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The canonical is the right way of setting the website up. When we take on an E-commerce client that has products accessible via multiple URL's is to Google which one has the authority, so if you are looking at product X then google it and see which URL Google is giving the authority to, look at the path then canonical all other variations to that path.

Hi Mozzers,

I run a website that has some buttons on the homepage. These URL's are not unique as they are accessible from the nav bar at the top of the page. I want to see the conversion rate of the homepage buttons. Is this possible?

I currently use Crazy Egg to see how many people are clicking on the buttons but I want more information as I'm sure whether they are converting.

Thanks,

Karl

The page may have been penalised, is it over-optimised or have too many keyword rich anchor texts pointing to it? If let me know the website and pages, I can have a look a bit deeper into the issue.

Whoever gave you that advice is an idiot and is clearly inexperienced in the internet marketing field. However, EGOL is right that, to find out why they outrank you, we'd need to know a lot more about the industry you are in, what your website/your competitors websites are like.

Just a quick question, what have National Geographic and Wired Magazine got to do with payday loans? Obviously I haven't seen them but if they are just random links then I'd count them as spammy even though they are on highly authoritative websites. If you look at the distribution of anchor text as well it is heavily weighted to keyword anchor text links (payday loans) rather than branded links.

Exact Match Domains took a bit of hit as well so the benefits that the website would have received from having an EMD would have been devalued. I'd say to work on building some quality and relevant links because the website is lacking in them.

Personally I'd no-follow them, you don't want them to pass on any ranking factors so no-follow the links if they are driving traffic. If they don't drive traffic then get rid of them.

Moosa is right though, you need to use other tools aside from WMT because that doesn't show a complete list of links to your website.

Hi Lukin,

Firstly, sorry to hear your website got hit. You aren't the first and certainly not the last! The first thing to do in order to try and recover is to be completely honest with the links that were built. If you had an external agency build links then ask them for a full report (you should already have this but not all agencies do this as standard) on what has been done. This will allow you to understand the kinds of links that have been built.

In my opinion, no tool out there is good enough and whatever info they give you, you have to check it anyway. The process to recovery is a long one because the only way is to manually look at every link to your website and analyse whether Google thinks it is spammy or not. Depending on the size of your link profile, this may be considerably time consuming but, unfortunately, it has to be done.

We have managed to recover websites and whilst we used to try and get them manually deleted first then disavow, we have managed to recover websites without deleting a single link. Google WILL NOT open any external documents that are sent to them so sending them stuff probably won't help much. We are very stringent with the links we disavow and sometimes there will be links that you can't even find that are holding you back, however, Google should tell you the types of links that are harming you and you can look deeper into them.

I'd say use as many tools as you can to see as many links to your website as possible, so use WMT and OSE and any others you might have access to. Once you have a complete list of links, ask yourself "Would I show my profile to Matt Cutts?"

It can be a long process (from 4-6 weeks to 6-12 months) but if your website is worth keeping then it is worth the time and effort spent.

All the best,

Karl

You also have to consider whether the company has disavowed these directories. If the website has had SEO done on it for many years then there is a good chance that directories formed a major part of their strategy, however, with the disavow tool in play now, those directories may well have been disavowed recently and they will still show up on their linking profile in OSE. Just a thought for you to consider.

It is true that some local and niche directories are still beneficial even in today's SEO market so don't discount a directory straight away without looking into it further.

If you are referring to the anchor text links at the bottom I'd get it removed. They look extremely spammy and is probably doing you no good whatsoever.

Ask them to remove the link but if they refuse to or you don't get a response, use the disavow file.

hi,

Well done on getting your first link, it's good to see people using the right techniques in order to gain links. Looking at stats of a page is a decent gauge of the quality but I also recommend our clients to look at the website as a whole. When deciding whether your to get a link from a website consider the following;

1. Does your links and content match what is already on the website? It has to look natural and fit in with the theme of the website.

2. What are the other posts like? Do they look paid? if so then you may be submitting your content to the wrong website. Are the links followed or no-followed?

3. Are people commenting on posts? You want people to interact with your posts because that is how you attract people to your website.

