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Edited nm - I was mistaken

Hi Kristy,

It looks like you didn't 301 redirect the old site pages to your new site - I did a Google search, and the old asp pages return 404 (not found) errors when clicked on. This would certainly help explain your significant dropoff. Google doesn't know that your old pages have been migrated to new ones. In a very simplified way to describe this situation, you've starting from scratch - especially if the old site had link presence.

Also, I would recommend, in your titles, including your site name AFTER the page keywords.

For example, rather than:

Moondoggie Dog Boutique - Dog Outerwear

use

Dog Outerwear - Moondoggie Dog Boutique

I'm not sure whether you've installed Google Webmaster Tools - but it would help you immensely in this case

If you'd like some assistance with the redirection, you might want to briefly contract someone. A few hours should be all it would take. Fixing the redirection error might not be the solution to all your woes, but right now it's definitely a massive problem.

Cheers,

Dan

Exclude the whole new site using robots.txt, and remove the current new site-indexed URL's within Webmaster Tools: Optimization > Remove URL's.

When the new site is ready to launch, undo these removed URL's using the "Reinclude" button, also found within the Remove URL's section of Webmaster Tools. Do this prior to 301'ing the old site pages to the new, and you will probably wish to announce the new site launch via social media as well to encourage indexation. +1'ing a page is considered the fastest way to get it indexed.

Much love and thanks to Rhea Drysdale, who addressed pretty well exactly this subject already in April

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/online-reputation-management-branding-for-serp-domination

Trust symbols

You've probably seen that for some searches (most commonly for specific product types) that Google offers something like the following in the SERPS:

Related searches for widgets:

| Stores:   | Widgetland Widgetworld Widgetbarn Amazon |
| Brands:   | Widgetdog Superwidgets Widgey |

I'm working with a reputable brand of widgets - they're not just a supplier or a retailer, but a company that designs and builds its own.

Does anyone know how Google decides which brands are worthy of being recognized in these related searches, and how I can encourage them to recognize our brand similarly?

So far I've done the following:

• Knowem.com brand protection
• Add products to Amazon
• Sell our products on eBay
• List our products on Google Shopping

In other words, do what a popular brand would do - appear in many channels, with a large and diverse footprint.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing, and how to help a brand get recognized as a brand?

That's an awesome rule of thumb and how I look at it too (though you put it much better than I would have).

-Dan Cutler

Thanks! Was planning on taking a good look @ their mgmt system & the promotional tool looks pretty slick too + they're a market leader.

Thanks for the heads up... pretty intense landing page but according to the vid it's pretty well what I'm looking for.

I'm interested in hearing the latest word on that... I don't believe it's "dead" as in "no longer updated, no longer based in anything meaningful" but it seems like many SEO's believe that its not relevant - but why that is, I'm not sure so I'm wondering if someone can give us the quick rundown.

I was wondering if anyone knew of an app or system to run integrated social media contests across multiple channels, ie people could get an entry for one or more of the following:

• "Like" us & our contest
• +1 us & our contest
• Be a member of the e-mail list or join it
• Tweet about the contest, w/ link ( ie "you could win: :")

Bonus if the link they Tweet could have a trackable referral id so that they would get extra entries when people click their referral link and then enter too. And if you could offer a reward for completing all the different ways to enter.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of contest? Hopefully there's an app for this?

Cheers, Dan

Lol, it's true. You want to see a real wasteland, check out any products that are offered via Amazon affiliate sales. There are reams of pages of spun product descriptions with Amazon affiliate links. Mostly on blogspot and sites.google.com

Ironic, no?

Interesting. I knew this was coming when my daily Google Alerts started becoming full of absolutely crappy blog network posts that were obviously spun or written by someone with neither command of language nor authority on the subject matter. I blame/credit the noobs.

Hi there,

Been trying to use the Competitive Link Finder off-and-on for about an hour now. It keeps telling me it's busy. Is there something known going on right now? And if so, do we know when it comes back?

