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I liked that EGOL, I did not catch it at all.

Dheeraj

Here is an excellent recent post from Kaila Strong around link building. If you site search moz for things like link building there are a ton of quality posts on the subject. 
Hope this helps,

Robert

Chris,

I can assure you I would not utilize snide as a communications tool with the rare exception of if I knew Tim was mean to kids or animals. So, I did use it as a tool to get him to go hmmmm? 
The reason is simply that having been at this a long time I see people with excellent intent get screwed by following some "scheme or strategy" down a road simply because they were unawares. Tim has a large celebrity news site that does well and he is not a novice to Q & A so has seen my answers before. I would hope that he understood I was not in the least using it as a put-down.

Tim, 
If it was seen as a put down, please, please forgive me.

Thanks

Robert

C3

You have some good responses but this is another of those where it is hard to sit on the sidelines. I have to ask a few different questions with a situation like this; first, forget what they did re the C blocks. What was the desired result they were seeking? What was the plan (with rationale) to achieve that result? And, no matter the answer to any of that, what percentage of optimization/ranking do they or their client believe is related to linking?

So, do they really spend this much effort on a 20 to 30% factor? And remember, this is not effort around bringing in quality links, it is effort around linking as if that is the Holy Grail of SEO. Given the time spend, the opportunity spend, the actual cost to the client, etc. Is this 80% plus of the SEO effort? I would be surprised if it wasn't. Usually when I come across this kind of thing, the "SEO" firm doing it is doing it as some sort of silver bullet SEO. They have discovered a secret way to sprinkle unicorn dust on the algorithm, etc.

To me and in my opinion, it is not white hat, grey hat, or black hat with sequins. It is just a waste of time and energy. It is just highly inefficient. Are they saying they can do more with this strategy than say the people on this forum with an actual strategy? If you are worrying about can linking via multiple C blocks from EMD's I own for some sort of benefit to some site, I think you are looking at SEO from a very odd perspective (not you, I am using the global you as if for anyone who). Interesting approach.

Best

Matthew,

...it sounds like you think Google can handle multiple sets of markup on a page?

With a few exceptions yes. For example we regularly use schema for Local business on the same page that we have review markup. This markup is used by the search engines to provide the best results on the serps. I am sure there is a way you can go overboard, but I am not sure there is a penalty for that if all of it were true.

For product reviews, you do not want review markup on a page for more than one product is an example of not having multiple sets of markup. (But you could have local business markup on that same page.

I don't think the WP sidebar markup hurts (but it is of no value to your site IMO).

Hope this finally clarifies, (sorry I did not see the question after my first response)

Robert

Peter

I agree with Jon,

Also, your page is loading quite slowly when I use Google Pagespeed insights. You might want to run it on the site and just look at what it is suggesting.

Hope this helps you out,

Robert

102drive

I think Richard gives some reasonable direction here. So, if you know absolutely you have a problem, you need to take action. If you are seeing some movement in a site(s), don't be too quick to pull the trigger. If the links are from many different domains you have a different problem than if the links are a lot from one or two domains. With a lot of links from a single domain, IMO, you reach out, and see if you can get headway with the owner. Then you use the disavow tool.

When we see outside domains linking to a site, we usually do not get too uptight unless it is one that is going nuts. An example is that we had a directory called pinhub with over 5K links all of a sudden to a single site. We did not in any way engage them nor did the client. For something like that, we immediately use the disavow tool as we know, based on experience, they will not do anything to stop their behavior. Might as well shutdown any negative effect. Note: the links are still going to show, but you are telling Google, you are disavowing the links. We still send the email for our own backup, but we expect nothing from the perpetrators.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Kimberly,

It can, but without which 5XX it is, it is harder to diagnose. (Is it an endless loop, or something else)

I would suggest (based on you trying to redirect what appears to be homepage whether or not the request is for asp or html) this help from Apache.  It is a bit deep, but you appear to want to do it yourself and this is a resource I would suggest.

If you look about a third down the page there is a content box that covers tons of variables.

Best,

Edward,

When you say you made the site responsive and you serve a different version for mobile and tablets, I have to say I am confused. Are you stating that you made a site responsive, and you are serving a site that is different for mobile/tablet? My first thought is why make the site responsive if you are going to serve a mobile site?

For mobile there is schema that you should use (again, I am assuming you are serving two versions).

Best

Hitesh,

Just so I am clear, you got a partial manual penalty on a single url? While it seems odd to me, most who come to us have partial or full penalties that are affecting their entire sites. My concern with not taking an effort to clean it up, file a disavow.txt file covering any remaining links, and requesting consideration is that it might leave you open for further urls and even affect the new site. This would be assuming you are going to 301 the old url's to the new site. Even without the "bad" url, there is the potential for carryover IMO around the site having been assessed a penalty and never addressed it.

