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It looks like you may be blocking CSS and Javascript from being crawled. Check your robots.txt file. Google recently stated that blocking these could affect your ranking.

The problem is that these two pages have almost identical content on them, and the content on these product pages is thin anyway. This is a common problem with ecommerce websites, and some ecommerce platforms automatically create a lot of duplication headaches  You also seem to have a related issue with crawl inefficiencies.

Yes, this may very well be affecting your performance in SERPs.

There are a number of ways to address duplicate content issues on ecommerce websites. The precise strategy to use will depend on the specific issue, and you have multiple issues that need to be addressed on your site that relate to duplicate content. Below are some resources that you might find helpful.

• https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2300528/ecommerce-product-pages-how-to-fix-duplicate-thin-too-much-content#
• http://www.goinflow.com/duplicate-content-ecommerce-seo/
• http://www.goinflow.com/are-duplicate-url-paths-killing-your-ecommerce-seo/

If you are targeting local customers, you probably want to put the contact information on every page for the sake of users regardless of whether or not you need it for the search engines. Why does your client not want to put it on every page, even if it's just in the footer?

Aside from usability concerns, having the address on the page is a strong signal to search engines that you are a "local" business, meaning that you serve local customers.

I agree with Joey. Most prepositions are stop words, so they may carry less weight in the search algorithm. That's not to say they aren't important. I just searched "sporting goods stores in Atlanta" and "sporting goods stores Atlanta" and got very slightly different results for each.

The on page optimization suggestions are just suggestions to point you in the right direction based on keywords you entered into the tool. You should never sacrifice usability for your readers in order to satisfy an SEO tool. The tool is just a starting point.

I doubt it has anything to do with the Yoast plugin unless your settings are not optimal. Given the timing, you may have been affected by the Penguin 3.0 update that hit around Thanksgiving. See http://searchengineland.com/holidays-google-breaks-updates-rules-gives-fresh-penguin-updates-210367 for details.  You'll need to do a backlink audit to be sure. Use the Panguin tool to compare your Analytics to Google algorithm updates.

Google does sometime change titles in the SERPs when they deem it appropriate, so the customer support response that you got was likely accurate.

You were right to redirect 1 directly to 3. It's not a huge problem to have short redirect chains, but the best practice is to redirect to the current live site.

No, it isn't necessary to noindex the pages if you add canonical tags or when you redirect them. Once you point the old domain to the main domain and set up any manual redirects, the old pages are irrelevant. You can go ahead and remove the website files from the server and close the hosting account (if applicable). Just make sure you keep the domain renewed and pointed to the new site.

Eventually, Google will update their index based on your 301-redirects.

That's going to be tricky if these are service area businesses operating out of the same address. There was a recent discussion in the G+ Local Search Pros community about a similar issue. You run the risk of getting all of the listings suspended. If you have a brick and mortar location,  you could set them up as different departments, but triple check the GMB guidelines before going that route.

In my opinion, the best time to start investing in SEO is when a website is in the planning stages and throughout the development process.  Technical and structural issues can have a tremendous effect on how a site performs in search.

While you are actively developing content, it's a good idea to engage an SEO provider to work with you in the process.

By default, I think Yoast uses the post title as the Page Title with the sitename appended to the end. If you just want it to be the page title, you'll need to update the Yoast settings.

In the WP dashboard, go to SEO (Yoast settings) > Titles & Metas > Post Types tab.  Add %%title%% next to the Title template. Your page level settings will override these on any pages where you have added a custom page title.

Add the following noindex meta tag to let Google know that you don't want these pages indexed. See more info here. 

We usually noindex the archives subpages and sometimes the main blog page itself (if it isn't the home page). I'd prefer to see the individual blog post pages in search results than page 2 of blog index page. Depending on how your blog is set up, you run the risk of an internal duplicate content issue. The only way to guarantee that the search engines prioritize the single post page is to noindex the blog index pages.

This duplicate content does need to be addressed, but it's not as complicated as you might think.

