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Does the canonical tag work after the fact?

The canonical tag only works if the scraping site is dumb enough or lazy enough not to correct it. Fortunately, this applies in many circumstances.

Also, the scraping might have been a one time thing, but often they will continue to scrap your site for updates and new content. It depends. If they return for new content, then yes it would apply.

My suggestion would be to copyright your home page immediately. Additionally, add a new page to your site and copyright it. Then you have two pages on your site which are copyrighted which offers you a lot more protection then you presently offer.

One item I forgot to mention, Google Authorship. Use it.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/authorship-markup-and-web-search.html

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1408986

Google is in no hurry. It takes approximately a month for Google to revisit all your site's pages. The time is highly variable based on how important Google views each page on the site (i.e. how many links, tweets, etc the page receives).

If you check Google after 30 days, you will likely find most of the issue has been resolved, but it may take longer for the issue to be fully resolved. Sometimes Google may visit your site and experience an issue where the page could be skipped for a month. Other issues can arise as well.

If you are truly concerned about these pages, you can either promote them via social media or earn links to them. Otherwise, check after 30 days and the issue should be mostly resolved.

Wow! Amazing information on the bots Sha. I never knew about this approach. My thoughts were just about how bad bots would ignore the robots.txt file and not much else a site owner can do.

I have to think there are a high number of "bad" bots out there using various names which often change. It also seems likely the IP addresses of these bad bots change frequently. By any chance do you, or anyone else, know of some form of "bad bots" list which is updated?

It seems like too much work for any normal site owner to compile and maintain a list of this nature.

I know...this is a stretch but hey, it doesn't hurt to ask, right?!

It is a formal legal notification sent to the company involved. I perform research of the site information, contact information and domain registration information to determine the proper party involved. I also send the C&D via registered mail with proof of delivery. After the document has been delivered, I also sent the document to the site's "Contact Us" address. I take every step reasonably possible to ensure the document is received by the right party within the company, and I can document the date/time of receipt.

The letter provides the following:

• identifies the company which owns the copyrighted or trademarked material

• offers a means to contact the copyright and trademark owner

• identifies the copyright / trademark owner has become aware of the infringement

• provides proof of ownership such as the copyright number, trademark number, etc.

• identifies the location of the infringing content

• identifies my client has suffered harm as a result of the infringement. "Harm" can range from direct damages such as decreased sales, decreased website traffic, etc. or potential damage such as confusion in the marketplace.

Once the above points are established, the Cease and Desist demand is made.I also provide a follow up date by which the corrective action needs to be completed. Finally the specific next steps are covered with the following statement:

"This contact represents our goodwill effort to resolve this matter quickly and decisively. If further action is required please be advised of statute 15 U.S.C. 1117(a), sets out the remedies available to the prevailing party in trademark infringement cases. They are: (1) defendant’s profits, (2) any damages sustained by the plaintiff, (3) the costs of the action, and (4) in exceptional cases, reasonable attorney’s fees."

There are a couple additional legal stipulations added as required by US law. The C&D is then signed, dated and delivered.

This letter works in a high percentage of cases. When it fails, a slightly modified version is sent to the web host. If that fails, then the next recourse is requesting Google directly to remove the site or content from their index.

If all fails, you can sue the offending company. If you do go to court, the fact you went through the above process and did everything possible to avoid court action will clearly benefit your case. I have never gone to that last step and I am not an attorney but perhaps Sarah can comment further?

It depends if Google did not like just one page, or your site in general. If all your site pages look similar to the one example, then it is likely your site was algorithmically penalized in which case you need to wait a month for your entire site to be crawled.

A 10 year old domain is not worth any more then a domain you acquire today." why do you think this?

When asked this question Matt Cutts replied "We can't promise that it's not a factor, but if it is a factor, it's super tiny. It's a really small thing. We're using it primarily in conjunction with other things to try and see what's going on." It's often hard to pin Matt down on things of this nature and that response is about as clear and definitive of a response as one could hope for.

Overall, the theory is often supported with correlative results. "Hey look at these older sites which rank better". Older sites often have shorter, more brandable .com URLs. Older domains have had a lot of time to earn links and recognition. These are the value factors. Going through the process of picking up domains which otherwise don't have value, then hosting these domains and adding random content to put them through the "aging" process is not an acknowledged SEO best practice. It is an idea someone came up with that caught on, nothing more.