Best Regards,

Daniel @ Path Marketing.

There's a badge for that

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/badges

It won't hurt your rankings - just perhaps your CTR in the SERP's.

Hi Matt,

I checked it out. What I saw was a quality site using your service as intended and citing you as the provider.

I would be incredibly surprised if there was anything negative here. There are absolutely no potential low quality signals I can see. Your service is getting adopted by legitimate users and cited appropriately. I just can't see anything wrong with this.

If you were "penalized" for growth this would be a gross distortion of what what the "penalty" is intended for.

I really see nothing wrong here. Do you have further growth lined up? The only thing I could see POSSIBLY being an issue is getting a burst of links and then having it drop off. But it's only 50 sites - not the thousands you can get using "other" means.

I strongly think you should just go for this. If you were a client that would be my recommendation. This IS natural linking.

Any other SEO's care to weigh in on my thought process? If I'm full of it I'd love to hear it. But I don't see how.

I'm not sure what the best is, but I didn't really like WP E-Commerce.

Hi Matt,

I feel like you shouldn't worry about the timing of the linking, for a few reasons:

1. This seems to be natural linking. These aren't paid for links and they aren't blasted low-tier links. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but these links come from natural, reputable websites that have chosen to publish your content and reference you as an authority on your own merit, right?

Unless I'm wrong, this isn't Blackhat or unnatural linking - It's a bunch of legitimate & natural links that you've simply happened to acquire at once. In other words, it's not just link acquisition, it's link acquisition that's reflective of legitimate partnerships.

2. I don't feel like 50 websites is all that much to get links from in a short period of time. Especially legitimate websites such as newspapers, etc. All this means is that your site is moving up as an authority. What's wrong with that?

IMO spreading out the links to "simulate" natural linking is a bit odd - because in this case, the "natural" thing to do is add them immediately. These aren't paid for links & they aren't SPAM links. They're reflective of your legitimate growth.

Not all natural linking has to be spread out IMO. In this case that would be the "unnatural" thing to do. The only real reason IMO to spread links out on purpose is not to get caught doing it. But you're not doing anything like that here.

I say just go for it. But that's just my two cents, not a guarantee.

How exactly will these links be added and where?

I think it's massively dependent on which social media you choose and what your market is. I've seen a lot of success from local businesses on Facebook. They're usually photographers or crafty people. They market to the same demographic that fills my news feed with videos of kitties, massive amounts of baby pics, and hallmark card style quotes. Their business interests are very social to begin with. For them, social media is just the new word-of-mouth.

Then at the same time, I see a bunch of SEO's and online marketers writing blogs and Facebooking and Tweeting and I wonder what exactly their end game is. I understand why SEOmoz gives away so much knowledge, since they profit from people becoming qualified to charge for SEO, at which point ideally they sign up with SEOmoz's pro tools (like we did!). But a bunch of SEO's are writing the same stuff without thinking of who's going to read it. You can write all about, say, load time optimization or cross-domain canonical URL's but the people you're going to try to charge for your services are probably not going to understand or implement them. Better to write some tips on actionable things they can do themselves, like getting established in Google Maps/Places/LBC, submitting to business directories, or how awesome it is to be listed in the BBB website (it really is). Then they can follow your instructions, see success from them, and they'll trust you when you say that the more advanced/technical things, which they won't be able to understand, matter too. And they'll pay you to do them.

I also think that there are some kinds of businesses that aren't really suited to social media, or at least not directly. How would you do a campaign for, say, a wholesale medical supply and industrial solvent supplier? I doubt you'll be getting many people liking or sharing the new line of slightly more economical rubber stoppers. If you want to exploit social media, you'll probably be trying to generate creative link/share bait. A far cry from the ease of someone who simply knits baby hats and then posts them on Facebook to a chorus of Likes, Shares, and "OMG so cute!!!!!"

TLDR: "Social Media" works as long as you're using the right channels to reach the right people with the right angle on it.

-Dan from Path