So, if you have the time, clean it up and then file for reconsideration.

Best

Alex,

I love this kind of question probably because it's the kind that gets in my head and I cannot get rid of. In the scheme of things SEO it is likely small, but it's the small rock in the shoe.

My opinion is more around your use of a compressed image even though it links to the larger image, probably means you are ok on load time and indexing. Part of my thinking has to do with many real estate sites that have huge volumes of photo images. Most of them have the ability to load the larger image and some of them (especially on sites where higher end RE companies are using high quality photographers) get fairly large. I know for a fact these sites are not being hurt on any appreciable level.

Hope that helps. I realize it is not definitive.

Best

Hans,

In order to correctly answer this there is more data needed:

Is www.maindomain.com the Main Domain you are potentially pointing the others to?

With the other cctld's, (.eu, .nl, etc) are they sites that are up and running? What about the other .com?

Given you have 'OtherDomain.com's', are they similar sites with a different domain name or are they altogether different sites? Are there domains with languages that are not served by the Main Domain you are redirecting to? Have you looked at traffic to all in GA? What about local?

Is there a business purpose to any of the Non Main sites that would negate changing any of them? Make sure you have talked all the possibilities through with the client or you are going to cause yourself a problem. Please.

What type of "hosting account" is being used? Someone hosting a domain on a network solutions, bluehost, etc for $5 - $10 per month? Dedicated server? Semi dedicated server? etc.

I am not sure who the 'webmaster' is, but they need to understand the reasons you are contemplating this. Frankly, they seem to not want to do the 301's (given the size(# of urls) of the varying domains, varying url structures, are they all exclusively on LAMP stacks or exclusively on IIS, etc. it can be a daunting task.)

If they are simply domains that have no pages or pages with no real link value, a domain to domain redirect takes care of the rare bird who may have one in a bookmark, etc. and, if there is no real chance you would need to worry re bookmarks, you can simply turn them off.

So, you are at a place where you need to answer a lot of questions before you make a decision. A note here since you said, "...a new client.." is that if these are in the least extensive or are critical domains that you really need to be able to preserve the link value or the traffic from you should consider a fee for each domain like that. We charge US $250 for a simple domain to be redirected and a small domain (site) that is critical and has even 10 pages we charge a minimum of US $750. It can go up significantly from there. Why? Because we are a knowledge business and we have learned the knowledge at great cost to us. Also, there is risk involved in this and if something goes wrong, the client will be expecting you to handle it out of your pocket.

If you can answer the questions, I am sure some of us can assist you with the decision tree you face.

Best,

Robert

Domain and Page Authority were created by Moz (formerly SEOmoz). I would not trust anyone elses number on that. From what you have here, you have a website for a company that for all intents does not exist and it is in one of the most unscrupulous areas of the Internet... Loans. 
I think the issue is likely somewhere within that.

Best

Brett,

I took a quick look at the site and have to say I don't see anything on the top that is major. Personally, I like to utilize title tags with the business name in them and to follow the convention of Manchester Movers | 24 hour service | Moving Everywhere - so the business name is the last thing in the Title Tag. What I am trying to target most is at the first part of the title tag.

As to you v. your competitor, this is always a tough one. I suggest you look for what they are doing correctly and ask yourself if you are also doing that. With moving companies in the states, Local is everything. If you have not nailed Local as a moving company it will be hard to rank in a city here. I did not look at that for your site.

Now as to a universal WP canonical issue, I do not know what it is. We handle over 100 WP sites and I am fully unaware of any canonical problem we have ever had. While I do not touch every site even semi regularly, if there is an issue I am the first one made aware of it. I know there are several Mozzers who are Uber WP nerds (I say that as a form of admiration) and hopefully one or two will answer your query better.

I did not run a link profile, etc. but you could always try something like Link Detox to see where you stand. You could run Screaming Frog to check that all pages are giving correct response codes, etc. Ultimately, your home page would have a hard time ranking in a major city in the US from a DA/PA point of view with all the directories and then several older companies with good SEO there. You could get Local really right and have a good shot at showing there. I am not studied enough to speak to the Manchester market.

Here is the good news and I do not often say this: I really like the look and feel of the site. While I did not test it for UI/UX, I liked the colors, the airy feel, the way it is inviting around a subject that is stressful. Excellent job IMO. Here is a hint that we keep front of mind: Does your meta description answer the query?

Hope this gives comfort of a sort.

Robert

Hans, 
I am following up as I hear the pain in your writing.

I think we try to avoid bad absolutes here with a passion, but that most here is fairly straightforward. Per what Highland has, and what your needs are, the CName changes are not what I would do. Absolutely not. Ever. (Hope that is clear without telling you what you should do).