You are welcome to disagree with me. I freely acknowledge I could be wrong. As long as search engine algorithms are kept secret we could all be wrong about a great many things. All we can do is rely upon what search engine employees such as Matt Cutts share with us, and our testing. Based on the above information, I maintain the belief domain age is not a ranking factor. Even if I am wrong, the factor is given such an incredibly small weight it is unlikely to ever make a noticeable difference.

Some links which may help:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/age-of-site-and-old-links-whiteboard-friday

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-common-pieces-of-seo-advice-i-disagree-with

I have never worked for Google or any other search engine so I want to make it clear the below is my best understanding of how the process works, and I use it to base my actions upon. I feel my understanding is valid but the examples could probably use a bit of work. I am always willing to entertain other ideas.

Crawlers find and explore links. They capture data and record it in a database. That data is then processed by the search engine. If Page is A indexed, the URL will show in SERPs as Page A. If later you 301 redirect Page A to Page B, when the crawler discovers the 301 redirect the search engine will update the URL in SERPS to Page B. With me so far?

Later you decide to 301 redirect Page B to Page C. When the search engine recognizes the redirect (i.e. the crawler discovers it) the URL will once again be updated in SERPs to Site C. Any instances of the Page A or Page B URLs in the search engines database would be displayed as Page C in SERPs.

Despite the search engine's database having the correct URL to display in SERPs, crawlers are not provided this information. As long as link exists and a crawler can find it, the crawler will attempt to follow it, subject to normal factors such as nofollow, crawl budget, etc. If you modify the initial redirect from Page A to Page C, the crawler will detect the new header change and the search engine will update their records accordingly.

The above information was shared with respect to the appearance of the URL in SERPs, but it should be identical for the backlinks as well. Rather then forwarding the backlinks from Page A to Page B, those links would be directly forwarded to Page C.

So instead of it re-directing  from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C. Is this better? if so why?

If you modify the existing redirect to go from Page A to Page C, it is better because it is a single redirect. It is better for your servers (less redirects to process), better for users (quicker page loads), better for you (less redirects to manage and less opportunities for something to go wrong) and therefore better for search engines. You are rewarded for this improvement with your link juice flow being stronger.

Thoughts on whether /'s in a keyphrase are as good as dashes?

For readability and appearance I prefer the second set of examples you shared:

www.example.com/ford/convertibles
www.example.com/chevy/convertibles

It makes no difference to Google whether you use a slash or hyphen as a word separator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=971qGsTPs8M

The saddest part of me sharing this link is I knew before I went looking for it Matt was wearing a light green polo shirt in the video.

What are your thoughts for those of us that utilize these services, should we re-evaluate our process?

Yes, on an ongoing basis.

After every Panda update it is important to quickly assess what changes were made (i.e. who was hit) and how these changes affect our clients.

In short, Google has made us clearly aware of what they want to see in terms of links: a completely independent link to websites. They do not want to see any form of influence.

• Press Releases is content usually under the complete control of the company which offered the release. It is not an unbiased link.

• Articles published on various content farm sites are not (usually) independent links.

• Links from various forms of link networks, directories, etc. all fall under this category as well.

While the above links do offer some value, it is greatly diminished compared to the value of an authentic link.

The question is, how do we adjust? My suggestion is to focus more then ever on onpage SEO. Work with clients to ensure their websites are more streamlined, more focused, more usable, liked, trusted, helpful (and 100 other adjectives) then ever before. There is one word which encompasses everything else...compelling.

In the world of sales there are products and services which need to be sold, and there are products and services which sell themselves. Is the content on your site what you want to write about? Or does it cover topics readers want to hear about? Do you have known detractors from site quality (i.e. ads, keyword stuffing, etc)?

TL:DR: Treat your website like it is the only site you own. Make the site the most helpful and compelling resource on the topic you cover.

Once the above is complete, you only need to let the world know about your site and they will want to link to it. Keep pounding away at on page until you feel you attained a level of perfection. Then, ask for and openly accept feedback. Ask other SEOs and more importantly ask your visitors whether it is via surveys or A/B testing. "Build it and they will come".

I just wanted to share I completely agree with EGOL and the understanding he shared. I skipped responding to this question because I didn't want to respond with all the explanation of the disclaimers, where EGOL tackled the question anyway and offered great details in both the original reply and follow up.

There is nothing you can do to stop it.

In order for the link to have value, you need search engines to have visibility to the link. If search engines can see the link, the world can see it.

What you can do is ensure the content on your site is of the highest quality which your competitors will have a difficult time matching, and earning links based on your site's quality. You can also raise the level of quality surrounding your site's products or services and earn links accordingly.

