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You need to separate SEO from branding for a minute.

You are saying subdomain and then presenting the www subdomain and I want to be clear that is what your intent was? If instead you are saying we have domain old-company.com and now we are going to be under domain new-company.com and we want the authority built on old-company.com then, YES, you need to do the 301 redirect of urls on old-company.com to new-company.com urls.

Now, in terms of the parent owning brand Old-Company you need to first be clear with them they do not own domain old-company.com in any way as that would negate your ability to keep the redirects once they start using it.

Google is looking at the brand only in terms of branded searches, etc. There is no branding issue beyond that. So, if the parent has domain oldcompany.com vs old-company.com or they add in The-old-company, etc. they are ok if they are ok from a business sense with that change. they do not need to have a subdomain to the previous domain like best.old-company.com

I cannot see them using the old domain in any way as being good for you. But, any variant of that old domain (not your sub domain variant with something.old-company.com) would be fine.

If I were parent and brand were a real issue, I would not relinquish the domain for any reason. If I were you and you believe you must have the redirects, I would negotiate with, "we cannot do the deal if we cannot "retire" the domain and use it as we wish except not visible on the Internet." I think you understand.

Hope that helps,

Robert

I am not sure I understand where you say, " ...it will end and change to "page 24 of 201 results." I have used the site: operator a long time and I think it is reasonably accurate. One thing I notice is the occasional "some pages have been ... duplicate" and do you want to see those? So, if you include all of those what's the magic number?

Is there a reason you want the data that demands an exact result? I am not sure of anything that would give you that. The question is "indexed" within the given search engine. If you crawl with screaming frog, etc. you may see pages that are not indexed, so the comparison is not apples to apples. Just curious as to what you are wanting to know exact indexed pages for?

Interesting question.

Excellent. Thanks

Can you give me the name of any of the tools? Thanks

Over lunch with our head of development, we were discussing the way CloudFlare and other CDN's help prevent DDOS attacks, etc. and I began to wonder about the IP address vs. the reverse proxy IP address. Before we would look to see commonalities in the IP as a way that search engines would modify the value to given links and most link software showed this. For ahrefs, I know they still show common IPs using the C block as the reference point. I began to get curious about what was the real IP when our head of dev said, that is the IP from CloudFlare... So, I ran a site in ahrefs and we got an older site we had developed years ago that showed up as follows: Actos-lawsuit.org 104.28.13.57 and again as 104.28.12.57 (duplicate C block is first three sets of numbers are the same and obviously, this has a .12 and a .13 so not duplicate.)

Then we looked at our host to see what was the IP shown there: 104.239.226.120. So, this really begs a question of is C Block data or even IP address data still relevant with regard to links? What do the search engines see when they look for IP address now?

Yes, I have an opinion, but would love to hear yours first!

Based solely on how you have written this, it is hard to believe it is algo change or any type of penalty. If you are ranking in the same places and CTR is same, it would seem that overall traffic for those terms is down. I realize it is not yet a month but have you checked the terms in Adwords to see if traffic is off this month?

Best,

Good discussion Felicia.

As an agency we tell all of our clients that SEO is a tool within a larger toolbox. With a question like this there are myriad approaches based on what the business type is. For example with Service Area Businesses (SAB's) everyone realized with the recent changes at Google and with Amazon Services, that the world is much more dynamic than they wanted to believe it is. 
If you were in the 7 pack for plumbers at number 5 today you may not be in it at all and need someone to look at "More Places" in order to see you Locally.  With changes to GMB Local listings, changes to Adwords, the advent of Google Services, Amazon Services, etc. you have to start to ask: "What are you willing to pay to be found?" 
For any client we are optimizing for Google, pay some attention to Bing and, well, don't worry much about the others. We are suggesting things like Yelp with caveats where in the past we would not. Today one also has to consider app advertising, etc.

IMO as Google moves to monetize more and more of their property, they edge toward being the YP of this era. I mean this in the sense of 20 years ago many businesses felt they were forced to advertise with YP.  With that growth for Google and people potentially feeling marginalized by it, many more advertising mechanisms will open up and we need to be open to what those will be and to being willing to test them.

Thanks for good discussion question.

I don't believe you can just say we have x links from directories of which __% are no followed and __% from followed use KW as anchor text; therefore, the links are the problem. It is simply not that simplistic.

