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This helps a lot. Thank you. I'll update the results to help shed light on this.

Thanks again for your time.

Hi,

Has anyone tried starting a new domain after being hit with a Penguin penalty? I'm considering the approach outlined here: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2384644/can-you-safely-redirect-users-from-a-penguin-hit-site-to-a-new-domain.

In a nutshell, de-index the OLD site completely via Google's Removal Tool, and then relaunch old content under new domain.

This seems to have merit, unless Google keeps a hidden cache of content (or uses other sources like Wayback Machine). My concern is doing the above listed approach, but Google still passes the old links to the new domain.

We have great content, but too much spam (despite me removing a lot of the links + disavow).

Any feedback based on experience would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi, I have several questions about starting a new domain due to Penguin. The site is: http://bajajlaw.com. Quick backstory:

This site was hit every time Penguin rolled out. No clean-up was done until October 2015. At that time, I took over the project. My efforts include: (1) Remove'em, (2) manual removal, (3) and the Disavow Tool. The HP went from being at around #50 for the target KW (San Diego criminal defense attorney) to about #25. Never really moved higher than that.

However, I redid the content for the internal pages (DV, Theft Crimes, etc.) and they are all ranking fairly well (first page or top of 2nd).

In short, the penalty only seems to affect the HP, not the internal pages.

Instead of waiting for Penguin to roll-out, client wants to move forward with new domain. My questions are as follow:

1. Can I use the same content for the internal pages and 301 from the old internal pages to the new?

2. Should I 301 from the old to the new domain for the HP, or not?

3. If I do a 301 from an internal page to a new internal page, does that have the same effect of doing a 301 from the old HP to the new HP?

I have read various opinions on this topic. I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who has experience doing this sort of thing. Thanks.

P.s. I'm inclined to wait for P4 to rollout, but given that nobody seems to know when that might be, it's hard for me to advise client to keep waiting for it.

Hi,

Thank you! Fixing that link prevents SF from finding the HTTPS pages.

I use WP for this site. Is there a quick way to redirect HTTPS to HTTP? As opposed to forwarding page by page? Ideally, there is a way in WP (either in WP directly or via some plugin) that I can tell WP to automatically 301 redirect all HTTPS to HTTP. I use WPEngine for my hosting, if that's at all relevant.

Thank you again for your excellent answer.

Hi,

About 10 months I switched from HTTP to HTTPS. I then switched back (long story).

I noticed that Screaming Frog is picking up the HTTP and HTTPS version of the site. Maybe this doesn't matter, but I'd like to know why SF is doing that. The URL is: www.aerlawgroup.com

Any feedback, including how to remove the HTTPS version, is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi,

Thank you for your response. I did make some slight changes, and that may have been enough to trigger a drop.

For tracking I use Moz, AHREFs, SEMRush, and also Google Incognito using a VPN (I'm overly thorough).

I like your idea about maximizing the areas I'm ranking well for. In fact, that's what I started doing this past weekend. Really focused on getting every interior page on the first page.

Thank you again for your detailed response. I really appreciate it.

Hi,

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, we debated a lot about whether that pic would be a good choice. I think I'll try something else.

I appreciate your feedback on the Pagespeed. I used Autoptimize. PM me and I can send you some great info about how to get the PageSpeed in the 90's for both mobile and desktop.

Thanks again.

Try Googling something with the word "bride" in it, and then something with the word "wives".

If you Google something with "bride" and the results give you something with "wives", and the word "wives" is in BOLD, that indicates that Google sees it the same.

For example, Google "Los Angeles Divorce Lawyer" and you will see that the word "family" is BOLDED in the meta description. It appears that Google considers "Divorce" and "Family" as the same thing, at least when coupled with "lawyer."

With that said, are you Googling "brides" and "wives" with another term, or by themselves?

Lastly, try Keyword Planner Tool or SEMRush.

Ps. I checked in SEMRush, and the words do not appear to be related.

Hi, thanks for the response. That could be it. This new design is a lot nicer than the old one, but maybe something about it doesn't sit right with people.

Thanks for the feedback.

I took over a project in mid-March 2015. Rankings went from 5th page to roughly #11 - #13 (but never into first page).

Launched a redesign on August 15, 2015. Rankings dropped from #11 - #13 down to #20.

Weird part: On 3 different Mondays since Mid-August, I have noticed that the rankings shoot back up to about #11 in the morning, then drop back down to #20 by the evening.

Three questions:

1.  Has anyone seen a drop like this after redesign? (Assuming you kept the same content, just different layout).

2. Did it seem like the redesign resulted in some sort sandbox effect, where the rankings wouldn't move for a period of time?

3.  Any advice on how to get it moving again? Or is this just a function of time?

Ps. The interior pages are moving well.

domain: getinjuryanswers.com

KW: San Diego Personal Injury Lawyer, Personal Injury Lawyer San Diego

I understand these are hyper-competitive terms. What puzzles me is how calcified the rankings appear to be.

Good point. It's definitely a "niche" area. Then again, the CPC for "Los Angeles domestic violence attorney" is typically around $50 - $70 per click, which may or may not help assess its competitiveness.

Hi,

After reading Mr. Shepard's amazing article on the 7 concepts of advanced on-page SEO (https://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts), I decided to share my own experience in hopes of helping others.

