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Max,

Because the links you put are to your private data, SEOmoz won't let anyone follow. Can you put in a screenshot and then just give a link tot the actual url that is a problem? Thanks.

We were in the middle of looking at a lot of the PR submission sites and at that time the latest Panda came crawling. We did a bit of checking and even the one with Warren Buffet and the patented SEO program took a hit. From what we have been able to learn PR Web did not take a hit, but....we are still not ready to spend client money on it until a few more weeks past.

Alan, I liked the infoGraphics suggestion to help in the pickup of the article. Good suggestion.

Simon and Alan are correct here, but there was a recent post by Dr. Pete that also sheds a bit of light on this. Quality Raters.

This is an interesting post and I have looked back at it several times. That said, when you redesigned the site, if you took off ads, got rid of superfluous information, etc. You likely improved the way the algorithm looks at it, too. As Simon said, if you improved the ability of the spiders to crawl it, that helped. As Alan said, if it is just a freshness factor it could drop again soon. So, keep it fresh and keep it simple.

By the way, this was a great question and followed by two good answers.

Steve, Alan and Joshua have some good points here. If your desire is to franchise, you almost certainly have to go with a 301 redirect to the site you wish to brand with. You also don't want those typing in that brand to end up on a site where the URL is AustinFitnessGyms.com on a lot of levels.

But, you are going to have to be very careful with what you do or you will have a real problem on your hands. As it is now, you are redirecting the MMA site to the Austin Fitness site. When you have the 301's already set, if you go into MMA and set new ones you are going to create an endless loop and your pages may not show. This is a pain to deal with so take it one step at a time.

As a franchisor, if you had two locations, you could just keep the Austin Fitness and use the other location for inclusion in your Franchise Offering Circular. If you are selling franchises it will be hard to do so without a proven product so leaving it as Austin Fitness will be hard. You probably need to insure the signage, etc. is all MMA. You could start a new site, but that will likely not solve the problem and you will have to build links for it.

When you did the 301 from MMAsite to Fitness site did you do every url and did you use the .htaccess file? The reason I ask is that when you put in the www.impactMMAFitness.com and the non www of impactMMAfitness.com it returns two different results in OSE.

My suggestion is this: Choose to reverse the way you have the 301 and do it methodically. First, take the 301's off of any of the ImpactMMAFitness.com (check each url as Screaming Frog does not show each having a 301). After you do that, resubmit the site map to Google. Then, go into the .htaccess file of the AustinFitnessGyms.com site and use a 301 on each url to the respective url on ImpactMMAFitness.com) also go into Google and select a prefered site for ImpactMMAFitness.com - www. or non www. Make sure you have done the same on AustinFitnessGyms.com, so that either iteration redirects the juice to the Impact site.

Once you do that, resubmit the sitemap to the engines. I believe, this will fix the error of choosing a domain that was best at the time. For your local, you leave it the same as it will end up on the main site. You should also look at the rules around franchising and the Internet when it comes to marketing. Think of someone having a location in San Antonio or even San Marcus and their being a conflict of borders.

Hope this helps. Please remember when you redirect from the Austin to the MMA, if you have not taken the 301's off of Austin it will likely bite you in the butt.

Thanks for catching it, really. I actually laughed, and while kicking myself said...bright one bigfish.

Best

Simon is correct, I was being over simplistic and imprecise. From GWMT: Google supports frames and iframes to the extent that it can. Frames can cause problems for search engines because they don't correspond to the conceptual model of the web.

The content can be indexed but it will typically be from the originating url as opposed to the destination url.

The question was: How does the iframe effect my SEO? Can I just optimize the main domain for search? I want the spreadshirt shop to be found under the domain name (www.blowingminds.de)

As it stands now, from looking at www.blowingminds.de, there is nothing outside the iframe. All of the iframe urls resolve to the subdomain = blowingminds.spreadshirt.de. So, once shopping begins, a product is selected for further consideration, then you are redirected to the subdomain.

If the SEO he is speaking of is that of www.blowingminds.de, and if by I want the spreadshirt shop to be found under means that when someone searches on a search engine for it I want them to find blowingminds.de and not blowingminds.spreadshirt.de then, it is likely he is going to be disappointed.

While I agree that user experience is important, Spreadshirts appears to have developed an affilate model that utilizes an iFrame wherein they keep all the juice. They do not want blowingminds.de to become stronger than spreadshirts.de. They are fine with the subdomain gaining authority (this is my opinion).

So, it would appear what he is asking is (for practical purposes) not doable. He can either use the subdomain provided by spreadshirts:  .blowingminds.spreadshirts.de or redirect to that from an Iframe which is provided.

Good catch Simon. Helps keep us on our toes to be more precise.

Jason,

Go in and turn off your twitter, G+1, plug in and then re run the app. My guess is you will then see title tags through any moz tool. If so, you can choose a different widget or move placement. (when you deactivate the plug in make sure you clear the cache before running crawl).

Hope it helps

Malte

First content in an Iframe cannot be indexed. Your site http://www.blowingminds.de has all content inside an IFrame so no value for SEO.

