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Hi Guys, OK so we resolved this and it's a Microsoft issue!!  and a schoolboy mistake from me! We use "Web User Controls" on the website that allow us to write re-usable modules for things like headers, burger menus and footers in an ASP.NET web solution.  We then drag and drop the onto any page and if we need to change them then we just change the core web user control HTML. The rogue links were coming from these web user controls, when they were on pages in the rogue directories. Now the reason we had this fault on this website on not on any other was because we made the mistake of using standard HTML Well if the page is in the root directory then no problem.  If you want to go to the home.aspx page then the link is fine (HOME However if you put this footer on  page in a sub folder then you need to change the link to ../home.aspx, but you can;t do that or all the pages in the root folder go squeewy.  So this is why you use an ASP:Hyperlink control instead, this allows you to define a page from root with the ~/home.aspx link. This is where all of these rogue pages were coming form. TY for the help guys.

Alright, well my advice runs counter to common wisdom: don't worry so much about whether it's on a sub-domain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ My feeling is that you should worry a lot more about what the blog is linking to. I've personally had access to look into 2 of the most-cited subdomain examples. In one of them the company moved into a subdomain, but broke a massive document up into about 7 pieces - and each piece started getting organic traffic. This happened at the same time, so I don't think it can be attributed to the sub-domain movement. In another case the blog logo linked back to the blog home, and there were almost no links to the sales pages. Changing the header resulted in more links to the root domain, so yes - rankings improved. I've heard other anecdotes of people moving to sub-folders and seeing big boosts in their non-blog rankings due to the links from the blog. For the last 5 years, though, I've seen no credible evidence. I've been in a good position to see the opposite. One more story: a friend of mine just moved a MASSIVELY-cited blog (blog PA 75) off the sub-domain, but his nav was already mirroring the www version (which has 1/15th the links). Impact on rankings: absolutely none. I'd still install on the same server if I could, just for the sake of maintenance, but if you can't find a technical solution just make sure you link architecture makes sense.

You are very welcome -Andy

You could go about changing some of them but I'd focus on your external links.  I'd also take a look at Cyrus Shepard's recent post on keywords and instead of applying your resulting Step 7 list to your keyword choices (although you could very effectively use it as such), use your resulting concepts as a starting place for your back link research, as any sites that were relevant to the concepts you end up with in that list would be ideal back link candidates. Also, keep in mind that in your niche, a high DA isn't a prerequisite for being a link opportunity, so long as it's a quality site with a few quality back links and no/few spammy links.

Hello Dave, Overoptimized internal linking text can have a negative impact on your site's rankings in Google. Well-optimized, user-friendly internal linking text that does not go overboard can have a positive impact on your site's rankings in Google. For example: If the anchor text of all internal links going into your "Blue Widgets" says "Buy Blue Widgets Online" and you have pages for "Red Widgets" that have hundreds of internal links saying "Buy Red Widgets Online" and the same for Green Widgets, etc... that is probably overoptimized. It would be better if they all just said the name of the category (i.e. Blue Widgets, Red Widgets, Green Widgets) since the "Buy... Online" part is implied. I hope this answers your question. Good luck!