Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Colin,

Can you clarify, in analytics the sites ranking url is page two? Or, send a screen shot of what you are looking at.

Thanks,

Ruben,

You are talking about the contact form to the right of the slider, correct? If so, that is a WP Contact Form 7 and does have plugins for capcha. In fact here is one from the developer of contact form 7 

Hope this helps.

Robert

Matt,

If I knew that AOL labeled an IP address as a spam oriented IP, I would move my sites TODAY. In my opinion, if AOL has an issue with a site, even though AOL does not have the prominence it once did, I have to believe Google and Bing do too.

If you have a lot of spam coming from one IP they can block the entire IP. Even though your site was not spamming you are down.

Well, someone did not like the answer I gave, but left no reason as to why it was wrong... (my response above is what typically is wrong)

But, I looked at your places listing and no address is showing as you said. I tried junk removal cincinatti to no result then used your 800 number and same and found your Places listing in maps.
Did you by chance get any error message from Google?
Besides the address what did you change?
Did the PIN come via postcard or was it phone.?

Sometimes when you make a lot of changes that will effect your places account for a while (sometimes a couple of months). The account will show in maps but not in general search.

That is the only other issue I could see. Was the 800 number new or has it always been there.

Jonathan,

First, go back and read what I wrote and read my response to AWCThreads as well. Now, you can believe me or not, but I am talking Houston TX and a competitive vertical. And, yes, my clients want to rank in all the suburbs and neighborhoods, etc.

What everyone needs to realize is that they are not taking into account whether or not a business is a service area business and whether or not you have an actual physical address. Assuming (from your question) you do not have a physical address for city B, you can't go in and set it up as if you do for Local. But, you can use two pages on the site to assist you in ranking in both the 7-Pack and the organic. (Given that availability, I am at a loss as to why someone wanting to rank would do one page.)

Now, as to PA, etc. If what you are wanting is some type of "instant" ranking, I do not know what to tell you. I can tell you that we are able to gain ranking for our clients with this methodology but each individual city/area/neighborhood is different as to how quickly. Ranking for a given city + Keyword is ranking and it requires the same efforts, etc. as any other keyword or phrase. But, if you have good content, include the geo + KW as I said before and the images, video, google maps API on one of the pages, etc. You should be able to rank in a reasonable amount of time. (Say page two within 2 months).

I hope this helps clarify.

Robert

EDIT: I wanted to add, if the site has pages with reasonable PA, make sure a few are linking to the new pages without being unrelated.

We have a client who is getting the odd fake review from people who have not done business with them. We have gone to Yelp and cannot get a reply via their "Report a Review." When we call we are given the following normal song and dance:

We hear everyday that we are fast in responding, We are not really an advertising company/media company we are a consumer review company, People cannot put reviews up unless they have been a direct consumer, etc. When you ask to speak with someone "higher up" it is always a voice mail account. So, given we have devoted more to this than we wanted, we are going down the trail of finding who the reviewer(s) is and taking legal action.

Just wondering if any of you have done that or had a client who did?

If it is even close to a real review we have ways of working with the client or them and their customer to assist and we do not take on clients who want "reputation management." So, LMK if you have been the legal route.

David,
First, as to your last sentence, I am assuming you are redirecting 20 urls that are "not optimal" to 20 new urls that are optimized. Such that your example above is one and another would be http://www.dog.com/food to http://www.dog.com/organic-raw-dog-food, etc. for approximately 20 urls.

If these follow the best practices (301's url to url in the .htaccess file) you should have no issue with the change. Understand that if the "poor" url /toys is ranking number 8 on page 1 of Google, and you do the redirect, it does not mean that you will rank for /chew-toys in the same place. For a short while you will likely continue to rank and then likely will fall off quickly.

Your new page will gain the link juice but not the ranking of the old.

We do a lot of site redesigns to bring them to SEO and CRO standards and therefore use a lot of 301's to maintain PA and grow it. We typically see the juice move over two to three months or more in a gradual fashion. An example is a site that we transferred every url for in late Aug. had about 170 links to its home page. Two months later, when looking at the old url there were only a couple showing and the links were showing on the new. So, it will change but not overnight.

Hope this helps

It could have been one of my ex wives. They can be so spiteful!!

No worries, just wondered what they did not like....if I thumb you down I let you know why as do many others. That way we all learn. Your answer was excellent btw. One question would be is, if Google did not like the places page, why just not incorporate the new address as opposed to etelling hm in the WMT or Places dashboard??

But, given what you found, I could see how they would have some verification doubts. Best to you.

We were having a conversation re urls that are indexed for images that are stored in various media plugins in WP.

My question for anyone who is an uberWP person is: What is your opinion re best media storage plugins and how these URLs affect pages on a site for ranking, etc.

I realize this is broad, but it is driven out of my concern that I cannot touch everything. When I see a url like this:  http://www.drumbeatmarketing.net/wp-content/themes/drumbeat2/img/DB-LOGO-White.png

I know there is no way with all the sites and clients we handle that I can get it perfect but this just bugs me for some reason. Should I just chill since it (seemingly) affects so little....?

I appreciate your effort to answer but must say I strongly disagree with you.

First, you are saying you have done the testing and seen the data, but I don't see it here; therefore your statement is anecdotal.

While I generally agree with you that a business with 20 five star reviews and nothing in the least negative is generally viewed with a bit of skepticism, that does not mean a business with 3 or 4 reviews that are four and five star reviews should be responding to a 1 star review, written by someone who is not a customer because that makes more people believe in them. **All of the lemons to lemonade is irrelevant when a competitor is  attacking and seeking to damage you. **

As to owners responding you do not even stop for a second stop and provide a huge and necessary caveat which is this: _Don't get involved in a back and forth with a customer online. _You will make the review more current and more relevant with each and every comment. That means you give it the ability to rank over time.

