Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I have added an update here: http://moz.com/community/q/reviewing-category-tag-policy-update

I recently (http://moz.com/community/q/less-tags-better-for-seo) started reviewing my category and tag policy, and things have been going very well.  I thought I would share what I have done:

1. Removed all tags from site
2. Added unique descriptions for each post for the category excerpt.
3. Only had the category description on the first page and use the description like a post to summarise and interlink to sub-categories or posts.  This keeps pages from slipping down the number of clicks until it can be reached, improving link juice distribution.  I also reduced the number of posts showing to 5, to allow more focus on the description (main part) of the category post.

To add the category description on the first category page only in Wordpress, you need to go to the category.php or archive.php and change:

to

The overall aim was to have a hierarchal resource contained in the category page description.  Whilst this is still a work in progress, you can see an example of what I am trying to achieve here:

https://www.besthostnews.com/web-hosting-tutorials/cpanel/

https://www.besthostnews.com/web-hosting-tutorials/cpanel/mail/

If you have any further tips and advice as I continue to implement this (with good results so far), please feel free.

Also, you can use the Visual Term Description Editor plugin to allow the wysiwyg editor for the category descriptions.

I would highly recommend this guide if you are looking to speed up your site (I note it is wordpress):

https://www.besthostnews.com/guide-to-w3-total-cache-settings-with-cloudflare/

Ok, so I understand Google doesn't use stopwords (like "a" or "the").

Therefore if I am optimize for a keyword phrase, and say find an opportunity for say:

"how to create stuff something"

But it actually reads better as (although doesn't sound completely out of place as above)

"how to create stuff in something"

Which is better for SEO? (ignore usability \ readability in your replies please and assume it reads reasonably either way as that was just an example)

I am a big fan of SiteGround, but that is a load of rubbish.

This was actually mentioned in one of the recent white board fridays and that Rand was interested in seeing how the site was effected before and after the site is upgraded to be mobile friendly.

If all links are no follow, you have no issue.

I agree with Alick300.  From how you have phrased your question it sounds like you are doing it purely for link building which Google doesn't like... at all.

Thomas is correct.  You cannot redirect from an URL with a hashtag in it (although it is possible to redirect to an URL with a hastag using escape fragments).  Unfortunately, in your case it is the former, and therefore not possible.

I have implemented SSL about 5 months ago, and have not seen much of a benefit.  Also you have to consider that sites running SSL are invariably slower as well, although Cloudflare can help with that.

The only thing I currently like about SSL are the EV SSL certificates (the green bar with your company name) as I believe these allow some sense of authority to be seen by users.

Actually, many of the larger hosts using cPanel now do not require a dedicated IP as they use SNI technology that allows an SSL certificate to be installed on a shared IP.  However, there can be other benefits to having a dedicated IP such as being less likely to get caught on an Email blacklist etc.

Thanks, that was my impression of it as well.  Just wanted to check I wasn't overlooking something.

Is there any reason to use relative Urls from an SEO perspective?

I presume your site is waspkilluk.co.uk.  When I went to your site, the content doesn't load immediately, but rather only when you scroll.  Can you just double check what Google actually sees when the page loads - in webmaster tools try fetching and rendering the homepage.

Everything may be fine, but there is something niggling me that maybe google doesn't actually see your site properly.

Speak to your host.  I believe this is caused by SNI technology at the server level which can cause https versions to revert to another site. SNI is when you can have SSL certificates on a shared IP.

This is best dealt with by your hosting provider.

If the link is from a decent site (i.e. not spammy \ black hat) and you want the link, normally what I do is just accept it knowing Google is sensible enough to know you are the original source from the backlink.  However, what I also do is take the opportunity to update my own content seeing as someone else is now competing with your article.  Just make your article better \ more unique, and it is a win win from your point of view.

If they have blatently copied just submit a GOogle DMCA request.

If they copy it then  submit a DMCA to Google.. I don't even bother asking people to take down content.  WHat I was referring to was legitimate referencing when they write their own unique article because they like the idea of my own article.  This latter thing is what I would like to achieve.  Social sharing helps get your content in front of other bloggers which can help facilitate this.

Basically if you have good content, people will over time give you links naturally.

Every post I write gets shared to about 16 different social media outlets.  I do this not only to drive traffic (although some hardly drive any traffic if I am honest) but to also get the content out in front of other people.  Who knows... sometimes I get a burst of traffic, other times I hope someone decides to provide a link back because they write their own version or a related article.

My best social networks are Twitter and Google+ and that is where my efforts go.  If I had more followers elsewhere I would love to use those as well, it is just I use whatever I find easiest etc.  Overall though, I have not found Stumbleupon very useful, although I don't really understand how best to use it or have not really put much effort in.

Thank you.  The example page i linked  is actually a resource that helps with conversions. .  The content at the top will highlight the better posts rather than some of the fluff posts that I rel canonical  or no-index (i.e. old offers etc). The problem is that if I do more than 100 words, it would end up fluff.  I think it adds value by linking to some external resources and key posts, so I will work towards building that up over time.

But thank you for your indepth reply.  You are saying alot of what I was thinking, but not convinced enough to make the drastic changes I probably need to do.

I am tempted to remove tags.  I don't think anyone ever visits them.

Update:  I have now removed the tags.  I can always create one or two new categories if I need to in the future, but for now I think I have made the best decision for my site.  160 pages that were never visited and diluted link juice have just been deleted.

Neither have been indexed due to that very reason... duplicate content, poor quality \ thin content.