Use pagination to solve the "page=1" issues, or use a canonical with a "View all" option. See the following for reference:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

http://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions

Set up the canonical links for the others, and that's all you'll need. You may want to noindex all of the tag pages for the blog unless you have unique content on those.

John Mueller addressed a similar question in a recent Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout, and he was pretty definitive. The question was about text that's hidden behind tabs. He states that they see the hidden content but won't give it as much weight.

Here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZAY-BwL6rU.  The question starts at 6:45.

Google does read JavaScript and CSS, and that's why they send warnings to webmasters if such files are blocked from googlebot.

Micha,

After looking at your site and running a few quick tests, I still don't think your site has been penalized. You have a few technical and on-page issues to deal with, but I don't think fixing these alone will catapult you to the top of the SERPs.

I checked the SERPs for "climb kilimanjaro," and I think your competition is your biggest hurdle. In addition to being around a lot longer, your competitor's websites have far more targeted, editorial backlinks, and consequently much higher authority, than your site.

Unfortunately, there's no quick and easy fix for this problem. You'll have to work toward earning good backlinks.  Check out the resources below.

• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links
• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/link-building-earning/
• http://www.linkbuildingbook.com/

Yes, Google can index dynamic content. Whether or not this will affect search performance depends on multiple factors.

• What platform is being used?
• How are URLs affected?
• Are the blocks of content creating a duplicate content issue?
• Is it possible to optimize the title tags and other on-page factors with that kind of variable content?
• Is content hidden on the page and then revealed based on user activity?
• Will you be able to set up canonical tags?

With more information, I might be able to point you in the right direction.

This type of duplicate content is common on ecommerce websites, and it isn't necessarily a big problem. However, given the fact that there will be a higher percentage of duplicate content than unique content, you run the risk of some of your pages being omitted from search results for certain queries. If that is the case, searchers will see "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the (# here)already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

This isn't really a penalty. It's just Google being efficient with their algorithm. It shouldn't be a problem for highly targeted searches, but you may lose a little search visibility for more generic searches.

My advice is to get creative and find new ways to add more unique content to your product pages. Add testimonials, user-generated reviews, camper van adventure stories, etc.

You are right that canonical tags are wrong for this situation. Using an iframe doesn't make much sense either. Google has stated that they try to associate iframe content with the page it's embedded on anyway.

Further information:

• http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2319706/googles-matt-cutts-a-little-duplicate-content-wont-hurt-your-rankings
• https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

You seem to be referring to local search results (with the local pack and map) rather than organic results. Local search results for Michigan will not show up for someone searching in New York unless they specifically add a geographic modifier. Otherwise, they'll get local pack results for their own location or they may not get local results at all.

Are you trying to get the Michigan G+ page to show up higher than others in organic results? If so, why would this be preferable to having your website show up first for branding searches?

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding the question. If so, can  you clarify?

First of all, It's unrealistic to rank well for a highly competitive single keyword like "pashmina" within 3 weeks of launch with no backlinks - even within the first 100 results. Your other pages are doing better because "white pashminas" and "white cashmere pashminas" are not as competitive. Sites rarely jump to the top of the rankings right after launch. There may be a bump at first as Google indexes the site, but then it drops back down.

Secondly, you state that you haven't done any link building, and I assume you mean that you haven't done any spammy link building. However, you still need good backlinks to your site to be competitive.  Below are a few resources on link building.

• http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
• https://moz.com/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building
• http://www.paddymoogan.com/

Will she have an actual office at this new location in Chicago with staff, or are you talking about a virtual address rented for the purpose of making Google think you have an office at that location?

If your answer is the second one, then let me stop you there. This type of virtual address goes against Google's policies and can have negative consequences. See https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en for Google's guidelines. They've been going after these types of virtual offices for a while now. See also http://www.localsearchforum.com/help-support-google-local/978-virtual-offices-home-address-google-plus-local.html.

Leave the real address and focus on building organic traffic for Chicago. If she really wants to grow to a national level, you'll have to work on growing the brand to a national level through social media and content marketing.  Unfortunately, there are no SEO quick fixes in this situation.