Most owners are going to want to defend their businesses when they first try to be pleasant and reasonable but the customer is hell bent on damaging them instead of finding a workable solution. My experience (which is anecdotal) is that about 25% of the customers don't want to be repaid, made to feel better, etc., they want revenge for a real or imagined slight.

While it is better to deal ethically and upfront with customers, I do not agree with the generality of taking one on the chin so everyone will want to do business with you.

For any of our clients we tell them: "If you get a bad review, do not respond. Pick up your phone and call us and let us see the review, learn the specifics from your point of view, craft a response and follow through." Just to be clear, we do not offer any reputation management services. When potential clients want that we tell them our first requirement is that they make every effort to clean up all their bad press by contacting the customers and making them happy.

This is my opinion, Thanks

William, it must be the first of the month and everyone had the sales speech! I posted my question on Local directory jerks and yours followed!.

On a serious note though, this is a perfect reason we all need to push forward on the certification bandwagon. I am really considering paying the $3500 and signing up with Market Motive for SEO and then doing the same with Analytics. At this point, that seems to be the only thing that will prevent everyone from being an SEO expert.

Best to you,

Atul, I think the way Rasmus has it here is correct. The other day I came across a tool for 301's that will write for you.  FULL Disclosure is I have not used it yet. If you want to check it out, the site is

http://seo-website-designer.com/HtAccess-301-Redirect-Generator

Might be worth a try.

Will,

That page shows 43 links to it in Majestic and only two of those are since late Sept. The only negative I see is one domain appears to be a sitewide with about 33 links from it. That may be affecting you.
Short of that, have you changed anything in the last 90 days?

Good luck,

Robert

I am curious as to what those of you who are agencies and are checking specific cities for SERPs are using to geo locate a SERP in a city you are not in. PLEASE I am not looking for great Rank tracking software, etc. I want to see specific searches; I am not trying to check rankings of a specific keyword per se.

After Google changed the ability to use location settings I found that using a query string like: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=purple+fuzzy+jellybeans&near=**city I want**

I noticed in the last few weeks that type of query is returning more and more results that are geo diffuse: a search with &near=denver returns some denver but also raleigh NC, Houston, etc. I realize there are other work arounds, but it would seem reasonable to want to know what is actually happening in a given city for a given search if you have multiple locations, just took on a client in DC, etc.

Love to hear what you are using.

AWC this is a good question and I started writing then decided to take a breather and came back as I just did not see a clear answer. I leaned toward what Keri had in that if you saw traffic exiting from the contact page or the map or store location page, that would at least provide a clue. If you track back and say that these people were looking at umbrellas, did you see a corresponding increase in umbrellas? But, the traffic is likely more diffuse in terms of products. The exit page does seem to hold a clue though.

However, you might be better served to design a test that would give you more data. So, is there a way to look at items that are more often purchased locally than shipped? Say an item that is more time is of the essence? An example for me would be tarps after a bad storm? Items associated with weather? Items that repair vital equipment (like your car or lawn mower or a plunger). If you see searches for generators after the lights go out in an area and it is unknown when they will be back, are you seeing searches to the eComm site and then purchases in the retail store after exits? For plumbing supplies do you see searches on plungers, augers, etc. and then exits without purchasing? Can you in any way correlate that with local purchases? I would even look at having something on the site like "Press here to text our address and phone to your cell phone" (Gosh that is so good I may have to adopt it!!).

Hope this helps, wish it were imminently more definitive.

Best

I would go with the code the way Rasmus has laid it out for you. I will check out the tool and let youknow.

SamCUK

You are harming your site (who knows how much) and given your topic I do not think you are going to get as laser like (longtail is a laser) as you want. The first question when I see "landing pages" is are you also doing PPC using this technique? If your drop was in and around October of 2013 (8 months) it is more likely the drop is due to links (penguin) especially given the timing and severity.

As to your question on will traffic return if you remove the pages, there is no answer available other than trying it. If you are concerned, pick out some of the pages with known traffic loss and return to where you were before with 20 or 30% of them. Check it over 30, 60, and 90 days. But, also check your link profile.

Best,

I checked my version and it was 3.1.128 which is current mozbar. I then trashed and reinstalled and I am now convinced you have a more special relationship with Moz than I have. I will speak with my therapist though.

Keri brings up a good point here. For me, when I am in my office and someone comes in and says we need a ....... (which always ends in some new or improved technology piece), If we are mid project, I like being able to go to one vendor who has both eComm and B&M because I can peruse, see inventory, and purchase for pickup. The purchase for pickup is great as it is guaranteed to be on the counter in 30 min or less and, I do not have to stand in the interminable line.... Impatient I am.

If that retailer needs proof of eCommerce impact, they just have to look at that. Remember, these products could have been bought online. Secondarily, I do not prefer locations that do not have eComm sites or sites that have a thorough description of their offerings in a retail location. To me, today, eCommerce saves me money....especially with retail in the store purchases because it saves me time.

Sorry Webfeatseo, I totally missed last question there.

If you decide to delete the Places listing and start over, here is a great blog post on that very issue: The Right Way to Remove A Google Places Listing by 540SEO

Sometimes, the only way to ultimately get it right is to delete and start over. Remember, you will be better served by following the guidelines than by not. Here is another link to how to with a lot of links at bottom to good local experts: Optimizing Your Google Places Page by Geoff Kenyon

Miriam also gave you a good list of don'ts above. Good Luck