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So sorry Cody!!

Sub-directories allow you to consolidate domain authority and often provide ease of maintenance. With the proper markup, you can create a clear signal to Google for the geotargeting.  I understand this isn't an option for you.

With subdomains, you lose some of the shared domain authority that gives sub-directories their advantage, and generally have to maintain separate installs, etc..  You can specify a geo within search console, but it won't be as effective as a ccTLD.

With ccTLDs, you can create a much quicker signal for geotargeting your traffic, but the domain authority for each site is generally wholly independent and will require more substantive effort to build the initial authority of each ccTLD, etc..  ccTLDs tend to earn better CTR from the SERPs in the geo, as they seem more likely to be relevant.

In your case, I would go with the ccTLDs..

-Jake

Hi Cody,

I typically recommend a subdirectory structure unless you foresee that the site/brand will be presented different in each country (e.g. you will have different products or service offerings), or if each site/brand will be managed by different development firms and/or hosted on different platforms.   By maintaining these within subfolders, you can often better manage your SEO by forcing consistency within the platform, and more easily contribute authority back to the parent (default) language at the root domain.

I hope this helps.

-Jake

Many times, you would simply noindex,follow the tag pages to prevent this.   Alternatively, you could look at conditionally noindexing the tag pages unless there is a minimum number of posts applied so as to prevent the tag pages from being indexed when they only have 1-2 blog posts associated, and therefore would be overly similar to the blog page itself.

Also, be sure to use snippets/excerpts on tag pages vs. the entire post.

-Jake

Hi Logan,

It is certainly possible that without actual pricing information, especially if it is an obvious ecom space, that the lack of pricing could be construed as an indicator of a gateway or affiliate site... as it would appear the transaction is unlikely to occur on that site.

The other possibility is that the lack of pricing is causing people doing research to more frequently bounce back to the SERPS and choose a competitor site for the info.... resulting in a signal to Google that while you are a strong candidate (deserving front page), you don't necessarily serve the majority of people performing the query and thus do not deserve #1-2,etc.

Have you tried adding a published price to a category/section and seeing if that has any type of impact?  Maybe you can talk the client into publishing the average retail price for the items and note that wholesale pricing is applied after logging in..  Also, Are there "add to cart" buttons despite not having pricing?

Please keep us posted as I'd love to hear how this plays out.

-Jake

Hi Ben,

For the specific issue you've noted, we simply need to add a snippet of code to your htaccess file to redirect all /index.php traffic to the root...   https://yoast.com/magento-seo/#www  Gives a good tutorial on how to do this depending upon where your base install is located.

If you are worried about duplicate content on product pages, I would definitely recommend you check out some of the SEO modules for magento (like yoast)... and fully check out that article on magento optimization.. they do a great job of covering the common magento issues, and I personally refer back to it quite often - https://yoast.com/magento-seo/

Cheers,

Jake

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/human-rights-advocate-mavis-leno/  -- Link is in the external links section with the anchor "Ms. Leno's Bio"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/20/eric-schmidt-google-alan-rusbridger -- Link is on anchor Jared Cohen

I didn't see the reference to a link from CNN.

-Jake

I would definitely check to make sure the canonical tag is being properly used.   Make sure it is an absolute url vs. a relative url.

That being said, please note that just because a canonical tag is in place, that doesn't prevent Google from crawling and indexing the page, and including the page in search results with the site:domain command.  If you see the canonicalized URLs outranking their canonical, then you can start to question why Google isn't honoring the canonical.

Please note that canonical tags are a recommendation and not a directive.. meaning Google doesn't have to honor them if they do not feel the page is truly a canonical.

-Jake

Consider this:  "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location

B would not be an acceptable approach as http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml could only contain a sitemap of content located in http://example.com/sitemap.   For this same reason, you couldn't create sitemaps in subfolder directories...

This is the best approach from those options you mentioned...

(a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml 
http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml

It is worth noting that you can have a sitemap of sitemaps.. so for example.

http://example.com/sitemap.xml could contain links to http://example.com/sitemap-cakes,  http://example.com/sitemap-articles, etc..
http://example.com/sitemap-cakes.xml could contain links to http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml, http://example.com/sitemap-vanilla-cakes.xml, etc..

Try not to over-complicate things by trying to create sub-category sitemaps, etc.. Unless you have an exorbitant amount of sub-category pages, or have directories/sections managed by different cms, etc.

You generally see large sites will have a separate sitemap based on content type (company pages, category pages, product pages, blog pages)

Topical relevance (LDA) has been positively correlated as one of the strongest onsite rankings factors (https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/correlations)  and as a result has been a driving factor behind sites adding additional contextual content.   In my experience, a well ranking site likely has a higher contextual relevance because it has comprehensive content on the topic demonstrating subject matter expertise...

As SEOs, we typically mimic those strategies that we know high-ranking sites have implemented in an effort to gain higher rankings ourselves.  For business that aren't subject matter experts, and simply add contextually relevant content, the result isn't often improved rankings for the target keyword (e.g.  iphone 5 coupons), but instead is an increase in the overall traffic to the site as a result of a broader set of long-tail keywords with rankings (get discounted iphone 5, best deal on iphone 5, etc.)

Hi Eric,

I understand it can be frustrating and challenging to succeed and manage client expectations when working in a competitive space where business may use tactics that your client is not comfortable with.  It's also unfortunate that links often have such a strong signal that rankings can still be achieved regardless of the quality of onsite SEO.

