Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Rahul,

Your first step for clearing your cache and browsing history is spot-on; this way, you ensure you are working with a clean slate for your searches.

For your second question, changing your location in the “search tools” feature on Firefox will indeed allow you to check rankings for your site in the location of your choice. As well, the Bright Local Search Rank Checker  has a free trial where you can look up a maximum of ten terms at a time in Google, Bing, and Yahoo to determine efficient keyword rankings in locations of your choice. Using both these tools in tandem will help give the most accurate information for your search results and ranking.

Hi Stephane,

As mentioned previously, there are a number of factors which can be considered by Google as over-optimization. Most commonly, these can include bad inbound links, cloaking and hidden text, and high keyword density. This can also include excessive interlinking, as evidenced by the article here, so you may want to be careful with how links are built between your domain and sub-domain. However, as long as the links are relevant and with unique content used sparingly, Google will generally not consider this over optimization.

Hi pikka,

While rel=”next” is used much more commonly based on search engine research for this query, the two do appear to be interchangeable for all intents and purposes. For best practice, it would be recommended to use the more common term rel=”next” just for safety’s sake, but I would not worry about any other terms using the apostrophes just yet.

Hi Holger,

While the merits of PageRank are still somewhat nebulous as new information develops, it is never bad idea to give the benefit of the doubt to links from domains with higher PR. That said, it may be beneficial for your client to generate even more unique content for each of these sites. Having sites with any duplicate content linking to each other is going to appear as link-scheming to some extent with Google. If these links do not cause many referrals, it would be fairly low-risk to try removing these links and rely more on stand-alone content between the sites to generate stronger PR. For example, you mentioned four of the tours begin in the same place; try creating unique content for each page to reflect the diversity of the tours, and offer links to content hosted outside of your client’s ownership. At the very least, this will help diversify content and give ideas for similar practices in the future.

Hi DaddySmurf,

While this query does depend on the extent of social media usage for your company, but a general sentiment with users is the desire to unique content catering to the strengths of each platform. Using similar content won’t necessarily fall under the duplicate content rule of Penguin, but it does create the impression of only basic maintenance of social media platforms for your company. Sometimes it may be easier to load a quick blog post or the like across multiple platforms, but based on user experiences documented elsewhere on this forum, it would not necessarily be a recommended strategy across the board, so to speak.

Hi Dan,

Changing your content management system is among the most common processes to affect search visibility. However, there are definitely ways to change your CMS while minimizing the chance of losing ranking. 301 redirects need to be used to change your old URLs to new ones, while top referring link sources should be analyzed and perhaps contacted for notification of the new URL, so your inbound links won’t be affected. Pages which cannot be mapped need custom 404 error pages, preferably with a user-friendly message to let visitors know the status of the page. Once your new CMS system is in place, make sure you pay close attention to your analytics for broken links and 404 errors so these can be dealt with immediately. Keeping all this in mind, and referring to TopRank’s blog post  for further understanding, will help keep your rankings secure while you update your website.

Hi Brittany,

While it is not essential to have meta descriptions for each page, especially if they are not indexed by Google, there can still be some benefit to having meta descriptions for pages people are linking to. Users can see the meta description if the page shows up during a search query, and sites with strong meta descriptions tend to come across as more professional. There is always a chance the page can show up in other search engines and directories, so you won’t want to worry about random text showing up. There is no real ranking benefit to meta descriptions, but Google does indicate whether meta descriptions are too long, too short, or too similar in Webmaster Tools, so it would seem Google would consider proper meta descriptions to be of at least some value.

Hi pauledwards,

A good read to check out would be Bing’s recent post about their new SEO tag located here. These tags can be implemented to allow users to tell the search engine where they should rank. This way, when a query is performed, the engine can scan the page for the presumed ranking. This is achieved with the addition of a variety of SEO tools to the engine to help websites improve, including Webmaster Tools, Link Explorer, and more. If you haven’t investigated this yet, it would perhaps be an ideal start to find more information.

Hi Taimoor,

While it is impossible to decipher which links are problematic without viewing the data first hand, it is not necessarily a problem to have an abundance of links on a forum-associated website. If the links are coming from non-spam sources in your forums, Google will likely not penalize your site simply on number of links alone. However, this could also signify a strategy for other areas of your website to have more original content and less of a focus on links. Again, it is difficult to tell without knowing more about the site and the links, but this should give you a starting point.

Hi ocelot,

There is a tool called Klout which may be what you are looking for. Available as a Chrome or Firefox extension or a stand-alone site, Klout uses data from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to determine your overall social media influence. Statistics covered include amplification probability (how likely your message will be retweeted or replied to), the size of your network and your true reach. “True reach” takes into account the amount of interaction received per post. You may not be able to find the absolute most influential Facebook users at there, but you will at least be able to better quantify your own influence.