4. Is the website pushing your content through social channels? Ideally you want this so your post gets maximum exposure.

If you consider these 4 things when you are looking to push your content then you should be fine. To summarise,check the website for these 4 things are you'll know how much traction your post is going to get. If it ticks 3 or 4 of these points then I'd say it was 2 hours well spent!

Good luck.

Well it sounds as though everything is in place then (assuming it is a 301 and not a 302 redirect). It may just be that they have picked a difficult brand name to rank for, which in that case, concentrate on building the brand and you should hopefully see the rankings sooner rather than later.

Hi,

It is also worth noting that, if your penalty is an algorithm penalty, you wouldn't have received any messages in Webmaster Tools.

As you have cleaned up your onsite issues then it is more than likely due to the links that point to your website. There is no perfect combination of branded, unbranded, keyword, non-keyword links. It is best to judge a link on merit, so if the link matches the website and looks natural then keep it. This usually, however, means that if you have lots of keyword rich anchor texts then this is not natural and you need to be ruthless. Imagine if you were google looking at your profile, or, would you be happy to show your link profile to Matt Cutts?!!

Hi Andrew,

When they changed their website, did the ensure that the necessary redirects were put in place so that any authority from the old website was changed to the new one?

It may also be worth checking for any penalties, algorithm or manual. Check Webmaster Tools for any messages to double check. Have they ever ranked for their brand name? Did they rank for their old brand name?

It could be, as the other 2 comments say, just be a lack of authority and quality links but it is definitely worth checking that redirects and penalties aren't having an effect because you could be fighting a losing battle if it is one of these problems.

Open Site Explorer gives you what you need. If you have a PRO membership with Moz then you will have access to OSE. Alternatively, if you have access to Webmaster Tools then this will also show you a list of links to the website. I would recommend using both really because you will see that both tools give you different URL's that the other might not show up.

Just to throw my two pennies worth in....guest blogging is on the radar of Google so if you are going to start writing guest blogs that have your link in the author bio at the end, be very careful! It leaves a very obvious trial that Google can use to see if you are over-doing it on the guest blogging.

Instead of guest posting, why not think of the problems that people have in stock trading and reach out to finance websites/bloggers. Think of a widget that you could create that would appeal to bloggers as this could be a source of links for months. If you get short of ideas then I'd recommend buying http://www.linkbuildingbook.com/ which has been written by Paddy Moogan. Great read!

Hi Geraldine,

Whilst revenue and profit are the clear priority for you, it is good to measure a variety of things. What I ask my team to look at is the bounce rate and conversion rate of certain category and product pages, it is interesting to look at these rates because it will show you what you need to do in order to improve the quality of the page. If you see that a certain product has a high/low bounce or conversion rate you can look at why that may be. Remember, it is easier to convert existing visitors rather than attract new visitors.

You can also monitor rankings compared to your main competitors, if you haven't been tracking this then start to keep a record of them. Look at mentions of your brand on social networks as brand building is all part of the SEO process.

Would it offer any benefit to your customers? If so then I'd say do it but if you are just doing it to try and pass link juice then I'd say avoid it.

No, this wouldn't work. I just looked at your backlinks in OSE and there are some really spammy links. You need to do a full backlink analysis and start to get rid of those directory links. Just look at some of the links that surround yours and you'll see why Google does not like these kind of link building techniques anymore.

Concentrate on getting rid of any of these types of links and start to create some engaging content that people will want to read. It takes a lot longer to create but it could be a source of links for many months and will help your website recover. However, it is imperative that you get rid of these links ASAP either by contacting the websites and getting them taken down (ideally) or using the disavow file.

Hi Peter,

I had a look at your backlink profile and there are more non-branded keywords than branded keywords so that will have set the alarm bells for Google. Every website should have considerable more branded links than keyword rich anchor text links because it is natural for someone to link to your website via your brand name or URL.

Yeah it is duplicate content. If the content is something you want to use, why not add your thoughts about the article and then cite the original as your source. Tweet the author of the initial content and try and get a conversation going, that will do more good than just copying the content