Typically many of the large publications no-follow their comment links and links on paid advertisements.  It is important to note that Google may still consider those links as part of some other signal and that achieving a placement on those sites can often lead to additional press, citations, etc. on other sites that may place followed links.

...  however, you must also consider that Google's goal is to confidently provide the website it believes searches will find most relevant to their query.  A few facts I quickly dug up on APB

• has been in business for over 50 years compared to your clients 10+ years.
• has a long history representing US Presidents, Foreign Prime Ministers, Martin Luther King, Andy Worhal, Mikhail Gorbachev, Dan Rather, etc. etc..
• has a record in the Guinness World Book as largest lecture agency in the world.
• has been receiving legitimate press with a 10 page feature in the NYT, repeat coverage in Newsweek, etc. since the 1960's

Regardless of the link sources, etc..  this business is in the knowledge graph and Google can reliably and confidently present this business to people searching for competitive terms. Now that I've tooted their horn a little, please don't feel overwhelmed or interpret this to mean you can't compete with large global companies that have a long history of success and are well established in the SERPs... this is why I love SEO.

However, to be successful, you need to change your mindset a little and focus on what you can control:

1. Instead of focusing on those highly competitive terms, you are going to have to "chip away" by finding and establishing your authority within various niches. Is there a specific industry or topic area where your client is more strong?  APB appears to have invested heavily in the civil rights space at one time, and also in the global leaders space.
2. Instead of counting their links and judging their link building practices, ask what you can do to build your own authority?  Can you build press around your clients talent?  Does your client sponsor/donate for charitable events?  Has your client written "the Bible" on various topics within the speaking industry?  Does your client have an internal publicist or PR agency getting their executives international speaking engagements?
3. What can your client do that they can't?  If you want to rank #1, you have to be better than them... make sure that message is clear to every person and machine....

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Jake

Links still appear to carry significant weight in the search results, and as such link building is not dead. The challenge is how your organization can effectively build link using legitimate methods that will not place you on Google's radar for violating their guidelines.

To date, it seems the most effective way to do this is through content and brand building efforts, with links being the positive by-product of generating effective/useful content and relationships.

Essentially... white hat link building is the byproduct of good content building.

Hi Fabrizo,

Unfortunately, the lines can be easily blurred when taking the definitions of "link scheme" at face value, which implies any link that is obtained for the sake of manipulating search results could be considered part of a link scheme.  It is important to note that this "rule" has evolved significantly over time, and the article you are referencing is over 9 years old...  Things have changed.

To answer your specific concern.. yes.. offering discounts in exchange for a link could easily be weighted heavily as "paying" for the link... in much the same way as offering products for reviews, profile upgrades, and other incentivized link development are considered today to be outside of the guidelines.

Google's goal is to encourage you to create value with your content, products, and business relationships in a way that will earn links without the discussion having to be around getting the links themselves.   For example, you discount your products in general, offering them at a lower cost than competitors, and deal sites and similar want to link to you as the best place to obtain them.

I know the ambiguity in the guidelines can create some confusion, and I hope that I was able to help clear it up a little.

Thanks,

Jake

Hi Cody,

I can understand and sympathize with your frustrations with the wordpress multilingual features.   If placing in subfolders is not an option, placing in subdomains or on the cctld are the next best alternatives.  Please note that as long as you do proper tagging with the hreflang tags, you shouldn't see any issues, etc.. as these sites/subdomains will all be linked and authority shared between them based on their being alternates.

-Jake

Hi Greg,

As Moz's Open Site Explorer (like most other link indexing tools) crawls sites independently to discover links pointing back to your site, there is often disparity between the numbers reported between of them and with what Google reports in Search Console.

That being said, Moz will likely find these links eventually, they just may be in the queue for indexing, or were not present the last time Moz visited those site's pages.

Thanks,

Jake

Hi Dmitrii,

If you are wanting to bid on [B & B] as well as [B and B] you will need to input both as separate keywords, as google sees these as two distinct characters, and there is no [exact match] that allows for both the & or and.

-Jake Bohall

It would be safe to assume that Panda considers engagement metrics as part of its analysis of site/page quality.  For example, a page with additional UGC, comments, shares, etc.. is likely to indicate a higher quality of content than a page without any of those factors.

• Jake Bohall

This should also lend some perspective as to why SEOs typically recommend at least 250 unique words per page ...    I think with Google paying more attention to Main Content separate from supplemental, etc.  code uniqueness may be less relevant than it has been in the past... but overall, you should still strive to ensure your pages have a clear distinct purpose/value conveyed by the main content of the page that is easily distinguishable from other pages of your site.

Hi Tej,

If you have Google Search Console set-up for the site, you can fetch/render the page from within search console and see what Google sees when they visit.

You can also try looking at the cache of the page to see what Google has rendered.

Also.. in response to B above, you should create a method to access that page directly via a specific unique URL, for which you can then specify the titles/descriptions.  In the application, where you have the links to load new content via ajax, you would set the pushstate to the permanent url where that page could be accessed, so Google can find/crawl those pages.

Typically you want to minimize url length by removing stop words, prepositions, etc. unless they are creating value within the URL.      e.g.  bunny-on-stool  vs. bunny-stool

I wouldn't go as far as to say it is bad for SEO, but there are some schools of thought that minimizing the number of words in a URL "concentrates" relevance around those terms remaining.   That being said, I'm confident Google already ignores common stop words and phrases, and this isn't something I would go about changing in an existing URL structure.

You'll notice some sites, such as wordpress, by default remove the prepositions, etc. from the URLs.

This shouldn't be the case, as these page have unique content and are referenced with unique canonical URLs.

Where are you seeing this as duplicate content?