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I still use SpyFu (along with Google trends). Not always extremely accurate, but is in helpful in looking at historic data (ad copy, seasonality & etc.)

You should set these up separately in GWT. If you want to have these combined, you should use use mod_rewrite to direct http to https. Is there a reason you are using http and https?

There are tools out there that will scan your site and assist you with certain aspects of seo. The one below I use frequently:

http://raventools.com/
http://www.majesticseo.com/
https://www.google.com/webmasters/

and of course the Moz tools.

With the JavaScript option, people who bookmarked the page will get redirected.

We don't necessarily know what Google is "rewarding" them for. Organic rankings are sometimes not fair, but we just need to work at what believe will benefit us in the long-term.  It's frustrating, labor-intensive and difficult. However, that is why it is also rewarding.

I see where Chris is coming from though, in the respect that (I believe) in focusing attention on creating sites with value as opposed to spending efforts elsewhere (he knows his stuff).

Good luck!

When migrating a site to a new platform, try to maintain a similar site architecture and implement redirects. So if surfboard style 1 is on old site, create a new surfboard style 1 page on new site with same/similar content and redirect the old urls to the new ones. Also, take good baselines (organic positions, traffic and etc.) and watch your Google Search Console (webmaster tools) for any changes.  For more information, see this guide.

Dr. Pete had a great article on this. Basically Google will show (what it believes) to be a better snippet/description.

If you prospects are querying Google for a certain term, Google wants to display relevant information to the best of their ability. If these terms are longtails, finding a relevant page may be difficult for them. So creating optimized & valuable landing pages that focus on the user experience is GOOD.

Creating this type of content can be difficult and resource intensive. So, I was pointing out, you can look for clusters of contextually related keywords and create landing page for those clusters.

A content farm (is usually defined) as sites that focus on content that they can monetize and typically written strictly for search engines and not visitors. Also, many of them "repurpose" content is from other sources. Since much of the content is not unique/valuable, typically will get dinged.

It means that you are not using that tag on that page. Do you have duplicate content? If so, try to clean it up by creating unique content or use proper tags to mark duplicates. For further reading, see: http://moz.com/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not & https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en

Yes, give it some more time. I noticed some 404's as well:

http://txvein.com/category/venous-insufficiency-2/
http://txvein.com/tag/vein-clinic/

Keep content fresh, add a few better meta descriptions to encourage click-throughs and build some links.

Hi Andy,

I like to match the page title to prospect's search query as best as possible. So I would use something like this: Okinawa Worldwide Cruises + maybe branding/value proposition (though your example is fine). Here is a good guide: http://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

Kev

Google will show what they believe will help the searcher the most. So based on the query, the meta description may or may not show.

Looks like you did a 301 redirect to /

Status Code URL IP Page Type Redirect Type Redirect URL
301 http://idearocketanimation.com/whiteboard-animation-o 162.144.136.148 server_redirect permanent https://idearocketanimation.com/whiteboard-animation-o
301 https://idearocketanimation.com/whiteboard-animation-o 162.144.136.148 server_redirect permanent https://idearocketanimation.com/whiteboard-animation-o/
200 https://idearocketanimation.com/whiteboard-animation-o/ 162.144.136.148 normal none none

Google should recognize this and you will be fine.

David's spot on. The User-agent: * mean this section applies to all robots. If you want Google (or any robot) to index your whole site, no need for a robots.txt file.

If the comments are useful (contextual relevant) and don't look spammy, leave them as is.

Will fixing the misspellings hurt you? Most likely no. A Google patent states:  "content deemed to be unimportant if updated/changed, such as...comments...may be given relatively little weight or even ignored altogether when determining UA"

However, I would probably leave as is.

As you probably know, all meta descriptions should be unique. Will a couple hurt? probably not but I advise against it as a display factor. Furthermore, some people will actually eliminate any duplicates meta descriptions and let Google auto-create one. Please see Matt Cutt's video on the topic.

If the site is down for a few days it's not an issue. Much more than that and it will be difficult to retain any of those rankings. Even if you took possession and build content that is contextually relevant from what was on the previous site, the DA will most likely steadily decline. Also, most likely the domain ownership will change. Google recognizes these patterns (site down for a prolonged period of time and change of domain ownership) and will discount any links. These are mechanism put in place to discourage this activity. I have heard success stories on doing this, but far and few between in last few years.

2.) Are you talking about a catch-all? You can use 404 and redirect them to whatever. Try to redirect as much as possible though. Good luck!

ErrorDocument 404 /index.html

In GWT: Crawl=> URL Parameters => Configure URL Parameters => Add Parameter

Make sure you know what you are doing as it's easy to mess up and have BIG issues.

Donna--Good point. I revised my previous answer to include that meta descriptions as a display factor that could influence ctr's but not rankings. Meta KW/Descriptions do not influence rankings--instead can help to increase click through's. By including a good unique one increases chances that Google will use it and, more times than not, will have a higher ctr than the auto generated one if the meta description is not included. Great clarification.