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Hi there

Campaign tags don't signal unique content. It's essentially the same concept as...

http://www.example.com
http://example.com

Both are two different URLs but have the same content, thus making it duplicate content, even though it's technically the same page.

What you can do is take a look into your canonical tags and make sure those are upto date and correct. You can also look into categorizing your parameters, letting crawlers know how to handle this content. Both of these resources will help with your duplicate content issue.

Yoast has a great resource as well for common causes and solutions to duplicate content.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

Do you update your sitemap, correct all internal links, and upload said sitemap to your Webmaster Tools?

Try that method if you haven't already. Otherwise, I would hold off on changing your domain often. 3 seems like a lot!

Hope this helps!  Good luck!

Hi there

I went through and did a quick skim. Here's what I found:

• Titles need to be optimized
• Meta descriptions needs to be optimized
• Remove meta keywords
• Images don't have alt tags
• No schema on the website (lots of opportunities here)
• URLs could be updated
• No canonical tags
• www. and non www. URLs both work
• https returns warnings

I would also run through a technical audit to make sure your bases are covered, as well as this site migration guide to make sure proper steps were taken.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi again

I see - sorry about that!

If you are showcasing different companies on your site then it should be...

/cake-company/cupcakes/type-of-cupcake

Apologies on that. Out of curiosity - are all of these companies separate and active companies? Or did they all merge into one larger company? Or is this like a listing website of different companies an their products?

Hi Cole

Can you put a URL(s) in this so we can get a better idea of what you're trying to say? Your language is a tad confusing. It'd be easier to help if we can see an example. Let me know, thanks so much!

Hi Rosemary

Yes! You should be just fine. According to Google:

If your business moves from one location to another and keeps the same business name, Google will generally move the reviews to the new location. There are some exceptions for businesses heavily tied to their locations, like hotels, golf courses or scenic attractions.

You can read more at Moving Reviews Across Google+ Pages.

If you have any other questions let me know! Good luck!

Hey there

You're going to get a lot of self promotion potentially here from members.

I recommend looking at Moz's recommended list here: http://moz.com/community/recommended

Hi there John

Without seeing your website or the competitor website, it's hard for the community to help. If you could send the links to the both websites this would give us the opportunity to use our tools to give more insights and ideas as to why you have this situation.

Let me know if you have any other questions or comments!
Patrick

Hi Alan

Yes, combining those three sources would be great! It will give you multiple angles of your backlink profile, and since all tools crawl and show different links, you'll get a more holistic view of your overall backlink profile.

Here's where I pull my links from:

• Google Webmaster Tools
• Majestic
• Ahrefs

Here's a tool I use for quick "scoring" of my backlink profile (still requires manual review):

• LinkRisk

A few questions to ask when assessing links:

• Does this link help my website?
• Is this link relevant to my website?
• Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
• Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
• If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

I would also take a look at Link Audit Guide for Effective Link Removals & Risk Mitigation - there are a TON of great tips in this article that can help get you on the right path for data collection, assessment, and action. For more tips on backlink audits, please read:

• How to Conduct a Link Audit (SEW)
• How To Conduct A Link Audit (SEL)
• A More Robust Process for Dealing with Link Removal Requests (Moz)
• Conduct a Backlink Profile Analysis with Excel (case study) (Moz)

Doing a backlink audit takes focus, patience, and knowledge. If you read all of the above and have a healthy data collection, you can find some amazing things. Sometimes, running a backlink analysis report isn't a bad idea, but if you have a small amount of backlinks, take the time to run through the process and learn what to look for in your backlink profile. That alone will pay off dividends in the long run!

Hope this helps - let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!

Hi Cole

Thanks for posting these. My opinion - it's the same content on all of these pages...

https://example.com/website-designer-alexandria-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-baton-rouge-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-lake-charles-la/
https://example.com/website-designer-new-orleans-la/

So while you may do service in these areas, you're better off finding local listings and opportunities to promote your business in those areas. Maybe find Chamber of Commerce opportunities or something along those lines. You're also look specifically at Lousiana, so I would focus more at the level and mention throughout the site (without overdoing it) that you service particular areas if that's the case. If it's the whole state, there's no real need to do that.

