely a peon amongst SEOmnipotent members on this forum, it might be worth the time putting some calls to action & to make the home page LOOK more like the store, and from there it just ports you over.

You said yourself that the homepage is getting a lot of traffic. Personally, before taking the risk of switching the homepage and doing something drastic like altering the architecture I would look at trying to drive traffic organically to your store.

Your website is full of great potential resources which will help you rank. Google is in the business of providing information. The boating community for example, could be a GREAT place to throw some extra time and try and generate more traffic and interaction.

EGOL & RobertFisher both answered a question for me the other day and provided some great insight about general SEO best practices and driving traffic. EGOL also followed up with a fantastic article which talked about Google's EAT program. Having a boating forum could help your SEO immensely, which could help your ranking, which in turn could help your sales.

EAT Article: http://www.thesempost.com/google-rewrites-quality-rating-guide-seos-need-know/

It's all a big cycle. Good luck!

I think that was a lot more than you were asking, but I couldn't help!

Touche...... Robert..... Touche.....

To address my point more thoroughly, when people are searching for something and include a geo-location, I almost consider that a separate metric. It is adding a very specific term to the search engine then restricts to a location. I don't think most people utilize their browsers capability to it's full potential, and most people don't realize that you could just search for plumber and most likely Google is going to determine the best results for your area. (I could be completely wrong on all of this by the way).

When I look for a plumber in Los Angeles I usually search for "Plumber Who Has The Best Plumbers Crack, Los Angeles, Ca" You don't? I kid. I completely agree with you in this regard. If I am looking for a store/service/restaurant in a specific location then yes I would agree.

In a general sense, if I was just searching for something, coffee, lollypops, turtles, I would never search for something in such a general sense. Now unfortunately I often have to come to terms with the fact that just because I do something, doesn't mean everybody else does, however, even my mother tells me she types full sentences into Google when she searches.

Now I know you are sitting there asking yourself how this all relates to plurals? The point I was trying to make originally was that once the phrase is determined to be most beneficial for SEO purposes, optimize from there. I would bet that regardless there will be enough times where both words have to be used just to make it grammatically correct.

At the end of the day the Lollipop vs Lollipops will lead you to the same place, much like your statement below. Both Lollipop & Lollipops have been used 5 times (well 6 now) in this thread. They both seem pretty optimized to me. I mean, this page alone will probably be #1 on Google for Lollipop & Lollipops! (7)

Regardless I agree with what Robert said below. Robert has drastically more experience than I do, I would defer to what he said in a heartbeat!

Thanks!

Lollipop (8/7)

It's hard to expand on this topic after what was just written, however I will reiterate pretty much every point that was stated above. Nofollow links are still links and the source of the link can have a large impact on your website. For example, Wikipedia links are Nofollow, but I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody who would say a Wikipedia link is not worth it. There is also argument on how much nofollow links actually affect SEO.

Although they technically don't add any link juice, Google can still see the categorization and labeling. If your website has 100 no follow links from Car Repair websites, to a page on your site about Car Repair, that will still help Google identify what your page/site is about.

Anyway, any link is worth it in my opinion, as long as it can benefit you in some way. I.e. exposure, positive SEO, conversions, etc. And the other website isn't utilizing any negative/blackhat tactics.

-Hope this helps!

Lvet,

Good morning! Well, there are a few things to keep in mind here. Matt Cutts has said a lot in regards to duplicate content, and people taking content. If someone posts an article & then it is copied and then posted somewhere else Google looks at a lot of factors to determine who will get credit for the article; who posted first, who has more authority and trustworthiness etc.

In this case, not only does your website appear to have more authority, but you also posted first, so on a surface look, it would appear like this is going to hurt them more than going to hurt you. Adding the rel-cannonical tag is basically telling search engines that you know this is the same content as somewhere else, and that you only want one version to be indexed. Search engines have also said that they pay attention to them, but are not obligated to follow it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LsB19wTt0Q Matt Cutts video on the duplicate content and how to make sure you get credit.

My advice, encourage them to rewrite your their content because it will help them bring business and rank better with Google! You kill 2 birds with one stone. You get your page back, and they get their own content!

Hope this helps!

Ketan,

I'm going to encourage them to publish only fresh content on their real blog, would you agree?

