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We have this across about 30,000 products (yea, that many). I can't stress enough how much of a duplicate page/title content mess it can become. If your system allows for canonical and pagination it's totally worth the effort.

I've run into problems with news releases getting lots of inbound links and then ranking higher/better than core pages that I'd rather have ranking for similar subject matter/keywords.

I link back to my site, to help tie together content matches that I think can help the user/reader. I keep in in check depending on the length of the blog piece, the intricacy of the topic (is it jargon heavy or really technical?) and work from there.

Good content, to me, does match up to SEO because you're targeting what your user cares about and looking for. Using the same best practices makes sense. (You can have great content but if you didn't SEO it well, then how easy is it for people to find to know it's good?) Don't go overboard because it can seem spammy and be a reader turn off.

Google sometimes will do this if it thinks that the deeper page (in this case) is a more relevant to the search query. And, optimizing is merely a way to indicate to Google what you want them to think a page is about; there's no promise that Google will agree.

Even with a small website, something outside of the homepage will rank - Google will crawl the site and offer up additional pages to searchers if they think there's good content there, regardless if you intentionally optimized said page or not. Trying to block out all the other pages isn't necessarily the best strategy. Rather than look at how your other pages work against you, look at how they can work for you. If you didn't put a no index tag on the page and it's already ranking, that's not a solution that works best for after the fact (but something to keep in mind as the site grows).

Sounds like part of the problem is that even with a few pages you cannibalized by trying to only use one keyword/variation. Even if the content isn't 100% the same, Google can interpret it as similar enough. Dr Pete did an excellent blog that may be able to offer some insight. I'll preface that he wrote about duplicate content, however it goes through when to use things like canonicals (not something that fits your case) so it may be helpful to at least read up and confirm what won't fix it: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world (he specifically mentions how canonicalizing your site to one URL can do lots of damage).

Well, there's a lot of ways to look at this - this wouldn't result in more pages indexed, so the two issues are totally separate.

If the goal is to get more pages indexed, then a site map (either XML or event a text list) uploaded to your server for Google to find can help. Or, at least that makes sure that Google is finding and indexing the pages you want them to find. Your Google Webmaster Tools account (assuming you have one) will also tell you some data.

For example, we used to have 100K+ pages; many weren't quality content I wanted to rank. Like, a PDF of a catalog ranking about the product page. So, I reduced the number of pages indexed so Google would have better, more quality content to serve to searchers.

Using Xenu or Screaming Frog is another good way to help uncover pages. Those tools crawl your site like Google would,then you can download the file and not only see all the URLs found, but also if they are 301/404/200, etc. And, Screaming Frog can crawl your site and output a XML sitemap for you (it's an easier way to make one).

I prefer SF and it's about $150 US dollars for the use - well worth it.

As for why - well, if you have a lot of pages, Google doesn't always find them. That's where a site map can help  (it directs Google what to crawl). Otherwise, there could be technical issues to a bunch of pages and they aren't properly linked up or something and that could be causing the issue.

I agree - and also look at any possible technical issues. if the on page is good, then most likely something else is afoot. I won't speak to if it was for sure Penguin because I don't want to speculate.

And what I mean by technical issues: is a page looking fine but registering a header check of a 404/500? (I mean via a tool like this: http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/check-server-headers-tool/). Or is Webmaster registering an unusually high spike in errors? Those things can add up and have an impact, too.

Part of PR Web's price point includes (in my experience) how much detailed reporting you get. They should give you something; I will say that even though the initial cost is more, the best analytics I have gotten came from PR Newswire. And I also go a way broader scope of coverage that most can't match. However cost always plays a factor in these decisions.

They should share with you a sample of what reporting you'll get so you can see how comprehensive it is.

Keep in mind that there's a difference in being picked up and just getting a list of websites the release appears on. That's all part of their agreement with news outlets; getting your release re-posted on dozens of sites doesn't have the same "oomph" as a real news outlet opting to run it (you can usually tell the different because it's not a verbatim rehash of what's exactly in your release but rather a more edited version of the content). So, part of it also depends on what you want: a bunch of links or Web postings or real news coverage. Those have two very different intents.

Putting the same thing all over the place isn't a solid strategy. You risk confusing search engines and ultimately working against yourself.

Deeper pages that rank help lift the authority of the main URL/domain. (Think like a pyramid; the more "voted" content you have on your site, the better.) Obviously for you, links to your main URL (which can often be the easiest to get) should be manageable for you to achieve. Good luck!

I think Ben outlines some great, actionable steps - there's one word of caution I'll throw out and that it's not necessarily that easy, depending on how your back end is set up.

