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The next most popular WP SEO plugin would be All in One SEO (AIO)

File not found errors should show an http status code of 404. 404 pages will be naturally dropped by Google, I wouldn't worry about them.

Make sure any of those 404'ed pages shouldn't have been 301'ed to a related page, to save any authority, if necessary.

You can use the Moz toolbar to check the http status code too.

Screaming Frog is the best crawler out there imo. Have you talked to your hosting provider? They may be refusing the connection on their end.

Have you considered using a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider?

It can crawl your site and it will list the inbound links to pages all neatly in a tab (exportable to Excel).

Cross-domain canonical tags?

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

As LesleyPaone suggested below, ensure your post links are set to nofollow; this is especially sought after for spammers and bots.

I would not suggest using a noindex tag, unless you want your pages to be removed from the SERPs (which I don't think you do).

Don't be afraid to use the Disavow tool, but only use it on sites/pages that you identify as spam. The issue with Disavowing is that some users disavow an entire domain and the domain may not be spam related, thereby removing wanted links from a site's backlink profile.

If you know the site is spammy and do not want backlinks from that site, then feel secure disavowing the domain.

I figured the 'feedback' link would be a long shot, but you can only be hopeful there

I'm not showing your exact address in the site's footer (brightoncollege.com). It may help if you include the same address that is on the Contact Details page right in the footer.

"4538 Kingsway, Suite 305, Burnaby, BC V5H 4T9, Canada"

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to contact Google directly about this issue (or any issue outside of Adwords). However, if you find one - I would love to know!

I would also post this into a popular Google group; maybe a Googler sees it and suggests how to update.

Hi StephanieCasanova,

That's a tricky problem you have going on - a higher authority college overtaking your site's spotlight in the local search.

When I search on Google.ca, I see your site as the #1 in the SERPs, but the UK college and Wikipedia page is in the right sidebar, which is definitely confusing to the person searching.

I have the following suggestions:

• Click the 'Feedback' link below the Wikipedia page and report the discrepancy
• Create a Wikipedia page for your college
• Put your college's main NAP (Name, Address, Phone #) in the footer of your site
• Update your local listing (Google places, local directories, Moz local) to match your main address

It's not necessarily that the Wikipedia/Maps information is incorrect, but they should be pulling your college's info instead of the larger college's info. Hopefully, if you make that clear in the feedback form, the search team adjusts. However, I'd work on that new Wikipedia page and try to get yours to show up instead of the UK version.

Hi TMI.com,

Are you saying that you have a forum where spam/bots create a forum thread to link back to their website? Which creates a number of spammy threads on your forum which you then have to remove?

If so, then you would first want to combat that spam through your Forum software. How can you create barriers for bots creating new threads?

• Require someone to create an account and login prior to posting

• Require threads with a link to go to admin moderation

• Make it so only users with X Activity have the ability to post links (e.g. users who have previously posted 10 legit threads can enable posting links in forum threads)

• Integrate a CAPTCHA when posting threads/comments

These are a few common strategies for preventing on-site forum spam.

If you're wondering how to combat external forum threads that link back to your website, but are spammy. Then identify those pages and use the Google Disavow Tool to distance your site from that spammy content. If you notice a domain being habitually offensive, you may want to disavow the entire domain for any future backlinks.

No, a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. So, if you went to /old-page it would auto-redirect you to the new domain's page. This prevents duplicate content across the domains.

You're correct, you cannot 301 only the domain and expect the authority of the old domain's other pages to seamlessly transfer.

If your new domain has a similar URL structure to the old domain, then it will be relatively easy (not a lot of rules) to use the .htaccess to redirect all old urls to the new urls. e.g. www.olddomain.com/page to www.newdomain.com/page

If the text of the URL, after the domain name, will change then you'll have to create custom redirects for all pages.

Example: www.olddomain.com**/page** to www.newdomain.com**/this-is-a-new-url**

You can 301 each URL individually, or if your site has a clear structure you can use rules in the .htaccess to catch all the pages needing 301.

If you're going to move forward with a new brand and expect to keep it long-term then I would just 301 the entire old domain to the new domain. If you do not have a lot of users/customers at this time, then doing that won't be confusing to the current visitors. But, if your brand is large enough, you may want to keep the old domain's home page with content explaining the rebranding. Eventually, you'd want to 301 that old domain as well, since it has a lot of authority you'd like to transfer to the new domain, at some point.

Hello MrPenguin,

Your code should look similar to this:

Redirect 301 /product/product-name http://domain.com/product-name

Hi bigrat95,

If you'd like to use a new domain with the same content as the old domain then you need to 301 the old domain to the new domain. Leaving content up on the old domain and using the same content on the new domain will cause duplicate content to be recognized, so you want to 301 the old domain to new domain.

You can keep the old domain's home page up and write some unique content for it, without redirecting the home page of the old domain. I suggest writing unique content for that home page and explain your new brand/domain, the value the new site brings to your users, and suggest them to bookmark the new site.

Eventually, your new domain will outrank your old domain and you won't be as worried about keeping it around in the long-term.

This question was asked a few days ago and received feedback from the community.

http://moz.com/community/q/multiview-are-they-worth-or-can-i-do-it-myself

Hi RosemaryB,

AFAIK, no - you cannot implement a 301 redirect from an old FB/Twitter profile to your new one.

The business should minimize the old profile (remove any unnecessary content) and put up a description/text about the new company's handle/page/twitter. You could also send out an email blast with the updated profile and make sure to check the old accounts for any straggler users that find the old profile and need to be redirected to the new profile.

Hi vijayvasu,

Your outline makes it seem like Google Analytics is reporting the numbers correctly.

• You email users with a link to your Marketo landing page
• Users click a link in your email, which direct them to the Marketo lp
• Users then click from the Marketo lp to your main site

This behavior would have Google report the traffic from your Marketo lp as referral traffic; and it would be correct. How do you want to view the stats?

Make sure to properly tag all your links, especially email links. Click stats on your email links will give you insight into the performance of those clicks and why traffic was generated to the Marketo lp.

First steps would be to connect with Google Webmaster Tools and see if there any manual actions against the domain. Correct any that they notify you about.

Update the site to be a value-added website. I.e. remove all thin content pages, duplicate content, optimize the site navigation architecture, optimize the internal link architecture, clean your sitemap, ect.

Examine the site's backlink profile and disavow any domains that are spammy and non-value added (link farms, blogs with duplicate content, excess comment spam, thin content, ect).

That should give you plenty to start with and you should see results once completed.

Everything is to be as expected - in time Google will adjust appropriately and drop the old domains from the index to include the newest domains (which are 301'ed to the new URL).

The 404 error could be around a common error experienced with Yoast sitemaps: http://kb.yoast.com/article/77-my-sitemap-index-is-giving-a-404-error-what-should-i-do

1st step is to try and reset the permalink structure, it could resolve the 404 error you're seeing. You definitely want to resolve your sitemap 404 error to submit a crawlable sitemap to Google.