If you look at pretty much any of the blog posts on these forums you will see that more and more everything comes back to content. Original content. Original Content. Did I mention original content? EGOL shared a link with me and I'm sharing it again on another post but it's pertinent.

http://www.thesempost.com/google-rewrites-quality-rating-guide-seos-need-know/

Content used to be king and he wants his thrown back!

Can this actually harm the ranking of their blog and website - should we delete the old entries when migrating the blog?

Duplicate content is something that I am working a lot with right now. There is a difference between duplicate content and plagiarism. What needs to be determined is how the are using this content. Matt Cutts said that roughly 25% of the internet is duplicate content, and a lot of duplicate content is ok, for example if you were writing an analysis, or writing commentary on one of those blog posts then of course there is going to be some duplicate content. That sort of this would be ok.

If they are simply taking the article, and posting it, yet still giving credit, then no its not really doing anything except potentially giving your blog traffic. Take social bookmarking websites for example. Let's look at digg.com. A long time ago digg used to take the entire article and post it to their page and you could actually view everything within their website and everything was all gravy. Now, that doesn't work so well. Now, digg usually writes a little blurb, and provides a link.

Google will look at duplicate content, determine which ever is the best representation of the content, usually who wrote it first, who has the strongest domain etc, and gives the credit to them. The other thing too is that these websites, Havard, NPR, etc have in their favor is that they are prob indexed often enough to guarantee that they are going to get credit first.

As to the question about deleting them. I don't think you necessarily need to delete them, depending on how many articles exist, how much traffic they generate etc. There is a lot to look at. If nobody is looking at them, then sure, you can always do a 301 to one of your new blog posts later down the line. Or maybe your first posts are rewrites or analysis of the articles. Regardless I would provide a link on all of the pages letting people know where you got the information, that way nobody can say you were trying to steal the information.

My thought on this whole thing. If it makes you uncomfortable, it's gonna make Google feel uncomfortable.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

Matt Cutts on Duplicate content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZY7EmjbMA&feature=kp

Matt Cutts on Original content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LsB19wTt0Q

Check this post out. In reference to a similar question.

Basically the TLDR is that unless it looks like blatant PBN/SPAM/Manipulation google doesn't seem to concerned.  I have plenty of backlink that are 75% spam score and higher. Obviously I don't recommend looking for links that are super high spam score but I would put your effort into link acquisition as opposed to link cleanup.

Although you have more than enough answers I figured I would chime in since I have had some experience with this. Bottom line, whatever work you put in, you will get out. Google progressively becomes more and more intelligent and is more and more capable of determining who wrote what first. Simply put, there is no easy way to get content anymore. Search Engine Land wrote a great article about content.

Now, we are in a time where EVERYBODY writes content. I'm not totally sure what you do but I'm guessing its wedding photography? I personally think that utilizing your creative gift of photography for links is a great idea. Maybe think of some other ways you can leverage that talent. Make an infographic of how wedding photography has changed over the years, or a youtube video on the 10 best wedding tips. As a wedding photographer (if that's what you do, I'm sure you have plenty of tips that are outside of box.

Remember, if you pay with bananas you are gonna get monkeys. Same goes with SEO. If shortcuts were easy and effective, they would just be the way.

I figured I would add a general link suggestion before I respond.

1. Before you do anything, measure twice cut once.
2. Plug your domain into the Open Site Explorer and see if you can find the same links that GWMT is showing.
3. Head over to Majestic and verify ownership of your website and make sure you can find these links.

After those are done, if the links are indeed there, start asking yourself these questions:

• Does the potential referral benefit your website at all?
• Is the content pertinent to your website?
• Does the website make YOU uncomfortable? (My personal theory is that if it makes you uncomfortable it's going to make Google uncomfortable. That doesn't include ethics/morals etc, I am strictly referring to the website itself.)
• Check the link itself and find which page on the other website its coming from. Are the links in various comments, pictures, some block text? How are the links themselves being displayed?

At the end of the day, it's going to be your decision of how to proceed with this. After looking a bit more thoroughly and after my 2nd cup of coffee I agree with Travis wholeheartedly. With the general trend of Panda, I personally assume it's just a matter of time before those links are worthless if they aren't already. Who knows what these guys are up to, it looks to me like a project that started well and was sorta taken over by the sea of the internet!

Hope this helps!

Well, we have taken the big parts, like the valuable metas, and made sure those were visible, and over the next month or two we are slowly adding pieces of the content back into the main portion of the page.