I recently looked at something similar, and because of issues hosting WP (with PHP) on our server, we had to worry about hacking and the integrity of our shopping cart checkout system being vulnerable. So that wasn't a viable option to set it up as a sub folder and we had to look at a subdomain and pointing Apache at WP. (I don't want to bore you with all the technical vetting we went through, just suffice to say that theory and reality don't always go hand-in-hand.)

If you want to rank for more terms, then you have to have a place to put that content so Google can make the association, right? We also believe in three levels and it's pretty justified for many business (us: printers -portable printers - brand name portable printers). That's not unusual and your audience most likely won't think much of it.

As long as the content and long tail words make sense to your site and will be of value to the user, you should be fine.

Yes, no question. It's the major leagues compared to minors as far as the quality and reach. However, I'll qualify that with this: I don't believe in sending out releases just to get links; I think there has to be news value (as these releases are actually sent to media outlets and they don't like their time wasted) so I'd rather pay the premium for better reach and reporting. BusinessWire also has great options. The rest out there I've never had the same kind of impact with.

It could also do with Google determining that your page is a high quality one, so it now gets more visibility. Or, the number of inbound links has increased, which also influences rank. Personalization could be at play, depending on how you went about discovering the ranking change, so if you want to confirm, check it with SEOMoz's Rank Tracking to get a non personalized result.

A lot of SEO can be undone/is reversible; the kicker is it's easier to go down faster than it is to get it back up. Changing things doesn't automatically (even when done correctly) mean you won't see a drop before a pick up. Google claims to be moving away from "exact" matches in keywords and more toward understanding content (example: degrees and certifications often have to do with acquiring knowledge and learning).

My advice? Page title is one of the most important things Google looks at; make your count. If you are trying to do multiple things with it (location/keywords/NLP), then you have to wait out to see if Google figures it out.

I have seen cases where pages can still rank even without an exact title/content match, but since you've noticed a decline, reconsider consistency across your optimization and content. BTW, as a user, NLP doesn't tell me what NLP is - only the acronym is used and that's not necessarily a good thing. (Ex: GHS? Greenfield High School or globally harmonized system.) How does Google know if your content is relevant to a searcher if it's not clear what NLP stands for?

Also, check the technical and make sure there's no weird coding or broken somethings that could also be in the way. Good luck!

I like using robots.txt for stuff. - mostly because our homegrown cms limits our abilities.s however, if these pages have already been indexed then disallow limits the outcome. Ideally, disallow or no index or any of those are done in advance so Google doesn't get their hands on it; doing it after the fact can take some time for Google to figure it out and put the pieces together. Can your site manage a canonical for this?

This was a common practice for some a few years ago and many still do it. My understanding is that search engines started to figure out the interrelation and there's some SEOs I know who consolidated rather than risk being penalized because if it's not done well, it seems spammy.

Part of it also had to do with managing multiple sites, plus the user experience (why are there so many sites for what seems to be one company?) can be compromised.

I've noticed the trend of even major sites, with different business niches, moving under one domain - like Honda or Ford - rather than keep them separate.

The answer to if it's better to get the links removed or just change the anchor text is maybe to both. If there's an inbound link that seems spammy or doesn't really fit in well with the topic of your site (ex: your site is about cars, but a site about oranges is linking to you), then removing the link could be the better long term plan.

If it's a quality link from a credible source, you want to keep that link so look for anchor text diversity as far as the keywords used.

That's always a possibility and one of the drawbacks of personalization for SEO. However, if via third party checkers, if you are going up (from #8 to #2), then there's also a better chance of best visibility via personalization, too.

Ranking visibility only means visibility - people can be more likely to click because they can find you more easily.

I understand the issue, however, you are going to create a lot more issues that will need more help by going this route. It's much harder to go back and try to fix things after the fact, especially since just managing a site introduces a whole separate set of issues that will require your resources and costs. I inherited a situation like this and it's probably cost us more in lost opportunities than it would have to build it correctly. Off soap box now.

The no index is a good start, and focus on the main pages you really need to care about to get visibility for and make sure you follow best practices for those.

I have used disallow parameters for all kinds of things; you can set it up and test it in Webmaster tools under "crawler access" before you implement on your site to confirm it's done properly.  There have been a few times I've had to tweak it to get exactly what I wanted.

I'd test with the "/" in front of it as one option - again, just in testing, to see if there's any difference in results.

Since Google already got a hold of it, it'll take a lot of time to see results but don't be discouraged since they have to re-crawl and figure it out.

Good luck