Hi alexsu0910,

Using the Google Webmaster Tools Console along with the MozPro Crawl Diagnostics is a good place to start for troubleshooting duplicate content. In particular, the HTML Improvements section of Google Webmaster Tools support provides a guide to identifying and rectifying duplicate content. As well, make sure you have a robots.txt file installed to instruct the Google crawlers not to pick up on duplicate content. Also consider the value of a 301 redirect to steer users clear of pages not used or duplicates and instead make take them to a tidy home page. Finally, you can also use Google Webmaster Tools to inform Google of URL parameters, much in the same way a rel=”canonical” helps determine whether Google should index the content.

Hi Pzabarko,

An industry news page can be a great addition to any website if the content is handled professionally. If your page is cultivated with value-adding, well-cited content, then this will likely help your website in a variety of SEO factors. However, if your news page consists of little more than quoted (and subsequently, duplicated) content and does not add beyond the content derived from other sources, then Google will more likely see the page simply as duplicate content

Hi Mathew,

There are many different sources one can go to for outsourcing link building. Manual Link Building offers top-listed link building services, as does SEO Overflow; both services specialize in building links through tried-and-true methods like directory submissions, press releases, and content distribution.

However, as stated before, it may be more fruitful to research the Moz community more thoroughly and discover the link-building strategies of your contemporaries. If one is not familiar with the link building resources used or if you do not have measures to check the quality of the links, then outsourcing may not be worth the time or the effort. A great guide to building links on your own can also be found at Quicksprout, which may help to illuminate your strategy without having to outsource your link-building.

Hi Alex,

If you have an idea of what keywords you would like to check the ranking for, then there are a couple of tools you can start using. Advanced Web Ranking has a thirty-day free trial and can handle large amounts of search volume with consistent accuracy and over 2000 search engines. This is used as an external tool and can be set to update automatically. As well, Bright Local offers a similar tool with many of the same functions, although only ten keywords can be calculated per ranking run in the free trial version.

If you do not know which keywords your site could be ranking for, trying using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to help generate some likely ideas. As stated previously, your site could be ranking any number of unlikely, worthless keywords, and you want to measure the ones which matter.

Hi Yosepgr,

Backdoor linking is a way to build links to a site using content also constructed on the behalf of the client. This is usually found by creating value-adding content for sites already verified as relevant to your content. There are tools to help further build links to this content, such as AHrefs, SEO Moz, Ayima v2 and Majestic SEO; these tools find as many live pages as possible linking back to your client, so be sure to check them out, too.

An informative article from Alchemy Viral can be found here explaining more.

Hi Shawn,

There is some discrepancy with details in regards to what each of these terms could be used for. Some see these terms as basically synonymous, as organic traffic does indeed refer to web traffic directed through search engines. Organic traffic can also include direct and social media links. Natural traffic can also be used to describe the same element, with links from search engines or any website. When traffic is generated through users directly entering a URL, this is usually referred to as “direct” traffic.

Hi Laurent,

These terms can have slightly different meanings depending on what report you are looking at, but most commonly these terms will be in reference to Google Analytics, so definitions for this report can be provided here. The organic search report in Google Analytics is to show the user what kind of traffic has come to website organically (which is to say, users who have visited the site by searching for a related query). Keywords are the search terms used to find websites, and the terms people use with their websites in order to attract relevant traffic. These keywords are naturally non-paid. Paid keywords are keywords with a high search volume and competition, utilized by Google Adwords to create advertisements which show in searches for these keywords. For each click these advertisements receive, the merchant will pay the advertiser (Google) a small amount for the prime location of the ad in relation to the search. It is always good to have a high amount of organic search traffic as it means Google is picking up your site easily and users are finding the site naturally. Paid keywords are good to use in higher volume searches where a site may have trouble ranking otherwise. For more information, the Google Analytics help page can guide you further.

Hi Garry,

You are certainly correct to speak with your site maker to add unique titles and descriptions to each page. This will definitely help give your site a professional appearance and help search engine factors. As well, it may be beneficial to examine the URL structure for some of the pages on the site, as they could be cleaned up and optimized with keywords. Also, be sure to set up a 301 redirect to resolve any WWW issues one may have. And, as always, providing your website with lots of relevant content is a great way to raise your website’s profile on the internet. Start with these suggestions, and along with your current line of thinking, you will be on your way.

Hi Lyn,

To help optimize the latter Google Places listing linked above, definitely fill out the focused location page more. Adding photos and video, as well as positive user reviews will help give listing weight when searching. Also, be sure the text used for your location listing also reflects the keyword focus you have on the website, so the listing will show up in searches relevant to the keywords already optimized.

Hi mynewco,

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