As to the problem with the other domains, it is difficult to give a do this or do that due to the fact we are seeing only example.com etc. and there is in no way anything close to the whole picture. It is kind of like going to the doctor and saying I have some pain. If you cannot give specifics, it is too hard to treat. She does not want to give you the wrong drug for the pain you have. We don't either.

To try and cover all of the permutations you could be facing is to have to write a text book in redirect how to, etc. So we are left with more generalities which is what we have given you along with some specifics.

You said this, "The only reason the 20 domain names exist, is to avoid competitors to registrate them." To me, that says, goodbye domains. You also said there are "some links to them," which generally means they were for more than registration prevention. If you do a domain to domain redirect (301 of homepage essentially) you will LIKELY get most of the juice, but your "webmaster" does not want to do that. So, what are your options now:

Shut them down or not. Those are the only options. The CName thing does nothing for you.

So, there you have the most direction I think anyone can give. I sincerely hope it helps,

Robert

It doesn't matter which you use. When you set up the preferred domain in the search console (GWMT), if you set as www, it will resolve as www. If you set as non www it will resolve as that.

Either way, when you type in www if it is non www as preferred, you will land on the preferred domain.

Best

The sources are too numerous to list. You can find tons of posts on Moz though. Of note is we are handling the link cleanup on a rather large client and I decided to try out removeem. Based on weighing all we have seen so far with the software, I like it. Like with any there have been a glitch or two but their support has been very excellent.

But, as I am talking with a team member she says, "Our link to our client shows up as Toxic." So, I am like "Get outta here!?" Sure enough we were. Note about software: You have to look at what they are utilizing to call something toxic or not. In this case it had more to do with the anchor text that had been used in linking to this client. So, not all that are toxic are and not all that are clean are clean. That is where you have to be somewhat nuanced in your approach. I suggest that if it looks like a paid directory (Other than dmoz or Yahoo) or if it is one that is just a perpetual listing of firms with no real content or context, I would remove it. If it is comment spam on posts, etc. Those are the types of things that stand out readily.

Best,

Forget the CNAME, A record as it is all poor advice. (Yes, I said it - poor advice). When you say only one hosting account, etc. (Hosting is virtual hosting. Only for the mainsite. If I was given acccess to the 20 others, I would put a .htaccess with a 301 redirect there. But that's not an option.) there are things that do not add up here. These others to be up MUST be hosted somewhere. Where? They are not parked domains if links are going to them and they link to main site. (They may be a dupe, but they exist.) So let's go another way. First, if you are familiar with ahrefs.com, this is where I am getting the data from. I like a lot of software, but ahrefs is a real go to for me on links at times (not the only one).

For these sites, compared to what you have coming into the main site, I see no tremendous value. Yes, the one has some links, but comparatively to the main site, I do not believe you are going to see much change if you do not have it - if any. But, you could see some change based on your having duplicate content all over Europe. You will end that by shutting these down. I think that is more important than the links issue.

If you want to give the client comfort I would suggest something we are doing with a client we are taking from about 50 domains (some with significant links others are so what domains) to ONE: We classified ours as Critical, Basic, and Goodbye. For the Critical it is full 301 etc. for the Basic it is a homepage to homepage (client had input on this) and for the others we are ending them with a domain to domain for 90 days then goodbye. NOTE: They actually had little duplicate content. We do a few a week and so far no loss. For yours do one of these every week or two and start with the nothing ones. Then if the last one www.vochtweringsbedrijf.nl and you turn it off and a week or two later you have an issue, you will know that is the issue and be able to choose to revive or not. (I do not think you will).

Make sure you look at analytics at traffic (my guess is it is little or none) for the sites and if one is getting a lot, then you have a reason to keep it. As it stands now, you are screwing up local, SEO overall, duped content, etc. This should be an improvement - based on the info I have at hand.

All the best, and welcome aboard Moz.

Robert

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No, it does not matter what you choose so long as you choose one. In my opinion (I am one of the last baby boomers), my generation is more apt to use www than millenials. But, I have used non www since I knew it was irrelevant a long time ago.

So if you type in drumBEATMarketing.com in the search navigation you will see our site resolve as www.drumBEATMarketing.com. If we had originally set the preferred domain as non www, and you type in www.drumBEATMarketing.com, it would have resolved without the www. Just choose one in search console - (GWMT) and all will be well with the world.

No better UI/UX either way.

Best

Jane,

Frankly, when I read your response I was a bit dismayed at myself. I think you zeroed in much better than anyone else did.

In his question Jonathan adds an interesting qualifier: "...own short URL system that gets used for link redirects that include referral attributes, would/could I get penalized if I use 301 instead of 302?" (italics are mine and are used to highlight the qualifier).

You state, "There would be no reason to penalise a URL shortener or its target URLs for this."

Don't you think that would be dependant on the "referral attributes" he is adding?

Best,

Robert