Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Were 301 redirects put in place? If so, was the content, more or less, the same? Was there specific pages that dropped in traffic and others stayed the same? Did you see anything in Search Console?

Google says that they really don't care if the content is on a subdomain or subfolder & this is debated. I find that they both can rank well, but subdomains require more effort to maintain. As long as the subdomain is on a good host, has good ux/content and links well w/the parent, I wouldn't worry that much and I would leave as is. Good luck.

Yes, 410's will typically get out of index faster and I recommend serving an error page w/search so that the visitor knows that the site is still around.

To build on Joram's answer, Google will typically use your meta description if the keyword query is inside of it. If the keyword is not in the meta description, they will grab snippet(s) from the page.

If I create a page about a "Normandy bike tour "and present the same things (pictures, hotels, dates, day by day itinerary, clients reviews, map)  as my competitors can I still rank ? Yes, you can still rank--most likely not very high. However, you should strive for original, compelling content that user's expect to see and find valuable that is different from your competitors to get an edge on them. Think outside the box (a user submitted video, virtual bikeride or etc.). Yes, some of these items are difficult to implement, but that is why doing them will help out as others aren't. Good luck!

**On competitive keywords you say it takes something additional, what is it, other than content and overall look and feel. **Some off-page--specifically inbound links

**and by the way what do you mean by competitive keywords. Do you look at the difficulty in keyword explorer ? **Yes, you can do that. Typically one word term that is in high demand (ie - many sites are trying to rank).

Do you mean for example that with a difficulty of 13 I can rank just with content and no links to the page but I get to 20 or 25 I need links or traffic to that page otherwise it will be hard to rank even with good content correct ? Yes, as competition decrease, the easier you could rank with less effort. These are typically the long-tail terms.

Or can I rank on a competitive keyword without traffic or link and just excellent content but it will just take more time ? It's possible, but most unlikely.

Good luck!

The overall look and feel is critical, but is secondary to content. Create original, compelling and useful content will help you get ranked. To get high rankings, specifically for competitive keywords, will take more than that. So yes, a site that the template is similar to someone else will not matter much as the content. Just make sure the template is responsive and user-friendly. Good luck!

Yes it is. It's difficult to outrank Amazon on competitive keywords--so focus on mid/long-tails. Be the expert and create compelling content that show's you are the expert. Do a ton of continuous research on relevant keywords and create content based on this analysis. Also, create compelling titles and meta descriptions, so even if you are 3-4th place you can improve clicks as Amazon's titles/meta descriptions are generally poor. Good luck!

Ed had a great answer. Make sure you have compelling, original content that is optimized for a potential query. Try to make it so valuable that people will want to link to it.  Focus on good internal linking to these pages and make sure that your site is responsive and fast. If you can accomplish this, you will see increases in PA/DA. Good luck!

In theory this will probably work. However, Google is pretty savvy and may catch on. Google regularly crawl these sites and noticed that these links are 404's. All of sudden, these links point to a live domain w/a 301 to a new site. If this a common occurrence, the pattern may be recognized and they take some sort of action. Good luck!

No, just make sure you do your 301's and you will be ok. I would also try to reach out and get the links updated, but if you don't not a huge deal. Once published, do qa and make sure everything works good.  Here is a great resource  from google and one from MOZ. Good luck!

Awesome! I know how clients can be. Good thing they had someone like you! Have a good one

Yes, the 301 can still impact the new site even if it's not around anymore. If the legacy site had spam, cloaking or etc and is no longer live-- should be relatively straightforward to request a review and getting it resolved. If the legacy site had unnatural links to it, and you 301 to new site, could be lead to issues to the new site. I would most likely take down the 301 and request a review to get resolved. Once resolved, do the 301. Good luck!

If you change the domain, even without a 301, and the content is the same Google may pass the it.  Source  from 2014. The best solution is try to clean up the manual action or create original content on new site.

Do you mean like Google Search Console? They have Bing Webmaster Tools that have many reports including search keywords, SEO reports and much more.

In short-yes. As long as the meta description is compelling for the visitor and unique (in this case the location) you will be fine. I would test with additional variables, such as:

Picture yourself hiking along "location", walking past "location feature" and amid brilliant "location feature 2" on our "name of company" Hiking Tours. (Meta description from backroads.com)

Good luck!

Did the previous meta description have FICO in it? If not, they probably grab the first snippet that had FICO in it (your cookie policy). My guess is that is should resolve shortly.

Publish on your site first w/self canonical. Wait for it to get indexed and then publish over at LinkedIn. What is probably happening is that the LinkedIn article w/self canonical is getting index before its on your site so Google shows the LinkedIn version as the preferred version. Good luck!

Yes, match as closely as possible. You can also preview if the redirects works good by changing your host file and opening google and query site:yourdomain.com and clicking on each page to see if it redirects correctly. Good luck!

Yes, and it's fairly common. Each of the search engine may or many not use your meta title. If the search engine deemed that another title (derived from the laning page) will match the user's intent better, they may switch it.  Since Google & Bing have different algo's, this happens. For more info see How Does Bing Choose The Title For My Web Page.