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I would suggest 2 things:

1. Hire someone to do an audit of inbound links for your website, or have someone in-house perform the audit. While it may be beneficial in some regards to move your site to a blank slate, your domain age (how long your site's existed) will be lost - that being a factor in SEO.
2. Never hire anyone without knowing their tactics and requesting to look at prior projects they've worked on for your own edification. From what you've said, it sounds like the person you hired 2 years ago used some black-hat (risky cheat) tactics. It's great to have help, but unless you're informed about whomever's helping you, it will always have the potential to backfire.

I think that's fine - typically, the more specific the content of a page, the more specific (longer) a URL should be to it. I think that's a fine way of doing it, though if you want to compromise length and specificity, you could always remove the "region" section and use sector/city/business-name.

Another option would be to add 301 redirects and **rewrites **so that while the actual URL will be as long, the way it looks is shorter. That might be an option to consider if you're concerned with the aesthetic and not the functionality.

Hope that helps!

I think you sound like you already know the answer, but want confirmation that you should look for other opportunities. While you may have other talents and fit other criteria, I'd expect that the language barrier would be enough that you won't be able to work effectively or happily.

However, another option would be to take the job with the intention of it being a temporary situation. And who knows, you may end up finding that it's something you're happy with.

Either way, it sounds like you wouldn't be happy there on a permanent basis.

Hey there,

Since I obviously don't know the specifics of your situation, I'll give you an answer based on generalities. I'd say that there are probably 3 possible reasons that they'd lower the position offered to you:

1. They found someone they feel is more qualified for the position.
2. They no longer want to fill that position.
3. They simply don't feel that you currently fit the criteria, but that you might after more experience.

However, it doesn't matter why they might have offered you a lower position, I think what matters is if you'd be happy at the one currently being offered. If not, then be gutsy and ask them frankly why they offered a lower position - either you won't be hired (which you don't want) or they'll explain and you can make a more educated decision.

If you're happy with the lower position, or you feel that there's high potential to move-up, then go for it. The worst case is that it doesn't work out, which would leave you where you are now.

Please keep in mind that this is all subjective opinion - I, and no one else, should tote it as anything other than that. Good luck to you! I hope it works out for the best.

I'd suggest having your developer(s) add a redirect to step 1 in the case that no tracking/form information is being passed when going to wwww.exmaple.com/step2. Meaning, if I open wwww.exmaple.com/step2 from Google, information I'd have filled out in step 1 isn't present, so I'd then be redirected to wwww.exmaple.com/step1. If you don't have visitors filling out anything in step 1, you can still have a cookie passed when going to step 2. However, if I've gone through step 1, clicking on a link to step 2 will act normally. That's the best I can think of as an alternative.

Keep in mind that this is only a suggested alternative, however. I don't know enough about your funnel, process, or product to say if this would have any impact otherwise. Good luck!

I don't believe there's any legal action that can be taken as it's not actually illegal for someone to link to your website; regardless of what harm it might cause you. Unfortunately, there's too much truth to the saying that law is always 10 steps behind technology.

However, I do believe that if the problem persists, you have the option of emailing Google support and reporting the website(s) in question - stating your case and the specifics may go a long way in ensuring that it doesn't happen again.

Hi Anagentile,

While paying a company to remove links to your website seems like a good idea, it tends to be a slippery slope - ending up exactly as you've summarized (like a blackmailer asking for more payment every time you pay).

If requesting that a website remove links to your own doesn't work, the next best option is to disavow the link(s). Check out Google's support in disavowing links here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

I hope that helps you and that it works out OK; cheers!

Akin to what Keri's said, I don't think there's any reason to change the authorship in your CMS.

Yes, the article(s) may have been written by someone no longer with your company, but it's most likely that their posts are considered intellectual property (IP) owned by your company. If you paid someone to write something, it's yours - barring anything to the contrary in their contract.

Hi Vadim,

As a general rule, don't create content for the sake of having it - create content (this includes pages) that are useful to customers or prospective customers. If you need 1,000 pages to convey all of that useful information, then go for it! But odds are you don't. Think of it this way: if you were a prospective customer and came to your website, which pages would you actually want to read?

Another note: the more pages you have, the higher the chances you have of there being mistakes - be it in the content, the code/development/etc. This doesn't mean you should have as few pages as possible, but it does mean that you need to weigh time spent doing maintenance against payout.

One last thought - pages may end up actually competing with one another for the same keyword(s). So sometimes it's better to have a few cleverly put-together pages that rank high than a lot of pages that rank moderately.

If you want an extremely simple answer (and I hope you don't!): I'd say anywhere from 10-30 pages is perfect for a small or medium business that has a specific set of services and well-crafted pages/content.

