Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks again Logan.

What would Disallow: /?* do because that is what the site I am looking at has implemented. Perhaps it works both ways around?

I imagine it's easy to disallow the wrong thing or possibly not disallow the right thing. Ugh.

Thanks Logan - I was just reading: Disallow: /*? # block any URL that includes a ? (and thus a query string) - do you know why the ? comes before the * in this case?

Hello Mozzers - Just wondering what this robots.txt instruction means: Disallow: /french-wines/?*

Does it stop Googlebot crawling and indexing URLs in that "French Wines" folder - specifically the URLs that include a question mark?

Would it stop the crawling of deeper folders - e.g. /french-wines/rhone-region/ that include a question mark in their URL?

I think this has been done to block URLs containing query strings.

Thanks, Luke

Hello Mozzers

Would you use rel=canonical, robots.txt, or Google Webmaster Tools to stop the search engines indexing URLs that include query strings/parameters. Or perhaps a combination?

I guess it would be a good idea to stop the search engines crawling these URLs because the content they display will tend to be duplicate content  and of low value to users.

I would be tempted to use a combination of canonicalization and robots.txt for every page I do not want crawled or indexed, yet perhaps Google Webmaster Tools is the best way to go / just as effective??? And I suppose some use meta robots tags too.

Does Google take a position on being blocked from web pages.

Thanks in advance, Luke

Thanks for your feedback Andy - In this instance the site has a history of penalties, so perhaps more vulnerable. It's hard to know for sure, of course.

Hi Matt - thanks for feedback - my main concern is upwards of a million affiliate backlinks that have come in recently - they are live, unfortunately.

The site is performing fine and many of the backlinks are freely given - just a few - however they have started some major affiliate marketing work and I see the backlinks coming in are nofollow and there are lots of them.

To give you an example - the latest company linking has sent through over 1,100,000 follow links to a few pages on the website (mainly a calculator for financing the motorhome).

These are all follow links and I'm thinking 302 or nofollow would be far safer, yet they're all live right now. I believe the client did ask for nofollow tags but they weren't implemented correctly.

One problem is the site is so reliant on these follow backlinks from affiliates for its rankings - if I just march in there and implement nofollows it will hit organic rankings.

I am working for a motor homes company that works with a network of dealers.

Having just analysed the site I notice that dealers are sending links to the site - lots of them. They are all follow links and are freely given. ADDED: There are upwards of a million new affiliate backlinks and then a load of pretty normal freely given backlinks with dealers who have commission arrangements, etc., with the company on motorhome sales.

Now this doesn't feel right to me because even if it isn't purposefully manipulative, it may appear so because of clear commercial relationships between my client company and the dealer businesses.

So I will recommend nofollow althought the site will lose a huge number of backlinks as a result. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks v much Marie - that's really useful - this sounds like it'd be good to test so will try to do that and see what happens.

Hi - I'm just looking at the text on a redesigned homepage.

They have moved all the text to the very bottom of the page (which is quite common with lots of designers, I notice - I usually battle to move the important text back up to the top).

I have always ensured the important text comes at the top, to some extent - does it matter where on the page the text comes, for SEO?

Are there any studies you can point me to?

Thanks for your help, Luke

Thanks for your helpful feedback Gaston - much appreciated.

Thanks for your helpful answers - much appreciated

I automatically think yes... but nofollow links will be safer - that would be my choice as I always err on the side of caution... If I reached out to the entire network with quality content, as I would through a PR campaign, I am wondering whether the pre-existing business relationship would mean the link wouldn't be seen as truly independent by Google.

Your thoughts would be welcome, Luke

I have just been contacted by a company whose website has lost nearly all of its traffic.

The web developers appeared to know nothing about the SEO aspects, when it came to migrating the website (this website change took place first week of August) - the traffic has gone from 7,000 sessions to 200 sessions a month.

I can work through the usual SEO migration steps to help recover performance, yet normally I get employed on this kind of project as soon as the traffic loss is noticed... this time the traffic loss kicked in nearly 2 months ago - what are the implications of such a time lag re: SEO recovery?

Thanks for all the feedback everyone - much appreciated, Luke

Thanks Tom for picking up on that error - ugh - corrected now. Brain working sluggishly this morning lol!

Hi Mozzers - was just looking at website speed and know the google guidelines on average page load time but I'm not sure whether Google issues guidelines on any of the other 4? Do you know of any guidance on domain lookup, server response, server connection or page download?

Page Load Time (sec) - I tend to aim for 2 seconds max: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/ 
Server Response Time: [Google recommends 200ms]: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server Redirection Time (sec) [dependent on number of redirects so probably no guide figure]
Domain Lookup Time (sec)
Server Connection Time (sec)
Page Download Time (sec)

Thanks, Luke

What is the best keyword ranking tool you have used? I have used various tools by which I am expected to identify and input the keyword I want to track...

However, recently I was introduced to Searchmetrics, which I think automatically pulls in the keywords a website ranks for, without the need for manual input from the SEO (I haven't used this tool yet, so apologies if I am incorrect!). Do any other rank trackers work like this?

Thanks, Luke

Many thanks Beau - much appreciated.

Thanks for your feedback Beau and Jordan - very helpful Luke