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Thanks, I had wondered if it was location based but it wasn't making much sense - the computers used to check were all much nearer the head office than the satellite office that showed up top - in fact the satellite office is a long way away. We used three different machines and each time we got the same result. The smaller office is in Leicester (UK) and the head office in in Christchurch which is where where 2 checks were done, and another was done in Blandford, all getting Leicester come up top. Our head office address is the only one listed on Facebook etc so it's a bit odd. I've just tried it again and got a more local office showing, but it's still not head office. Thanks for the links to other posts and thanks for the suggestions: Verify all info is correct and the same business name is being used on major data providers such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local, etc. And be sure they are linking to your website. Here is the full list: https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us - **all the info on Google places is correct and the head office. Will see if there are other places we can list it though ** Make sure your full address is mentioned on your website contact page. - this is already the case Get quality backlinks from related websites and include the city(s) name in the anchor text.- will try this Use a local phone number area code and keep it consistent - we use a central call centre for most places although the local Leicester office that was showing above head offce uses a local number so even more strange that is should show as it's miles away Possibly have your smaller offices identify themselves with a specific location in their name - will look into Get more positive Google reviews for your office - will look in to but Leicester has no reviews so bit odd Include location and business keywords in your Google Maps description - already doing Thanks both

been there done that but you should not have problems finding references for that all over the web.. Although i must admit, most of my knowledge on GTM is from Simo's blog.and this one can help you out too. As i have mentioned earlier, as long as your user is coming form a browser newer than ie7 you should e fine. cheers

Even if you don't add news too often, it may be best to treat each news post like articles. Meaning, show the most recent 5 (just an example number) on the initial page, from which visitors can view older or "previous" news articles. That creates an organized and simple system for visitors to view the happenings of your company.

I don't understand the point of the external domain, either - I tend to agree with you that sub-folders would be perfectly fine here. Unfortunately, there are two issues at play: (1) You've got to direct the short, marketing URLs to the main site URLs. That's a relatively easy - you could either use rewrites or redirects (rewrites are probably better for humans, in this case). Google can't generally index URLs that are on printed materials, TV ads, billboards, etc. (unless people start linking to them or promoting them on social), so your SEO risks are pretty minimal. The safest bet would be a straight 301-redirect. (2) The other issue is the long/ugly URLs on the site in general. If you want to move the entire site to the short URLs and then use those short URLs for marketing, that's great, but then you'll need to 301-redirect the entire current site. There are definitely risks to that approach, and I'm not sure it's necessary here. The benefits really depend on the scope of the current site and whether the URL structure is creating problems, like spinning out duplicate pages. You could also potentially use rel=canonical to solve some problems, but again, changing your site-wide URLs involves risk. I wrote more on (2) here: http://moz.com/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seo

this isn't an exact answer, but i might be able to point you in a correct direction . you might be able to do a mod-rewrite by doing a redirection based on rewrite conditions. for example, we once used the following to send users to our non-https, www page if they enter on a https: url. fyi we use helicon's isapi mod rewriter at www.isapirewrite.com/ RewriteCond %{HTTPS} (on)? RewriteCond %{HTTP:Host} ^(?!www.)(.+)$ [NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+) RewriteRule .? http(?%1s)://www.%2%3 [R=301,L]

Yes that is one way. Here is a link to a bunch of methods to verify your site https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/verification-specifics If you have access to the Registrar (or know who does) then it's much easier to verify that way.

Not at all, I'm happy to help! I can only presume that the theme query you're getting is related to the WP/Joomla theme you're using.  Wouldn't be able to help specifically without seeing it, but I would assume that the URL without the "theme=default" at the end should be the canonical URL. For more stringent decisions - if you have a big amount of URLs and you're thinking of redirecting some, I'd start by looking at your analytics traffic - has any visitor come to your site via that URL within the last 60 days? If yes, I would definitely redirect.  If no, I'd ask this: Do you have any inbound links to that page? If you put in the root domain into Open Site Explorer and click on top pages and export the results into a CSV - you can see which pages have inbound links.  Those without links can be ignored, those with links should be 301'd (provided you are happy that the links are of a good quality), in order for you to preserve the link equity, or SEO 'strength', of the link.

Thanks. Just had some light shed on matter though - the GA code was only partly correct. There was one lot of code on some pages and another on the others. Unfortunately the majority had the wrong code and it has now been updated. I found the missing traffic on one of our old GA numbers. Still working on redirects though but they can't be done through our CMS - it's an ancient version of Alterian and one we are locked into for some time :(.

Hi Houses - I wasn't sure so tried to be none-gender specific - guys being used in the informal meaning persons of either sex - welcome to the community

Thanks Bryan

Thanks. We are using IIS6 - will take a look at the rewrite module you suggested. The site is verified with GWT but thanks for reminder to notify ref change of address.