Arguably the best tool presently available for checking links is Yahoo site explorer. OSE is very good and there are several other tools as well. There is not any tool I am aware of which is "far better" then OSE. At best, a different tool may be superior in one aspect of analysis. If anyone has a differing opinion I would love to hear it!

With respect to link value, there are numerous considerations:

• What is the DA of the site

• What is the PA / PR of the page?

• How many links are on the page?

• Where is your link on the page? Is it in content or in a footer?

• What anchor text is used? Do you have solid anchor text such as "great website design"? Or is it a simple url link?

• How likely is it that more links will be added to the page?

There are other considerations as well but the above are the top ones. Mik's suggestion of checking the cache refresh is excellent. It offers a view into the importance / PR of the page. There are so many other possible considerations such as if Google determines the link is paid, they will devalue the link. If the linking site is on the same C-block as your site, the link would also be devalued.

There are numerous tools which can help but the easiest method is to view the web page on which the link has been placed.

My suggestion is to install Firebug for Firefox or Chrome browsers. After installation, highlight the link with your cursor, right-click and choose "Inspect element" and you will see the code for the link.

The value of anchor text varies as does the value of any link. With respect to a link which is crawlable by search engines, the anchor text helps associate the keyword with your webpage. Whether a link is crawlable on facebook varies based on privacy settings. Try logging out of facebook and then visiting the facebook URL which contains the link to your site. If you can see the link, so can search engines. In that case, the value of the anchor text can be applied in any algorithms.

On the other hand, if a link is not crawlable, anchor text can still have value for readers. Consider reading these two recommendations:

I was recently in Las Vegas and it was a fantastic trip! I had many memorable experiences including a chance to dine at my favorite Italian restaurant!

Next consider,

I was recently in Las Vegas and it was a fantastic trip! I had many memorable experiences including a chance to dine at my favorite Italian restaurant: http://www.mirage.com/restaurants/onda-ristorante.aspx

Both methods work, but the first appropriately uses anchor text and may arouse curiosity. What is the name of his favorite Italian restaurant? Whereas the second link is presented without the anchor text and you know the name is "Onda Ristorante".

My suggestion is Google and other search engines reward anchor text because it offers real value. Many of the things we do "because Google says so" is actually backwards. Google encourages site owners to adopt behaviors which Google has learned offers the highest value to consumers. Often site owners disagree, but Google has invested millions and billions into learning what consumers want, and they design their systems accordingly.

With respect to Bounce Rate, no one knows exactly how that metric is used in Google's algorithms. When a visitors clicks on a Google search result and visits your site, Google has a perfect picture of the bounce rate and likely considers it as a factor in determining ranking. If a visitor enters your site from facebook, Google still has a considerable amount of data if you use GA on your site. Google can also gather data from your Google Chrome browser, your Google WiFi network, etc. That data could be used to measure bounce rate as well, but again it is unclear how the process works exactly and what amount of weight is applied to bounce rate in the overall rankings.

My best recommendation is stop trying to figure out what Google wants but instead focus on what your user's want. You will be a step ahead of the game with this approach.

How long is the period for google to trust a completely new URL?

Trust is earned over time with links. Some sites will gain it very quickly, while others will never achieve high levels of trust.

The first question is, how exactly do you define "trust"? You could use PR to measure trust, but everything is relative. If you only consider a PR 10 site as trustworthy, it is 99.99% likely that your site will never be trustworthy. As of Aug 4th, 2011 there are only 14 PR 10 websites (pages) worldwide, yet there are tens of millions of websites.

Even if you establish a certain level as trustworthy, such as PR 7, the next issue is measuring PR. Google only releases PR toolbar updates 3-4 times each year, but the figures are updated daily internally.

If you decided PR 7 was your goal (as an example) then it is possible to achieve a PR 7 site quickly if you could pump enough resources (i.e. money) into the site. If you created a well-designed, quality site which offered a product, service or information that was credible enough to cause enough interest, then it can certainly be done.

do you think it is more important for a site to get say, 20 backlinks from anywhere. Or 5 backlinks from very trusted blogs, etc.?

I would prefer 1 quality link in content from a trusted blog or other quality source then 100 "backlinks from anywhere".

I would suggest you take a look at this page on MozTrust. As the name indicates,  MozTrust is an tool which measures trust factors for a website.

MozTrust and PR are similar metrics. They are both attempts to determine a site's importance and credibility. The largest factor is your site's ability to earn credible external links from other credible sites.

Example 1- you create a natural viagra-like sex supplement using common ingredients from other similar pills. You set up an e-commerce site and sell your product. It will likely take you a long time (i.e. years) to build up trust unless you pour an enormous amount of resources (i.e. money) into the site.