Secondarlily, in your original comments you said this: "...however that page isn't used by google since it's brand new with a PA of 1." I can show you tons of pages with PA of 1 that rank on page one of Google.

I caution always that you should not get fixated on one issue with SEO as it can lead you down a rabbit hole. I do not think in this instance based on what you have here, that you are suffering due to the links. Frankly, you are looking at a page with a PA of 1 and then pointing to a site with 400plus links and saying the other pages are increasing in rank. The anchor text being what it is, I don't see how it is affecting this one page.

Best

Paul,

The content above the images is not very good at all and could be seen as spammy. I also noticed as I read it that these are actually antique or vintage door handles and knobs. I would want that to be clear on the site. So my paragraph would make that clear from the beginning: If you want REAL Antique or Vintage door handles and not replicas, you have come to the right place! Each of our door knobs or handles have been slightly reconditioned... Then for the types I would use bullets and not keep repeating the terms.

I looked at the site and this page has no external links to it which would be helpful. You would also be well served to implement product markup using schema.

I also noticed that when I did an image search on the 20's rose brass ball handles there was your image and then the same one for tons of ebay listings. One thing that can be helpful with products is to have your own images that you have taken. If these are your images I would put a copyright symbol on them, and I would make sure that weekly to monthly someone does an image search and files complaints on anyone using them without your permission. (You could also email the person using them and tell them if they use that image they MUST link back to you with a followed link to your page!)  You are fairly niche, so this should not be too difficult and it could be very helpful to you. 
I personally do not focus a ton on the competitor pages until I have things "near right" on the page.

This should at least give you something actionable to start with that should help with rankings over time.

Best

SCohen86

IMHO this is not the best way to go about finding a firm because you are going to get a lot of people saying they can help you and you still must be careful. Make sure you ask for and check references with businesses anyone says they have as clients or had as clients.

For something like this, I think your best place for help will be on the Google Webmaster Help Forum. If you post your question you will likely have someone respond who has experience with this or how to correct it. 
Another thing you might check is to see if there was a message in WMT about the complaint.

ALSO Go to this page about removing content from Google. You will see What product does this relate to and click on Web Search.

You will see a group of options and you want to check: "One or more items of my site have been removed due to a legal complaint and I would like them restored.

When you do that you will see a lot of legal writing and the option to either proceed or not. You want to proceed by checking  The DMCA complaint filed against my site was mistaken... (Note: Don't get frightened by all the lawyer writing.)

You will then see some instructions and a link to submit a counter notice: Otherwise, please complete this form to submit your counter notice.

This will at least get the process started for you. Frankly, if it were my site, I would do both the forum and file the notice.

I hope this is helpful,

Robert

The fact they are hiding content IMO this is black hat. But, don't get too caught up in it being black hat. I know your site and in most searches you are ahead of them. They have 4 backlinks all no followed. I think there are things you could do on other pages on your site to push them down and end up with more than one page on the SERP.

Go get em!

Deacyde

First you said, "however that page isn't used by google since it's brand new with a PA of 1. " I suggest using Fetch as Google and then once it shows as complete, click submit to index.

As to when is a specific link or group of links worthy of disavowal tool, that is a bit broader answer. You have roughly 400 links and roughly 100 or 25% are spammy directory links. IMO you likely are not being bothered by penguin IF the other links are at least reasonable. Also, with rare exception, most directory links are not doing you much good so losing them is not going to do much, if any damage. Think of it this way: Your client is a plumber, doctor, lumber store, etc. On a directory most of them have low value pages and then link out 20 to 100's of times. I have seen very few even higher value directories that are not either sending out a ton of links per page OR blowing it by using sitewide links, etc.

I think you can always experiment. Do the disavowal and leave in the few you think are higher value. For each of the questionable directory domains disavow the whole domain to save time assuming they have multiple links. Also, a strong caution here is no matter what link tool you used, also go look in GWMT (search console) to be sure there aren't any really dastardly ones you have missed  as many directories now block ahrefs, majestic, moz, etc. 

Once you do that if you don't gain traction, resubmit adding additional "good" directories to the disavowal. With what you have as a fairly low number the disavowal should be fairly straightforward and easy to get done. Nothing like dealing with a few hundred thousand bad links!

Let us know if this helps,

Robert

I would really like to try it myself. If you will PM me, I will check it and get back with you and keep all confidential. Just as curious as you are.

Robert

Miriam,

YOU is a ROCKSTAR!

