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I do take DA / PA into consideration and tend to set limits based on the difficulty of the niche I'm trying to build for and the availability of sites that may approve outreach attempts. So for incredibly difficult niches I will accept lower DA / PA as sites with better metrics may be more difficult to approach.

As a rule I'll try to approach sites with a DA/PR of 20+ but it's worth looking at every opportunity as some newer sites may be investing a lot of time into their site and it will eventually become an authority site that stops accepting submissions.

This all goes out the window for local / low difficulty terms though as sometimes a couple of low PA/DA links that are hyper relevent are more beneficial than chasing metrics alone

If you've got an older version of IIS - http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/articles/301-redirect-IIS.asp or if you've got IIS 7.0+ then install the URL rewrite module - http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module then read - http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/creating-rewrite-rules-for-the-url-rewrite-module

If the site structure is the same, then you can write 1 rule to redirect all the old pages to your new domain including anything after the trailing slash. If not then you'll have to do it manually (not too difficult if you use excel).

The only downside to doing individual redirects would be the additional server load, and time to compose the rewrite but if the site has a lot of backlinks, then the benefits from taking the time to redirect the entire site far outweight the negatives.

I'd also recommend verifying your sites within GWT (if you haven't already done so) and notifying Google of a change of address as well.

Regarding expiration of old domains. I think 6-12 months is a safe bet.

Hi Harvey,

Good job on the gov link

Answering your A/B test, although there are a few posts out there that have shown a reduction in visibility as a result of cloaking etc, but assuming you correctly implement the test there shouldn't be an issue.

I know most multivariate testers offer a/b testing based on referral URL so that shouldn't have an effect on the link or Google's opinion of it.

Ultimately Google engages in the same kind of tests and if you visit the Google homepage in I.E you get a little box asking you to install Chrome, so a minor test like this shouldn't have any negative implications.

VisualWebsiteOptimizer definitely offers referal URL testing and I believe Optimizely does as well - if you're a pro member you can get 3 months free of VWO or 25% off Optimizely packages

Hi Chunlei,

There are a number of tools that can help you source and keep track of your link building process. I've listed a few of the most popular ones below:

• Raven Tools

• BuzzStream

• Link Prospector

One of these should fit the bill

Hi,

Sorry to hear you're having issues, we've all accidently blocked off our site at one point or another I'm sure.

You've done pretty much everything you can do to get your site re-indexed. The only other thing I could suggest is to do a fetch URL within GWT, then take it a step further by submitting your URL and all linked pages.

If you haven't recovered within a week or so, then it may be an idea to do a reconsideration request.

Good luck!

Hi Chad,

Thanks for your contribution. Big fan of screaming frog myself.

I find Majestic isn't quite as accurate as Ahrefs, but SEMRush is invaluable and I currently use SerpBook but authority labs looks a bit better for the same price point!

Hi Ben,

If you could provide an example affiliate URL that your clients would use that would help define whether Google MAY see it as a paid link. Most programs affiliate setups tend to go through 302 redirects to drop cookies etc - e.g

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-7033554-10830325?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.firstchoice.co.uk%2Fholiday%2Faccommodation%2Foverview%2FSharm-el-Sheikh%2FHoliday-Village-Red-Sea-028436

If your affiliate link ends up going through a 302 odds are you're absolutely fine, and likewise if there are a number of variables at the end of your link you'll be fine as well.

The only instance where I could see it being an issue is if your affiliate program simply requires users to link directly to your target page without any queries. Lastly if you wanted to play it completely safe, you could get your affiliates to play the nofollow attribute on the widget.

Images attached should help You should recover to where you were previously within a week or so.

1.png 2.png

I agree with you that social and SEO are merging, but I do feel that while both should know each others skill sets, they are still two separate roles, for the time being at least.

SEO:

Technical Knowledge
Programming
Copywriting 
Link Building
Understanding Social Networks / AuthorRank / Twitter / FB / LinkedIn

Social:

Reputation Management
PR
Understanding how SEO & Social work together
Brand Awareness

Due to the relative intensity of both roles, if you were to work on both for a particular client, you'd be limited to a handful of clients. Whereas if the roles are separated you can handle a larger client base.

That's the way I see it anyway!

Fastest way to do it would be through a combination of Google Webmaster Tools and Robots.txt / noindex,nofollow meta tags.

Firstly if your domain hasn't been verified within GWT, go through that process. Then proceed with the remove URL request within GWT. (Image Attached)

You will need to upload a robots.txt and/or implement the noindex meta tag within the header of the pages you no longer want indexed.

Example Robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /offendingportal/

Example Robots Meta tag:

That should be enough to get rid of the offending content from within the SERPS and prevent it from being re-indexed.

removeurl.png

It will naturally with time. As you had the 301 redirect in place there's not much else that I would recommend aside from verifying both URL's within Google Webmaster Tools underneath Configuration there's an option to "change address". That tends to make the process a bit less painful.

If you've done that then there's really not mcuh else you could have done.

Hi John,

No worries!

If it's an in-house SEO for a small-medium company then all of the above duties can be handles but 1 person, but you may find that the actual PR side of things is done by someone else. If itis from a consulting perspective then you may struggle a little bit.

This is a complete blanket statement and I know a lot of fellow SEO's may not agree but SEO tends to be more logical whereas Social is more creative and the two tend to attract different personalities. If you can find someone that can do all of the above and enjoys it then you've found someone that would be able to consult as well as do the tasks at hand.

Most SEO's will know at least basic HTML and CSS or have the ability to search google to find out what it is they need to do + 1 additional language (PHP / Ruby / net).

As a lot of sites are now CMS based, a basic understanding of Joomla/Wordpress is highly recommended and excel is also an invaluable tool for most SEO's.

Hope that's helped

That would indeed fix the issue. Although i'd check your internal pages as well to make sure the plugin that is implementing the canonical tag on line 9 is doing it properly sitewide

I believe there may have been a Panda update around the 9th/10th. One of my affiliate sites received a warning via GWT. Mozcast shows quite a lot of flux around that time as well.