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If your website has a history of acquiring 45 to 60 links per month, then 75 shouldn't cause any issues, should be fine, in terms of the number that is.

• Q) Are the Press Release Backlinks good for Link Metrics and Ranking or not :
• A) 75 press releases in 1 month is a lot of press releases, to have that many links coming from press release websites may be flagged up as suspicious, purely on the grounds that all the links are of the same type, links from press release websites. Usually, it's best to have a natural mix of links from various different types of websites.
• A) It's a risk. Not all links are beneficial and 75 from press release websites is a risky strategy. It could work well for you, or it may not. Nobody can actually know until it's all happened, you'll find out fairly soon afterwards.  I'd take my best guess that if it's a one off with this many type of links from similar websites (all press release websites) then you'll be fine and rankings may improve, depending on the quality and relevance of the new links. It's not a strategy I'd do personally, I would have mixed it up over a longer period with many different types of sites linking in.

Hi Metix

The age and authority doesn't matter so much  in relation to your link question. It's the history of link building that the site has experienced that maters.

For example, if you've been acquiring say 10 links per month for a long time and that suddenly increases to 75 links one month, that is risking getting flagged as link spamming as it's totally out of the norm.

If you've been acquiring something closer to 75 links per month anyway, then it will look like normal activity and likely be no cause for concern from the search engines' perspective.

It's good that the links are follow links, so long as 75 isn't too many. You'll be the best judge of that from your own experience of the website.

Hi MetiX

It depends on a couple of things:

1. 75 links in 30 days would be a lot for a small website, though probably not for a large website. It's all relative. If these 75 links in 30 days are a lot more than normal for your website, it is risking being flagged as suspicious link building. Too many links in a short time can be harmful.

2. The quality and type of link matters;  if the links are Follow links then great, if they are Nofollow then they won't count in terms of SEO.

So to answer your question, are the links worth it or not ~ take into account the above and you'll have your answer. Need to assess if 75 in 30 days is likely to stand out as a lot or not and see if the links are followed or not.

Regards

Simon

Hi Michelle

Drop-down menus are usually fine for SEO, so long as the navigational links within them are text links that search engine spiders can crawl and follow.

HTML and CSS are usually the preferred choice, JavaScript can sometimes be troublesome for bots, though certainly has it's useful place in web design. So long as the links within the menus are text links, then it will be fine.

Could always run them through a spider simulator to make sure.

Regards

Simon

I wouldn't suspect so. Wiki is seen as an incredibly Authoritive site and has many high quality links pointing to it, so it's high rankings are mainly down to the site being so authoritive and huge.

Wiki fulfills many of the factors within the periodic table of SEO ranking factors at http://searchengineland.com/seotable  It's a difficult site to beat, though can and is certainly achieved.

Glad you like the suggestions, they will help to get there.

Regards

Simon

Hi Ivaylo

I shall share a few pointers with you here for consideration;

1. Perform an on-page analysis of the website to identify and help resolve any issues that might come up, such as too many on-page links or too many no-followed links pointing in, any issues with titles or descriptions... (The SEOmoz toolset is great at helping with this).

2. Research what valuable links are pointing to the Wiki page and try and get some of the same links pointing to your clients' site (new followed links from different reputable websites will help a lot). Also, identify existing links where the anchor text could be improved.

3. Keep the content fresh, relevant and interesting.

4. Depending on what your clients' site offers, consider if there are any tools/widgets that could be developed to help make the site more useful.

5. Consider building upon the Social aspect, such as engaging with people on Twitter, Forums and Guest Blogging to attract more visitors and more sharing of your content.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

Hi Daniel

An interesting question.

1. widg.et ~ I can see why this was chosen, spells 'widget' stating the obvious. However in terms of search, it doesn't work like that, the keyword in the domain is 'widg' the top-level-domain isn't included. 'widg' isn't a word as far as I know, so not particularly helpful for Search or Usability as it does take a second look to figure out what it's supposed to say.

2. Exact Match domain names don't carry as much SEO weight as they used to, especially with regards to Google. Better off concentrating on getting the URL naming structure right, plus the Titles, Descriptions, H1 tags and the anchor text in some great inbound links.

3. If the website has become known as 'Share Widgets' (as in www.sharewidgets.com) then may as well stick with this rather than confusing existing followers & visitors with another change.

So out of all the options you're considering, I'd recommend going for No. 3, keep the current domain name and focus on optimizing that both on-page and off-page.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

You're welcome

That's a good sign. Carry out all the above and you'll be back on track swiftly.

Hope it all goes well for you

You're welcome, glad to be able to help.

301 redirecting that many pages would take a while for sure and probably unnecessary for many of them.

I'd suggest individually 301 redirecting your most important pages, such as the obvious ones like your main product pages, about us, contact us... plus pages that have any valuable links pointing into them.

Then for the remainder, you can do a Wildcard 301 redirect, for example, redirecting all pages within a certain directory such as /news/

Regards

Simon

Hi Bistos

Your website appears to only have 27 links from 3 different domains. One of those domains is yours, the other two are from Korean websites.

You have two Homepages (maybe more), one of these is http://www.bistosamerica.com/ and the other is http://www.bistosamerica.com/home

The later is in your sitemap.xml file though the first isn't, which is your main homepage (the /home version should be 301 redirected to http://www.bistosamerica.com/  )

I've noticed that your homepage is using 2 iframes. This could also be causing some indexation issues and worth considering what can be done to cater for that content without having to use iframes.

Because you have zero links pointing to the homepage that's in your sitemap.xml chances are that there will be some indexing issues or delays. I'd suggest correcting your sitemap.xml to include http://www.bistosamerica.com/  then resubmit it to Google via Webmaster Tools.