With some of our sites where a product/service provider provides their info via feeds to an iframe, we build the site to have its own content, etc. and place an iframe on the page with the feed coming in. (In the US we see this a lot with real estate sites though it appears to be going away even there). If we want to optimize around something within the Iframe, we have to optimize what is outside the frame in order to do so. 
As it stands now, unless I have missed something here, your site has no chance at Domain or Page Authority.

Hope this helps

Does anyone have any empiric data on the effect of an embedded map on SERP's? Please understand that I already have anecdotal info and a personal opinion. I am looking for data.

Thanks

Dillon, I started writing this before I saw Ryan's follow up.

Being from the deep South, I can understand how you could see Keri's comments as "harsh, insults, rudeness." But, as a guy who has had Keri point out something I have missed in responding, there is absolutely  no intent behind it.

Keri was not passing judgement. She was offering criticism. To me, it was massively constructive. Unfortunately, many believe that 'constructive criticism' means ok tell me the truth but preface it with you really are a smart, good looking guy, but.....

Between what Ryan provided you (rough consultation value $500 to $1000 minimum), and what Keri provided you (extensive site analysis - value $750 t $1500), you minimally received $1250 worth of work for the price of admission to Q and A. Sorry, you did not get anything to make you feel better.

Please take this from a guy who is likely a bit older than you and who ran trauma centers: "I would rather come into an ER and be treated by a total ass.... who is the best ER surgeon in the world, than to get the guy who gets by being an adequate surgeon but is really nice to people.

People answering your questions are giving you their time. For Keri, she does not even get the mozpoints, for Ryan, having ascended to Olympus, well he gets too damn many. They do it because of their passion for SEO and for their passion for those of us who come asking for help. Really. 
Stay on board, learn from these guys, kick ass with your site, your service, and your product. (BTW, I got the red ring of death, used you tube to fix it and was wondering if you could sell me a used XBOX - really.)

All the best,

Yes, from what you say here, i would call it a natural link. Make sure the link comes from content and not footer or sidebar and that the content around it is good and germain to what you do.

Nextman,

I would say that if you follow the rule that is shown in the above link:

Pace yourself. A good hint I got from Ian Lurie's Fat Free Guide is the 2:1 rule: for every two directory links you build, make sure to build one genuinely natural link. This helps to keep your link profile looking “natural”.

That rule will guide you with your link building. Also, remember that links are about 20 to 25% of SEO depending on who you speak with. So, make sure all else is right as well. Spend time on on page optimization and quality keyword research then write compelling content.

Best.

OK, I think we are going to need a bit more. what do you mean he blocked his site to google? Has a noindex, robots.txt, etc.?? If there is a way you can tell us the site, I promise I won't tell anyone else;)

questions would be...How new? How many pages roughly? Rankings drop for all pages or just random, home page?

With new sites, I try not to look if at all possible I will never fully get that I get a report on a client page that has them overnight to 11 on google for termX. Then a week later drop >39 (off chart). Next week back to 25, then 17, then 9, then drop 27 when no change. So, let it settle a while is my advice. Second, are you being careful about the directories you are submitting to? Cyrus's post on directories (Keri linked to this on another earlier) is helpful along with the SEOmoz Web Directory list should serve you well.

Assuming you are not linking to every casino be happy directory or those in Urdu or Sanskrit or Chinese, and that you are not over linking pages, etc. You should be ok. Without more context it is a bit of a struggle to assist, but I hope this helps.

Keri provides a couple of great links and Dr. Pete's blog is great. For real estate, explore ActiveRain as it is a true Real Estate networking community with traffic near 1mm per month. Since I have some RE clients, I would suggest you are going about it the correct way...slow and steady wins the race.

Dennis

Go to OpenSiteExplorer.org and put in the url.

Before the links are listed there are 6 tabs across the top with the first being Inbound Links. You want to be on this tab.

It will say Show    ALL  Links from (Internal, External, All) pages to this page. If you want to see only followed set at show FOLLOWED links from EXTERNAL ONLY..... Then hit filter.

Once it populates you can download in CSV format.

Best

Dillon, 
All that Ryan says here is true. You have just been given a really expensive consultation for a very small fee comparatively.  I am assuming that you have SEOmoz toolbar installed. Do as Ryan says and get the Beginners Guide open and then use the toolbar on the homepage of your site and whatever city pages.../Dallas, /Detroit. Using the beginner's guide start fixing the on page SEO...right after you learn what terms will drive actionable traffic to you (actionable traffic in your case is DADs with Credit Cards dealing with junior's red ring of death).

Ryan's best point is this...SEO is a journey not a destination and you have to learn how to every day. There is no way you can short cut this anymore than a physician can get a 3 month medical degree.

On a differing note...you state: "...we are a pioneer at what we do....keep it that way." I would suggest reading a book that has nothing to do with SEO... Blue Ocean Strategy. If after reading it, you believe you are that far ahead of your competition, you likely are.

Best

I think you are looking at Compete.com which he used to analyze traffic volume. I almost did same.

For me, I don't use them but only because I have not had a need. Our sites, blogs are a bit more specialized and are smaller sites typically designed to develop professional practice clients. I have to be careful to stay true to quality subject matter and would rather have one or two great posts than to have 5 so so.