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I agree with with the sentiment of this post and respect to SEO moz for keeping it live and respect to Big J for having the courage to post a counter argument.

I do beleive that Google's ultimate goal with be to "take out" manual intevention ie SEO consultants have their days numbered...

There is a kind of new age fundamantalist vibe about about some SEO consultants, an arrogant beleif that they can out wit the Google gods. But occassionally out of all the guff an occasional puff of wisdom wafts out of all the hyperbole...

In truth I'm 50% on the SEO train, the other half is cynical...

The days of "Manual Link Building are numbered". Google is aiming to take out human intervention and I'm sure if they had the geo co-ordinates of SEO agencies theyd road test some WMD's.

So if your an SEO agent looking to pluck low hangoing fruit to appease some short term strategy get bold... look  um in the eye and say ... " Lets focus on 2 things make sure the site has no indexing issues and second lets add content that users consistently want"

And thats it dude, dont waist your time with manual link building the Penguin has pecked it to death

Thanks Martin

Appeciate the straight talking EGOL

Good morning from 13 degress C about to chuck it down wetherby UK...

I want to make sure i keep my finger on the pulse regarding Google Algorithmic changes.

What is the best source to make sure your kept up to date with Googles ongoing tweeks to its Algorithm (apart from SEO moz).

Thanks,

David

Hi from wet & overcast wetherby UK

Ones question is this...

" Is the sitemap plus boxes blocking bots ie they cant pass on this page http://www.langleys.com/Site-Map.aspx "

Its just the + boxes that concern me, i remeber reading somewherte javascript nav can be toxic.

Is there a way to test javascript nav set ups and see if they block bots or not?

Thanks in advance

Thanks riplash, respect the detail you've gone into here , ive got work to do

Thanks Riplash But curious about the following "The blog that you mentioned,  http://york-wedding-photographer.blogspot.co.uk/ is not indexed by  Google"

Ermm... when i google "Dark side of wedding photography" or put the url directly in the serach box it does appear in the SERPS. Does this not mena it is indexed?

Good Morning from 16 degrees C still sunny Wetherby UK....

For the first time ive dived into Microformat,s schema.org Microdata call it what you will "Rich snippets"

On this http://www.barrettsteel.com/  site on the bottom left I tweeked the address into a rich nippet, here is what i did:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/barret-steel-converting-to-microformat-datacopy.jpg

I then diligently tried to find out if it was valid by running it through http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets but I'm not 100% clear if its passed

So my question is please can anyone verify if the snippet data is valid.

Thanks in advance,

David

HI Hg,

I too have experienced this type of behaviour. If i was in your shoes I'd leave it for at least a week if the rankings show no signs of recovery heres what i's do next:

1. Go into your webmaster tools and isolate and resolve any crawl issues i.e Broken links, duplicate content etc.
2. Make sure youve got an upp to date xml sute map in place
3. Make sure your site has a user site map in place
4. Make sure your inbound link building strategy isnyt just targeting "commercial terms" eg "glee fansite" the Google Algorithm Penguin update is onto this
5. Make sure your ranking score is accurate e.g measure it through a paid for package eg Web CEO

I too am in a similar boat and if you have been hit by the penguin update I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do about it apart from the nuclear option of changing hosts and starting all over again

Whilst ive noyt hit the panic button just yet ive learnt that a specific target term I was optimising a site flor has dropped off the Google radar from forth to zero

The site is www.davidclick.com the target term was "York wedding photographer" and the demotion happened at the end of March this year, below illustrates the carnage..

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/target-term-demotioncopy.jpg

When i first learnt about this I began to wonder if I was a victim of the Penguin update. I suspected i might so I ran a test to see how many inbound links used the target term York wedding photographer and here is what i found... Only one site http://www.singingwaitersx2.com/links/ and at a push this site also http://york-wedding-photographer.blogspot.co.uk/

So my question is have i fallen foul to the penguin update? If yes then is the only remedy to block the aforementioned site links via this technique:

http://www.htaccess-guide.com/deny-visitors-by-referrer/

Thanks in advance,

David

Salut from Sunny wetherby UK

Having just watched a whiteboard fri clip all about the "Penguin Update" i want to know how to take down a link.

