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Thanks, David!

I'm seeing some growth starting around Oct 7th, but unlike you, I'm seeing this both for US and other countries, though all coming from the same site, so a bit different situation.

Sharp drop in rank on key terms on that date. 40% drop in non-brand terms overnight. Much of it has come back since January, but we still have a yo-yo effect with 40+ of my key terms going up or down weekly.

I'm not a expert on the SEO-bit, but generally i wouldn't bother with it. You have existing domains that work well, you have site(s) that's known in your market-segment and a well-known brand. In my opinion it won't do you any good to use http://a.brand instead of http://brand.com . .com-domains and national TLDs are well known amongst the users of the internet, new things/weird domains tend to scare people. But if you/your company can afford to get a gTLD for your brand it would probably be a nice thing to just have "lying around" just in case. But i wouldn't bother spending a lot of work on it. Edit: Checked your company, seeing that it's a furniture-company i wouldn't bother with it at all. Your customer-base seems to be "all the people". "All the people" are usually happy as long as they can find your-company.com/.no and so on. OT: Nice to see more norwegians in here. Hi!

Hello Knut, Below are a few articles and White Board Friday's to give you a quick primer regarding SEO.  There's definitely more of these out there so don't hesitate to ask Google! WBF - International SEO: Where to Host and How to Target YOUmoz - International SEO Part 2 mozBlog - Geolocation & International SEO FAQ I've had a little experience SEO-ing websites in Japanese and the landscape is completely different.  For starters, Yahoo is actually the dominant search engine but they use the Google algorithm - so just focus on Google's main ranking factors. Since you don't know any Japanese you'll need someone VERY fluent in the written language so that you can account for both Kanji AND Chinese.  You'll need to make a business decision on whether you want to write it in one form or the other - keyword research would definitely help here. Don't be surprised if most of your visitors are coming from mobile - that's just how the technological culture is in Japan.  Most people surf the web using their cell phones (since they are light years ahead of us) and not so much from their computer. Last but not least, create great content to attract links.  Your easiest links will come from those your website/business already has a relationship with.  It comes from the Chinese concept of "guanxi" which literally means "relationships" and is an extension of the culture. I hope that helps you get started and good luck!

Rand and iPullRank just did a great WBF on the topic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-freshness-update-whiteboard-friday

If anyone looking for a similar tool, I think this tool will help. https://www.urlmapper.com/

The biggest concern would be potentially losing some of the PageRank passed. However, in my experience, these kinds of internal redirects tend to go off without a hitch if well executed. 1. Make sure that you have a good understanding of all URLs that are to be redirected and that the redirect does occur correctly. 2. Watch analytics, GWT, and server logs like a hawk the first 48 hours after the redirect to make sure you aren't missing. 3. Consider doing Sitemap Assisted Redirects (Google it) to speed up the process

Ok thanks. I'm going to do some research into this anyway - I'll make a post if I find anything that may be of interest.

If I were to put a site map at the bottom of a page, I would not list every single page but only the most important category and page links, along with the links required for legal purposes. You don't want footer links to drain your page of link juice, nor overwhelm your page design. What's more, placing a ton of the same links on every single page of a site is definitely considered spammy these days. For news sites, yes, the lead story should be the first thing a user sees. For most other sites, though, a few links in a well-designed top nav bar should be placed near the top of the page or directly underneath a branded banner.

Don't forget that the description has no effect on the SEO. Tis is just for those reading the search results. I would suspect that with a site the size of amazon, descriptions will be made up from algorithms, or a description pulled from a database. Might even be something stock that the manufacturer supplies them with. Regards, Andy

A link is a link is a link. Throw the right anchor text in there and it will be more powerful.