Those are my suggestions. These pages don't provide any value and can be considered spammy and overoptimizing. You're better off looking at citation and listing opportunities and focusing at the state level rather than building out pages for cities. Does that all make sense?

Take a look at these:
Local Learning Center (Moz)
Local SEO (Moz)
Moz Academy (Moz - focus on Local section)
On-Page Factors (Moz)
Best Practices for URLs (Moz)

Let me know if you have any more questions or comments. Good luck!

Edited: Links changed at request of OP.

Hi there

I would suggest first finding what exact business name your client wants to use. I would then go through cleaning up unnecessary business listings, updating relevant business listings, and creating business listings that are relevant to the service area as well as the industry itself.

From there, I would make sure that contact information is properly listed on the websites with Schema markup so that crawlers can verify your information. Take a look at these resources as well:

• How to Perform the Ultimate Local SEO Audit (Moz)
• Local SEO: How To Rank Your Local Business (SEL)
• The 2015 Local Search Ranking Factors (Moz)

All of those should help get you get on the right track!

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi Adam

First, this is a heavy duplicate content issue - you have two sites with the same content. I would do the following (if this were my site):

• Choose a domain to focus on

• For all sites...

• Check backlinks in Majestic

• Check metrics in Open Site Explorer

• Check rankings in SEMRush and Google Webmaster Tools

• Redirect the other domain to this new domain

• Here is a URL mapping resource from Google

• Find any and all other domains you may have

• Use Copyscape

• Redirect those domains as well

• Do a backlink audit on all of the domains

• Keep and change backlinks you want

• Request removal of links you don't

• If any domain has a bad enough backlink profile, you may want to 404 the site, or 410 it

• You may need professional assistance on this so don't do that without second opinions

• Update your sitemap for the chosen domain

• Update your new sitemap XML in Google WMT and Bing WMT

• If other sites have a Google Webmaster Tools, look into into a change of address

• Correct any and all internal links to reflect this new domain

• I recommend using relative URLs

• Local search, Google+, & citations

• Conduct a Local Search audit

• Update citations - utilize Moz Local or Whitespark

• Make sure information submitted reflects chosen domain

• Update your Google+ Business pages

• Make sure all NAP information is up to date

• Make sure linked domain is correct

I would also take a look at your on-site SEO. A lot of these sites seem heavily optimized and a little spammy at points. While you are ranking now your URLs could set off spam filters, coupled with the on-site work that needs to be done, as well.

Just be mindful of your content and optimization going forward. There is a lot here, and without telling you what to do because I do not know your site at all (I would bring in a professional to help you and give you a strategy), these are areas and things I would start looking into. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Hope some of this helps - good luck!

Hi there

First, I am going to be honest, you need to learn SEO at a deeper level. You're starting off on a bad foot with quick wins, multiple domains, buying links, potential keyword stuffing and more. I highly suggest reading all of the resources in the Moz SEO Academy. Reason being - you need to know why what you're doing can be potentially damaging to your organic performance, what you need to actually be doing to be successful, and how you can accomplish organic success.

Google themselves also have a great SEO resource that you can utilize to gain more knowledge.

Things like MozTrust, MozRank, Domain and Page Authority are all covered in the resources above from Moz, but I suggest starting from the top and working your way down. Believe me, taking the time now to read and learn all of the above is going to help you so much more than the questions you're asking right now.

Hope this helps you! Good luck!
Patrick

Hi Alan

When I pull links, I do so from WMT, Majestic, OSE, and Ahrefs.

Reason being, you're going to see different links from different tools. No one source covers them all, so it's best to get as much data as you can from different places.

I will read into LinkDetox and tell you if anything is a red flag to me, but again, your statement from the other question thread seems like a lot money for automation and "too good to be true".

Please let me know if you have any more questions or comments - would love to help where I can and see you through! Best of luck!