I feel a site ive been working on has been pecked by the penguin. I did build inbound links on a specific commercial term and shiver me timbers is dropped oof the SERPS from top 5 to ziltch, yiles!!

So my questiuon is please:
if you find an inbound link using a target term how do you kill it?

Thanks in advance :_)

<cite>Bonjour from sunny  wetherby UK :-)</cite>

<cite>Ive got a rogue Google places listing. I want the listing to sit under http://www.barrettsteel.com/ not under www.barrettonline.co.uk</cite>

<cite>Here is the problem illustrated:</cite>

<cite>http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/local-listing-attached-badly.jpg</cite>

<cite>So my question is please. How do move the Google Pla ces lisrting from under www.barrettonline.co.uk to underwww.barrettsteel.com</cite>

<cite>Thanks in advance,</cite>

<cite>David</cite>

Bonjour from 25 degrees C, mediterranean climate change has hit wetherby UK

Ive got two questions please:

1. I suspect ive been punished for acquiring links with specific commercial terms (but not all) and the site has disappeared off the SERPS   What can i do about this if anything?

2. Where is the best place to find out asap about Google Algorithm tweeks

Thanks in advance,

David

Any chance you could check were york wedding photograpger ranks for davidclick.com?

Thanks guys for returning replies but with respect i dont quite understand your replies.

So just to reiterate can anyone verify what position in the SERPS davidclick.com ranks for target term York wedding Phptographer.

To add to the confusion now get two different results via SEO moz tools:

One says i have no organic results, the other i'm midway up page 1, heres the evidence:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/ranking-25-may-12copy.jpg

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/rank-checker.jpg

Riplash "123 are ppc ads not organic"
Nicola  "I see it in organic results page 1 ive tested this with a differnt PC's on different networks with no previous search history to skew results"

Ah well confusion continues, time for a beer...

Good afternoon from 21 degrees C hot and sunny wetherby UK with the aroma of wetherby whalers fish and chips wafting through the office window...

I'm begiining to question the vailidity of SEO moz ranking tool. Specifically for this site www.davidclick.com it ranks the site zero for term "York wedding photographer"

Here is the evidence:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/ranking-25-may-12copy.jpg

I question it after checking this term on PC and networks ive never used before and i get the term ranking at 5th. Can anyone verify what SERP www.davicdclick.com ranks for "York wedding photographer" and indeed why SEO Moz ranking tool is scrorring in zero.

Thanks in advance

I've had similar experiences and after a while you wonder if doing an ancient African rain dance appealing to the furture Google gods would have just about as much an effect as following the mystical path of SEO best practice

Bonjour from 23 Degrees C hot & sultry Wetherby UK,

I find again and again clients find jumping into an active volcano easier than addid fresh content.

I want to try another tactic to prompt / scare them into adding content and here is my idea. I want to track a competitor site for a target term and monitor if they are adding content over time specific to that term.

So my question is please: "Is there a reliable method to do this?" Ideas i had was doing a good old Google Title operator at the beginning of the month and then at monthly intervals to see if anything changes.

Any insights welcome

Bonjour....

After enthusiastically telling a client we had a new offering where we could offer more insights into social media activity i enthusiatically dived into SEO Moz's social reporting tab with the ainm of synching the report to the clients facebook page.

But after 20 mins of getting an error message it was clear I could not get SEO moz's socail media reporting tab to sunch up with http://www.facebook.com/#!/TennantsAuction or
http://www.facebook.com/TennantsAuction

Here is a screen shot of my frustration:http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/cant-hook-in-facebook-seo-mozcopy.jpg

I realise i have to have admin access to the facebook account which the client can give me but i need to know please is the feature broken or am i doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance,

David