A lot of the content was just fluff, and really wasn't helping us. Our original website was 600 pages, of those 600 pages only about 40 were actually ranking, so what we did across the board was make new pages to exemplify our services better, with better URL's, better optimization etc, then we took the old pages that were currently ranked, and brought them over UNTOUCHED with the same url and are putting them in the blog section.

Over the next month, we will slowly be pushing people to the pages we want people to be landing on. So, essentially, all of the ranked content is still on the site, in one way or another, in as untouched as possible. We also added new, optimized content, that is now the core of our website, and did a lot of outside marketing to help add to the potential traffic loss from a site redesign.

We relaunched on Sunday, and so far our numbers are pretty on par! So, we will see, I will keep you updated!

-Evan

GentleMozers,

If I may. I think this is when the lines of SEO/Social Media/Marketing become slightly blurred. All of you have touched on a very key point that people simply enjoy it! There are numerous studies, like one by Kissmetrics which show that Facebook posts get 30% more interaction than pure text posts.

I would say it not a stretch to assume the same applies to a website. I personally think there are plenty of other tactics to try and implement before I choose to get rid of the main imagery. Not only that, but with the Parallax/jQuery style of website you technically can have your H1 sit on top of your image, so you get the best of both worlds!

I honestly think that my visitors enjoy these images... but they don't determine the rankings of my pages in search.

EGOL I would be curios to know more about this. I mean yes, happiness unfortunately doesn't directly correlate to SERP's but Google must take into account visits. I know it isn't black and white that one image isn't going to make or break a website completely, but there are many times that I have been to a website and been severely distraught by the pixelated imagery and my trust in the company is diminished immediately, even if it's only a little. I guess I'm "cyber-shallow". That in turn, leads to a chain of self-destruction and questioning why I ever went to the website, severe crying, lot's of rocking back of forth. I'm being sarcastic of course, but I think you get my point. Happiness does correlate to rankings, even indirectly.

Getting people to your website is only half the battle, if they don't stay and do something to benefit your business/service/complete a goal that's potentially a lost opportunity. You only get one chance to make a first impression, make sure it's a good one!

Just my thoughts!

Matt Cutts on Sitewide Backlins That pretty much will tell you everything you want to know.

As far as the domains being spammy, really that's going to have to be a personal decision. Just because the word directory is in the name, it isn't a spam site. Just because there is a hyphen, doesn't make it spam. Google is progressively becoming more and more powerful, and more and more capable at telling what is real, and what isn't.

Visit those websites, do they look like spam to you? Do they look like a directory listing site do you? If you worked at google, and had to do a site audit, would you ding someone for linking those sites?

Really for all intensive purposes wikipedia was a directory, and then it started getting powerful, and gaining traction, and then it was being abused.

Anyway, I guess to answer your question, you will have to look at the websites to actually know the answer. Is the website functioning as merely a place to gather links? Then yes, it is probably spam.

EDIT: Also, at first I thought this was a competitor analysis, but considering that you are mentioning disavow, I will presume this is for you. The disavow tool is VERY powerful, and I would use it very sparingly. Do what you can to organically remove the links before disavowing them. Not only that but if you still have links from these sources, you are still getting some sort of juice, so build a bridge before burning a bridge. Replace those links with new ones, from legit sources. Write some press releases, post some solid social media, reach out to bloggers etc.

Good morning!

Before you go cutting 10,000 404's I personally would try and address why your getting 404 errors for your RSS Feed.

Having 10,000 errors is a broad number, plenty of those could be duplicates, and some of those are probably not just related to the RSS Feed. If there is anything I have learned in SEO is that I can almost never use broad strokes when painting, and if I do, I have to be absolutely SURE what my brush is covering. A little while back Matt Cutts made a video about RSS feeds and the benefit they can have to websites. They are not as important as the blog itself, but still, it's a nice feature that you could take advantage if you already have.

The reason I bring this up; if you make the broad statement the restrict /feed/ how to you know for certain that you aren't cutting off other pages that have helped?

I don't know enough about your website to truly advise but I would take a look at all of those errors, put them into a spreadsheet and first get rid of all duplicates and pull out all of the /feed/ 404's to try and get as specific of a number as possible.

Look in your referrals in GWMT and GA and see if your RSS feed is bringing you traffic/referrals at all. If it isn't helping then I think you can put a 410 code for the /feed/ although as pointed out to me, there really isn't much benefit for using the 410 over just letting the 404s die on their own.

Hope that helps a little!