I started doing legal SEO back in 2013. At the time I really didn't know much about SEO. My first client (my brother) had recently left the D.A.'s office to become a criminal defense attorney. I told him to write content for the following areas: domestic violence, sex crimes, and homicide.

He finished his first content piece on domestic violence and I was not impressed. It seemed too unique, individualized, and lacked the "generic" feel that many of the currently ranking pages had. Please note that I don't mean "generic" in a negative way. I just mean that his content regarding domestic violence felt too personalized. Granted, his "personalized" approach came from a Deputy D.A. with over 13 years handling domestic violence, sex crimes, and murder cases.

I was inclined to re-write his content, but lacking any experience in criminal law I really had no choice but to use it.

IMPORTANT:  Please note that I barely knew any SEO at the time (I hadn't even yet discovered MOZ), and my brother knew, and continues to know, absolutely nothing about SEO. He simply wrote the content from the perspective of an attorney who had spent the better part of 13 years handling these types of cases.

The result?  Google: "Los Angeles domestic violence lawyer/attorney", "Los Angeles sex crimes lawyer/attorney", and "Los Angeles homicide attorney." They have held those spots consistently since being published.

I know that MANY other factors contribute to the success of content, but at the time I published them we had few links and very little "technical SEO."

Unfortunately, I started learning "SEO" and applied standard SEO techniques to future content. The result? Never as good as the articles that were written with no SEO in mind.

My purpose in writing this is to help anyone about to tackle a new project or revamp an existing site. Before getting too caught up in the keywords, H tags, and all the other stuff I seem to worry too much about, simply ask yourself - "is this great content?"

Thanks again to the MOZ team for the great advice they have shared over the years. Honestly, I think I sometimes become overly reliant on SEO b/c it seems easier than taking the time to write a great piece of content.

P.s. Any "SEO" stuff you see on the above-mentioned pages was done by me after the pages ranked well.

P.p.s. I don't mean to imply that the above-mentioned pages are perfect, because they are not. My point is that content can rank well even without any emphasis on SEO, as long as the person writing it knows about the subject and takes the time to write something that readers find useful.

Hi Andy,

Great answer.  There is definitely a "trust" issue going on.  This client had two websites running in the past, and his previous marketing team did a lot of spammy stuff.

Moreover, he used his business name to promote two different types of law, family law and personal injury.  Here's the weird part.  On GWT, Google will serve his family law site for the personal injury related terms.  That makes no sense to me because there is no PI content on the family law site.  Perhaps Google serves it b/c of the company name association.

Even more strange, Google serves the HP for "Los Angeles divorce lawyer," but NOT for "Los Angeles divorce attorney" - (even though it serves the HP for divorce attorney Los Angeles).

As far as local search is concerned, that's a HUGE mess.  Over the past 10 years they had different business names, different addresses, and the SAME phone number.  Whenever they made a change, they wouldn't fix the old listings.  They simply created a NEW layer of listings to go over it (does that make sense?).

So you will see his biz name and phone number associated with two different practice areas and two different addresses.  You will also find his old business name associated with his new number.

I purchased MozLocal and Yext to help speed it up, but so far there's no movement.

Oh, and they also had multiple G+ business pages going at once.

Any more advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Hi,

When you Google: "Los Angeles divorce attorney", you will see this site on the 5th page of the SERPS:  www.berenjifamilylaw.com/blog/.

For some reason, Google is serving the BLOG page as opposed to the homepage.  This has been going on now for several weeks.

Any tips on how to fix this?  Obviously, the Homepage is more relevant and has more links going to it, so not sure why it's happening.

Would you just leave it alone?  Would you use robots.txt to block Google from crawling the BLOG post page?

Thanks.

Would you recommend getting rid of CloudFlare?  With 27 requests and a 300kb file size, I just don't think I need it.  Especially if it's potentially causing fetch errors.

Hi,

Thank you for the detailed response.  Yeah, I wondered if a new site + new host (WP Engine) + Cloudflare + SSL all at the same time was just too much.

I use WPEngine, which includes MaxCDN.  With that said, WPEngine doesn't allow W3 Total Cache.

Thanks again for the feedback.  I appreciate it.

Hi,

I recently made two big changes to a site - www.aerlawgroup.com (not smart, I know).  First, I changed from Weebly to Wordpress (WP Engine hosting with CDN + Cloudflare - is that overkill?) and I added SSL (http to https).  From a technical perspective, I think I made a better site: (1) blazing fast, (2) mobile responsive, (3) more secure.

I'm seeing the rankings fluctuate quite a bit, especially on the important keywords.  I added SSL to my other sites, and saw no rankings change (they actually all went up slightly).

I'm wondering if anyone has had experience going to SSL and can give me feedback on something I might have overlooked.  Again, it's strange that all the other sites responded positively, but the one listed above is going in the opposite direction.  Maybe there are other problems, and the SSL is just a coincidence.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

I followed this guide: http://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl - which helped tremendously (FYI).

Hi, I have this site:  www.berenjifamilylaw.com.

We did a 301 from the old site: www.bestfamilylawattorney.com to the one above.

It's been several weeks now and Google has indexed the new site, but still pulls the old one on search terms like: Los Angeles divorce lawyer.

I'm curious, does anyone have experience with this?  How long does it take for Google to remove the old site and start serving the new one as a search result?  Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Would you mind if I PM you?

Awesome - thanks Matt!