Hi there

I found a few resources here:
Joomla SEO Checklist 5 Essential SEO Tips for Joomla You Must Know 5 Awesome Joomla SEO Plugins That Google Will Love

Since you are running a service, I would also check your local SEO and make sure that you audit your listings and citations. A couple of great services to help you with your local SEO include Moz Local and Whitespark - I suggest checking those out.

I would also look at your on-site SEO and make sure that you have all of your bases covered, taking advantage of all the opportunities that you can - there are a ton of great pointers and resources in that link.

Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!

HI there

No, there is no evidence that responding to reviews will help you rank better in search. Don't look at responding to reviews as an opportunity to rank higher in search (because it won't happen) - look at it as an opportunity to directly engage someone who had an experience with your product or service; whether good or bad. It will speak volumes about your brand if users see that you are actively engaging and responding to users.

That, ultimately, is more valuable in the eyes of users, not rankings. Remember - you're trying to please users, not search engines. Please users, and search engines will catch up.

Shameless plug - I wrote a post awhile back on customer engagement and why it matters that dives a bit deeper and gives some examples

Hope this helps! Let me know if it doesn't! Good luck!
Patrick

Hi David

I would line up the drop with the algorithm history; from there you can assess the following:

• Do I need to do a content audit?

• Do I need to do a backlink audit?

• Are my issues mobile related?

• Just because a site is responsive doesn't mean there arent other issues

• Do I need to look into my local SEO?

If it was a recent drop (within the last week) I would say it's probably based on mobile, but you would have to check your mobile traffic in your Google Analytics.

I would specifically look into that page and check your Google Webmaster Tools to see if any other issues have been happening or seen. Make sure your on-site SEO is on point, content is well kept and optimized, look into your backlinks (and your competitor's who may now be ranking - this is to be used as a guide - not a copycat), and you should find out pretty quick where the issue is.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

While I am definitely interested to see how the community answers the removal of rules on the redirect file, I wanted to offer a couple of ideas.

I would pull a list of old URL backlinks from:
Search Console
Majestic
Ahrefs OSE

I would see if you have any links pointing to old URLs that could be updated to the new URLs, that way you don't lose those links from your actions on the redirect file. There may be links you'd want to remove or disavow as well.

And yes, you could search to see if these URLs are still being indexed by searching them. You could look into the Removal-Tool from Google, but I would use that with caution.

I will back out now for the answer to removing rules from your file, since I am really not sure there.

Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!

Hi there

Immediately, I would check your Webmaster Tools and see if you have a Manual Action of any kind.

If you do have a manual action - read through the Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal.

It seems like you are taking care of your On-Site SEO pretty well. I would also make sure you are using canonical tags on product and category pages properly.

I would also start benchmarking your sites as they currently stand and tracking progress as you go through implementations and changes to your site. Take a look at this competitive analysis resource from Moz, not to copycat, but to instead utilize for your own unique website and audience.

Make sure your mobile SEO is the best it can be. Also, make sure you are taking advantage of Schema.org as it can potentially help your website improve in rankings - here is Google's Testing Tool to see if your web development team implemented it correctly.

Take a look at Enhanced Ecommerce to see what products are giving you the best traffic and conversion rates. From there, you can structure your site in ways based on audience behavior and implement that behavior into your marketing strategy.

And lastly - start tracking your keywords in Moz and Webmaster Tools so you can see where you have opportunities and where you can improve.

Hope this all helps! Let me know if you have any more questions or comments! Good luck!

Hi there

I imagine so, as Google still has pretty comprehensive resources dedicated to it. I will say that, based on the possible benefits and major search engines utilizing it, that Schema markup is more lucrative in my opinion for local SEO. In fact, you will find that most local SEO articles mention utilizing and implementing Schema where possible.

This is just my opinion, I like Schema and see it mentioned absolutely everywhere when it come to local SEO, but that doesn't mean that KML isn't recognized or worthwhile, especially with Google's resources - but honestly, would they tell you either way?

Hope this helps! Good luck!