Example 2 - you create a natural viagra-like sex supplement based on credible research from UC Berkeley or another credible institution. You perform authentic studies by doctors and the results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine and other credible medical journals. The doctors and researchers involved in the study all post numerous articles on your site, and respond to questions.

As a result of the above activities, the New York Times, CNN and other credible news sources cover the story and link to your site. Additionally the doctors involved with the study are asked to be interviewed on Oprah and other television shows. All the media hype turns into hundreds of links from highly credibly sites and a lot of social media buzz.

The second example can help a brand new site very quickly earn a lot of trust. Then the product begins selling, authentic testimonials are received, further research is performed, more doctors and patients begin working with the product, leading to even more credibility and trust.

How important are social bookmarking sites

Responses to such a general question will likely be highly variable in nature. There are some websites which gain almost no benefit from social sites, meanwhile there are other websites where social sites are a huge direct benefit to the site's success and profitability.

There have been many articles written on this topic. The most important points I would share are:

• It is important for you to control the social site usernames associated with your niche or company. What happens when another person or company begins sending tweets or publishing facebook pages with your company name on it? A lot of confusion may be created in the marketplace. It is very important to at least control the social accounts directly associated with your business.

• Simply owning a social account is not likely to provide much of a benefit to your business. It is possible a few people will learn about your business simply by having the account, but the overall effect will be small.

• If you own and actively use the social accounts related to your business, and you successfully encourage your site's users to engage in activity, the benefits are huge. There are some sites which have built entire stores on Facebook (as an example) where they earn a significant amount of sales directly on facebook. Twitter has been shown to drive a huge amount of traffic to websites. Some studies show social influences are stronger then any other factor, including links.

I mostly agree with Zsolt and will add a bit more detail.

I checked Google.nl and see your /vca-examen ranked #2 and the vca-cursus page ranked #3. I do see how you are using internal anchor text to link to the proper page. I would suggest two changes to help clarify the internal issue on your site:

1. On your home page the content begins with "Met een **VCA **cursus bij VCAdirect...". Make the first use in content of VCA cursus anchor text to the proper page. I see the phrase is used in part 10 times on the home page and you do use anchor text link once, but use it the first time as it may be considered more important by Google.

2. You are using cufon for your header tag text. The way it is implemented on your site is such the cufon text is not recognized as text. When I used Google translate, the cufon text is not translated. The lack of translation indicates to me Google is not seeing it as text. Also when I do a "find" the cufon text matches are not highlighted. I would recommend replacing the cufon text with normal text.

3. You recently changed the anchor text on your pages. The new anchor text is correct, but Google has not crawled your pages since you have made the change. The cache of your VCA examen page is from Oct 29th and the anchor text is different. It is possible the page order issue will resolve on it's own during the next crawl.

With respect to your competitor's ranking, your stats are almost identical across the board with respect to PA, DA, mR, mT. Your backlink profile is very unnatural. Your top 40 links all use identical anchor text. That is a strong indicator the links are under your control and not independently offered. Your competitor has a similar issue but not as bad as yours.

Part of the problem is your competitor seems to have 1 strong page which is relevant, where your strength is divided among multiple pages. Because the page is in another language it is difficult for me to fully troubleshoot but that is a concern.

You are correct about the translation. It appears the page did not load properly for me the first time.

What page of the competitor are you talking about in point 3?

Point #3 referred to your site, not your competitor. "The cache of your VCA examen page is from Oct 29th..." You recently changed the link in the anchor text on that page, and it has not been updated yet.

what kind of anchor text would you suggest?

When users choose anchor text, there is a natural variation. On both your "vca examen" and "vca cursus" page almost every link is 100% identical. That simply does not happen naturally. This type of linking is a very strong indicator you created all those links.

Think about Google for example. There is nothing more basic then the Google.com page. If real people were going to link to it, you would see anchor text such as:

google

google.com

http://www.google.com

search engine

best search engine

and so forth. If you looked at the top 50 links and they are all "search engine" then those links are most likely manipulated. In fact, this topic made me curious so I went ahead and looked up Google's links. Take a look for yourself: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.google.com

That is how a natural link profile appears.

You are showing the status from yesterday's date, Nov 8th. It seems Google has not attempted to crawl your site today. The next time it does attempt to crawl your site it will notice the changed robots.txt file and can then crawl normally.

I've reading that it can take 180 days(!) to unblock it. Is that right?

No. Google crawls much more frequently. Your site will likely be crawled again within the next day or so. Try checking again tomorrow.