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You can do either option for the sitemap file. Kate Morris has a nice post around using multiple sitemaps here: http://moz.com/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic but it's mostly a question of site size. Congrats on getting your mobile site up and running!
Hi Ash. I've used Moz for years and this has never happened (due to Moz). The machines they use to check rankings are separate from the machine you're using, so here's what could be going on...
As an experiment, launch a fresh browser instance--preferably one you never use, like Opera, or a fresh Firefox install--load up a VPN to change your location to some other country, and then run your search in that country's local version of Google. I doubt you'll see the captcha then. Cheers!
I haven't seen this Ben. And you're still doing fine in Google? Have you checked Google Trends in relation to your content? Did your robots.txt file change? Is your site in Bing Webmaster Sites? https://www.bing.com/webmaster/ Just a few of the things to check on. Cheers!
Excellent. Was thinking of Barry too when I first saw your update. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot chatter and some wild MozCast weather in April...
Excellent resource Dr. Pete. Thanks for this. It'll be a likely place to link back to in the weeks to come. Are there any twitter accounts or other reliably updated sources to reference people too as well as the date approaches and passes?
Here's Google's page regarding the use of the tool: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487 and it contains this, "If you want Google to ignore all links from an entire domain (like example.com), add the line "domain:example.com". And this, "Your text file can include additional information about excluded links, as long as each line of description begins with the "#" character (all lines beginning with # will be ignored)."
I think you might have misinterpreted "ignore" in their description. They're talking about the machine processing the file and that it will ignore the lines of code with # as they are tagged as comments for people to read. The team could still read the comments if they choose to. Cheers!
Hi George. Links aren't affected by title tag changes, if that's what you're asking. It's a little confusing though, so if you could clarify that would help. Cheers!
The contractual option sounds like it would be the best in this situation, especially since the site is solely dedicated to one brand.
Even with the contract in place you could still develop a separate site that carries multiple brands and begins to rank in other areas. That way you'd have some insurance if the contractual route eventually ends and not have to redirect form scratch.
In addition to using rel=canonical for the lowercase version of your URLs you should also consider implementing redirection from uppercase to lowercase. A regex expert should be able to write the redirect script you'll need to add to your .htaccess file in order to change upper to lowercase. Cheers!
Sorry Jonathan, I have not. You can compare them to several other tools out there to get a good opinion on it. Cyrus talks about several in his most recent webinar here: http://moz.com/webinars/seo-basics-the-fundamental-signals-used-to-rank-our-content-higher starting at 8:00 in for keyword research. Here are some tools he suggests:
These should help get you started and give you plenty to compare with. Cheers!
Hi Pania. From your campaign home page (http://analytics.moz.com/manage-campaigns) you should be able to click the gear icon and then select "Archive Campaign" or "Delete Campaign" from the window that opens there.
Thanks Kanya. That makes more sense. I would inform the client of the risks, restructure the contract to address those risks, then move ahead as though it is a completely different and non-client business.
In addition to the risks of some sites not wanting to list both businesses (I'm guessing that when people answer the phones from either one they say, "KM Realty") the other site would pretty much fall under the realm of competition if you're only contracted to work on the new site. From that perspective you're obviously not engaged in trying to affect it negatively, but you are trying to rank the new site as highly as possible which could in turn cause the old site to rank lower.
If the client wants you to perform a balancing act between the two, the contract should likely include both sites. Cheers!
Hi Julie. Have you added your site to Google Webmaster Tools? From there you'll be able to submit a site map as well as run crawl and render tests to ensure Google is able to access and see your site.
If you have already done that, perhaps include the domain here that is having trouble so you can get more specific recommendations. Cheers!
You're welcome. Misses happen even with more research so it's nice to have a place to ask. Cheers!
Ask Dirk recommends, you're probably going to need more than one program to cover this list. The tools here (Moz Local for NAP issues, Moz Analytics for SEO issues) would also help. Another crawler option is Xenu Link Sleuth, while GWT, Bing Webmaster, and Yandex can also help.
If your points were numbered, Moz Analytics would address: part of 1 (redirects), 4, 5, 6, and 7.
The same domain with a folder is perfectly fine and often recommended. See: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Cheers!
Hi Kanya. Just to clarify, you're saying that this new site is going to represent a new store? And that the new store has a different phone, location, name and domain name? To some degree it sounds like it would fall under the franchise model when doing local listings... Yet it also sounds like they sites and stores are trying to be different enough that a customer wouldn't know that they are owned by the same person if they visited either a physical location or the site. Ultimately it sounds like more cost and work for the owner, but if they're willing to differentiate that much between stores, it sounds that's part of their overall model. Still, a few more details would help. Cheers!
H2s are valuable, but in the context of organizing information on a page. Let's stick with the "Wheelchair Accessible Houses for sale in Houston" example. That phrase could be the H1. A great H2 would be, "Single Level Homes" Another, "Houses with Wheelchair Elevators" "Homes with Power Stair Lifts" and so on. Even though the main theme / keyword is the H1 example, all of those H2s are going to contribute to it and help the user navigate to the types of homes they're most interested in. you could also link to those sections of the page with on-page anchor links (#) to make navigation simpler (or dynamically rendered). So what I'm saying is they don't need to have the exact phrase you're targeting in each one as you used in your example above.
I see strategy and principles as separate things. To me principles are things like crawler accessibility, lack of errors, mobile accessibility, black and white sorts of issues. Every site should follow those.
Strategy on the other hand can be widely different. You could develop a strategy where you're competing on educational terms and creating content around specific training or aspects of a swing similar to how bodybuilding.com breaks down exercises into video, descriptions etc. The tie-in to your current site in that example would be course pros that are best at teaching certain aspects of the game, or courses that emphasize being able to shoot a draw or fade. That sort of content would really lend itself to blogging and community.
For the basics of SEO, Cyrus had a great webinar a little while back covering the steps involved in researching and developing your strategy into your site here: http://moz.com/webinars/seo-basics-the-fundamental-signals-used-to-rank-our-content-higher Cheers!
Honestly, that's too keyword stuffed / repetitive for my tastes. Google's a lot better at figuring out the context and correlation of a page without having to find all the different ways to repeat a very specific phrase like, "houses for sale in houston tx" As a quick example, run a search for the same and you'll find Google bolding "real estate" "homes" etc as if they were your search terms.
That's why the ideal is to have a topically powerful page--it can be really specific, like 'wheel chair accessible homes in for sale in houston'--but should focus on that main topic, not those exact words. Cheers!