Rachael,

Just for clarity (I actually had to draw this out to understand it): Current is BillingsGazette.com/autos 301's to MontanaWheelsForYou.com; correct?

You instead want to create a landing page for BillingsGazette.com/autos that has a link to MontanaWheelsForYou.com in order to increase ranking of MontanaWheelsForYou.com; correct?

If billingsGazette.com/autos Page redirects to MontanaWheelsForYou.com you are passing the link juice to the MontanaWheelsForYou.com page. If you create a new landing page say, billingsgazette.com/autos/landing-page and place a link to MontanaWheelsForYou.com, the new landing page will start with only the one link will not have the value that the older established page had in the beginning. Assuming that billingsgazette.com/autos also links to other pages, etc. the value of the link is: billings .../autos page divided by all the links leaving the page and each receives its share.

To make it easy, the redirect is sending all the value to the MontanaWheelsForYou.com page. So if the page billingsgazette.com/autos has a value of say 50 and you have 10 links, your new page would receive roughly a 5 value. And, if it has more than the link to the one page, the five would be divided again. So, from the landing page with value of 5 if more than the link to MontanaWheelsForYou.com then the value is less than five.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Funny,

I kept thinking where do I know CalicoKitty from (I remember kitty because I am a cat lover! All you haters can just go on a hatin!) as soon as I saw cape Canaveral I snapped! So sorry, I am older than I was when we first spoke!

Yes, we saw a similar and interesting jump in organic with the loss in Local. That does beg some serious algo questions!

My opinion is that this is Google preparing more and more for Google Services. Just like with Products, they know they can monetize and sooner or later, you will need to utilize G services if you want to be seen and yes, that means you pay. 
Have you looked at Amazon Services to see if they are doing anything around deep sea charters? Just curious.

Having looked at your local before, I know it is fairly sound. I really believe you have to hang in there and look to other avenues - don't rest on the organic non local piece. I really believe service businesses must start looking at what are good advertising sources. Is it Yelp, is it Amazon, etc.? BUT the caveat is you must hold any of them accountable and you need to become a tracking vampire. If it can't be tracked in real honest terms you leave them in the dust. Yelp is a big one for wanting to talk about how many people "saw" your ad. If they cannot prove converted traffic I tell clients to abandon whatever source it is. Now, our clients are able to fall back on us and we can dig fairly deep to find what is happening and what reality is. With YP I don't think we have a client today who uses it because we have just proven over and over the traffic is no good on most occasions.

But there will be good avenues for advertising and you should take them. For you, I would be looking at the Salt Water mags, etc. both digital and print. I think for many of the sport specific mags (not pro sports per se) many people still like to hold the magazine in hand.

Hope that gives a bit of hope,

Robert

With Local being so labile right now, we need to know what business, what vertical, etc. If you cannot share it here, you can PM me and I will be happy to keep it all confidential. 
I think all the same key ingredients for good Local still exist like NAP consistency, single page for each location, etc. You also have to look at what are competitors doing differently, are there new competitors, etc. We had a client who was ranking in their community at 2 or 3 for a long time in Local and after the three pack change all of a sudden was at 5 or 6. Our Local person who was fairly new was the one that discovered that their business we just outside the city limits for where they wanted to be listed. I am talking max 2 blocks outside. I cannot tell you that was the reason for the change, but you sometimes have to get really granular if you are to impact things.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Real Address is 123 HoHum Ln, Ste. 123, Farmer's Branch, 75244

Desired 123 HoHum Ln, Ste. 123, Dallas, 75244

If by safe you mean 100%, I would say no; but, probably 90 - 95% safe. The non Terms of Svc. issue will be ensuring you keep it as Dallas in every occurrence and citation sites will populate the name field by crawl OR by zip correlation - that means 75244 would be Farmers Branch and that could lead to a NAP that is different everywhere. So, if it were our client we would say we will do this and you must agree that any negative effect from this is not our responsibility.

Hope that helps,

As to should you worry, we need more info. Of all the links you show in a tool like ahrefs or Majestic, what percentage are these links?

Can you pm me a sample of one or two of them? I will be happy to tell you what I think once I am clear on what they are. We also do a ton with WP so could probably give you some direction there. I am only saying PM so that you can disclose if you don't want to disclose in public. I am not going to in any way try to sell you on our services and if you wanted service I would refer you as I don't like people hawking through Moz Q&A. 
Best