I'm sorry if I didn't clarify - what I meant was that the money put toward that directory, be it a one-time payment or a residual, would almost always be better spent toward other marketing or SEO efforts. If this doesn't greatly effect your budget, then it's worth considering (especially if OSE say's it's a quality link).

Most of my customers are SMBs, so I tend to counsel against paid listings/directories - but I didn't take into consideration that you might not have a similar budget.

Let's append my answer to: if you have the money to test the value of this, then do it.

From experience with clients of my own (for which we develop websites and counsel), I can say that paying for a spot on a blanket directory is usually not worth it. The ideology behind that is twofold.

1. If you can pay for it, so can anyone else. That makes the intended value moot.
2. It's a common misconception that all directories benefit SEO or presence. Some actually hurt SEO. I don't know if the one you've mentioned would help or hinder, but the first point still stands.

I suggest that if you join directories, you handle that process by either asking clients (past or current) how they found you, or by researching which directories - if any - tend to bring traffic to groups similar to yours.

As an aside, I'm always suspicious/wary of any website that's poorly designed, and martindale.com is no exception.

Good luck, and I hope this has been helpful for you!

One thing I would add is that it depends on HOW your domains are currently set up and differentiated.

If each domain, for example, is for a different region wherein you have apartments, or another manner of separating by "category", then tweaking the keywords may be more beneficial than consolidating. However, William is right in saying that overall, having one larger site with strong ranking is better than several weaker ones.

Also keep in mind that if each of those 10 domains aren't specifically targeting different things/keywords, then they're not just competing against your competitors, but each other as well.

Another option may be to use one or a few of those domains as secondary property - like a blog, a more refined listing site, a photo gallery, etc. You get the idea.

Good luck! I hope we've all been helpful for you Jon.

Hi Victoriah,

On the main dashboard, you have each of your campaigns shown to you. If you open the campaign to which you wish to add a competitor, you're brought to that campaign's dashboard overview. Once you scroll down, you'll see a widget with the text "Benchmark this campaign against competitors" and a button that reads "Add Competitor Sites". Clicking that begins the process!

I hope that answers your question! Cheers!

Hi Noah,

When posting, you have to keep in mind that, though videos generally do well for most posters, this won't necessarily be true for all. What works and what doesn't depends more on your demographics and the trends thereof.

You should also keep in mind that there are many factors at play which determine a post's engagement - the accompanying text, the format, the time of day, etc.

My recommendation would be A/B testing. One example I can think of off the top of my head would be to post twice in 2 days - once with the video as you've been doing, and once as an image/link that directs to the video in some way. A/B testing can often help to define the reasons behind trends in your groups of fans.

I hope that's been helpful! Cheers!

To receive information on social interactions, I believe you have to add links to each of your social sites on your profile. After taking a look at yours, you haven't done so yet. You can do this be going to your profile, clicking "Edit", and then adding the unique URL string from your profiles to each of the forms provided.

I hope that helps - Cheers!

Hi there,

I think I recall recently reading that Google Analytics was hit by a DDoS attack (which isn't a concern for consumers, just in case you don't know what a DDoS attack is). This had led to many campaigns having the same issue. However, I've personally seen this resolved as recently as today with some of my campaigns.

Bottom line - I suggest performing the reconnection to GA and making sure your information is (still) accurate. I had to do this, and my integration is working well now.

I hope that helps - Cheers!

Hi again Catinas,

I would say that, ultimately, worry less about SEO and more about what's best for visitors/customers. Especially because Google tends to think like a potential customer, so if you stick with that in mind, you should be OK.

That being said, as a gamer myself, I think the best method would be to keep your content dynamic. Also, is the article you mention actually useful for customers, or is it really only for SEO purposes? Because Google's becoming more and more savvy with its algorithms, and you may want to rethink that particular strategy. Good luck!

Playhazel has a stronger call-to-action in name. This is stronger in most ways, I would say.

Hazelbox doesn't sound game-related, so unless you have strong branding for the name, it likely won't be as clear or strong in conversion.

Of course, I'm basing all of this input on inference and experience, and not empirical data. So I would do some research into either and think about branding methods before I made a decision, were I you. Good luck!

Google Webmaster Tools recommends http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/, and I have to say, I've been happy using it.

Zippy,

Something that no one else has mentioned is that whether or not this is a good idea depends very much on 2 things:

1. Is Sales@example.com the only means by which a customer would normally contact you?
2. Does your business have a quick sales funnel? (Put another way, is the process between leads and conversions fast in comparison to the average in your industry/region?)

If the answer to either of these is "No", then I would suggest you not add an email in your page title. Typically, you only want to put strong attention on a specific method of contact if that's either your only method, or if that method leads to a significant amount of quick-funnel conversion. Otherwise, you may end up doing more harm than good.

I hope that's been helpful - cheers!