If you can acquire some natural (non-paid) links from other relevant reputable websites, that will help speed up the indexing.

This will help with getting your website indexed, can then focus on the on-page and further off-page SEO.

Regards

Simon

Hi There

It sounds like your old URLs have not been 301 Redirected to the new URLs.  If so, it's now a case of damage limitation.

As a matter of urgency, you'll need to map your old pages to point to the most appropriate new ones, then 301 redirect those old URLs to the mapped new ones.

Then update your sitemap.xml and submit/re-submit it via Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT). Also ensure that your robots.txt file is up-to-date.

If it's not too late, which it probably isn't yet as you say that Google is showing your old URLs, this will ensure that as much page strength as possible is retained, by being transferred from the old page to the new one via a 301 redirect. It will let Google know which old pages to replace (reindex) with the correct new page.

This will also reduce the number of 404 pages that are presented to your visitors as the search results (old URLs) will be redirected to the correct new pages.

As for your homepage, hopefully that hasn't changed (as in a new domain name). If it is indeed the same as before, you'll still get visitors finding that page correctly. Though with the site showing so many 404 pages and at present, old pages loosing strength as they cannot be found, your domain authority and homepage strength could start to reduce soon, thus reducing your rankings for your homepage.

If your domain name has changed, you'll need to inform Google of the change via GWMT.

If the above isn't done and done soon, your old pages will start to disappear from search engine indexes and you'll be starting from scratch with your new pages.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

A good observation Ryan, I tend to agree with you that Google's numbers would increase if more of it's properties were included in the calculation.

Hi Spencer

Not sure in which regard you are referring to, so shall provide two answers;

1) This could be what you're looking for ~ http://www.hitwise.com/us/about-us/press-center/press-releases/google-share-of-searches-66-percent-in-sept-2011/ which is a reliable source for search engine market shares and very recent (September 2011).

Also check out ~ http://www.netmarketshare.com/ and http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=5

2) Hitwise  http://www.hitwise.com/us  can provide this kind of data/information, though Hitwise is very expensive, typically in the region of $30,000 per year.

EG. the search term 'auto insurance' it would show you which websites have what market share of natural and paid search visits for this search term.

Regards

Simon

No worries, thank you Alan.

Indeed, it could help a little with phrase rather than broad as you say, although the main phrase was in the original URL anyway.

I agree, not worth the effort here

Nothing to correct there Alan, if you read exactly what I wrote.

I said that it won't improve rankings, which it won't, sticking to the question being asked.

I "didn't" say that it will decrease rankings being one level deeper, only that it won't improve them. Thus makes no difference search wise, as per that video link you posted.

Hi there,

Some good comments and advice from Alan here.

I'd just like to add that with this new URL structure, you've placed these pages 1 level deeper within your site, thus indicating that pages such as  http://www.helpwithassignment.com/Assignment-Help/nursing-assignment-help  are not so important as they are now deeper than previously.

I'm sorry to say that this new URL structure will not improve your rankings as you intended because of this reason, plus the only extra word in this URL example is 'Assignment', which was there anyway. There isn't any SEO improvement to be had here unfortunately.

Reverting back to how it was before would mean removing the 301s that are currently in place and placing new 301s on the new URLs. This could well end up doing more harm than good, so probably best to stick with your new structure, other than perhaps Alan's advice of ensuring that you use all lower case in your URLs.

A good exercise to start as soon as you can is to identify your most valuable links into your site that are now being 301'd and kindly request that those links are changed so that they are direct links, thus not loosing link juice through 301s as Alan mentioned does happen.

Best of luck,

Regards

Simon

Hi SEOPA

A good question. I can see two main options for you;

**1) **Have 1 physical home in a chosen category on your website for the product. List the product in the other category though point the URL of the menu item/link to the other category where it physically sits. So 2 separate listings for the product, though only 1 physical landing page for it. No duplicate content issues here, simply an extra navigation path which can benefit usability as the product fits within more than 1 category.

An example that I can relate to your question with regards to this option; on a site that I work with, we have 'buy to let insurance' under a property category and 'landlords insurance' within a business category. It's the same product, with the business category listing pointing to where the page actually sits, which is within the property category. This benefits visitors as the product applies to both property insurance and business insurance, this method aids user experience & easy navigation.

**2) **You've kind of answered this one already. The 'similar' product would have a Different Name within each category, with unique content. The product would be geared towards different audiences, so essentially, two different products both with unique content. So long as the navigation is clear and obvious for your visitors as to which one to view, I can't see any issues with this, other than page maintenance (am guessing there would be changes to make to both pages from time to time as the product changes/develops).

With this second method, you could potentially gear each product page towards different primary keywords, if indeed that's appropriate to do so.

• So either option can work well. Focus on the User Experience first and foremost, get that right, then optimize your chosen option for search.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

Hi Alexander, a good question.

I'm not sure it will benefit yourself or your visitors by adding in a State element such as FL to your URL structure. Main reason being 'semantic search', Google will know that FL means Florida and vice versa.

The actual decision probably lies with your keyword research, as in what the differences tend to be in search volumes between States and State Abbreviations for your main target keyword searches.

The shorter option without eg. FL looks neater from a user experience perspective, slightly easier to read. So long as you optimise the on-page well such as Titles, Descriptions, H1 tags etc then you'll be able to cater for both with the shorter URL.

Hope that helps, Regards, Simon

A good call Josh, one that you'll surely benefit from in the medium to long term by not participating in selling links. Glad I was able to help you reach that decision