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No worries Andrew. Here's my feedback.

You would be able to do this per month quite easily. The problem is that you shouldn't do any of it. At least not in this matter.

Directory submissions - I would can altogether. The value of the link you will get from a directory is already weak, but what we have seen in 2013 so far are a lot of directory links being devalued.  Taking the time, and possibly money, to submit to directories is just a waste to me.  It's a favourite of bad companies because it is quick and scalable.  You should remember that there are no quick wins in SEO, or at least very few of them.

If you absolutely must use directories, have a look at the SEOMoz directory list. Look for the ones that specialise in your niche/industry.

"Themed Link Building" - I don't even know what that would entail. The fact they are judging it by PR, an outdated, inaccurate and easily manipulated metric, worries me quite a lot.

Article syndication - just no. It reeks of laziness, duplicate content and will offer little to no value whatsoever.

If I were you, I'd concentrate with your website first.  Ensure that everything is in order with your own house and that you're targeting the right keywords before you continue.  Here are some really useful audits you can carry out:

SEER Interactive Audit Checklist

SEOMoz Audit Guide

Keyword audit guide from Zazzle Media

I mentioned before that there aren't many quick wins when building links.  If there are any to be found, you can definitely find some at PointBlankSEO.  Read their Link Building Resources guide and also the complete link building strategy guide.  Both are extremely detailed and the second link also includes a tool that gives the estimated time for completion, which could be useful for you.

After that, I'd always look at producing some great content, both for your own site and for guest publications.  Make your website exceptional by producing content for your industry that has never been seen before.  Keep your best content on your own site.  If you're looking for content partners, don't look at PR.  Don't even look at PA/DA.  Look at how engaged their audience is, how active they are on social media and relevant it is to your industry.  MyBlogGuest is a quick stop for some resources, but you'll have more luck jumping into the communities where your audience appears, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.  Identify key influencers in your industry via FollowerWonk and strike up a genuine connection.

This is just a brief summary, but I hope these links help set you on your way.

Normally I'd recommend Serpbook or MicroSiteMasters but I think with all those sites and their inevitable keywords, you're gonna have problems with a high monthly fee.

Therefore, a one off fee is probably a better option. Check out Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) and some of their price plans - you can get white-label reporting for a $199 one-off fee.  From what I can tell, you can track unlimited keywords and domains.  Can't vouch for its accuracy or ease of use as I haven't used it a great deal, but it does come recommended from a few pros.  Think it comes with some SEO tools too for a bit of a higher price, which may appeal to you given your question.

Hope this helps.

Hi there

Removing the links outright will always be the more preferential option.  It shows that you have taken definitive action and it is likely to be acknowledged faster by Google and the other search engines.

Having said that, the disavow file, once processed, will theoretically ignore the link just as effectively as removing the link itself.  We just have no sure way of knowing.

With that in mind, if I can get the link removed at any time, I'll always go for that option.  But the disavow should suffice if you make the effort to remove the link prior, as Google suggests.

Hi there

Can you access all 3 versions of that page? www.site.co.uk - site.co.uk - www.site.co.uk/home.aspx

If so that is more than just a duplicate title issue - it could be a big duplicate content issue.  I'd highly recommend redirecting other versions to one single version on your site.

The easiest way to do this is through 301 redirections - you can read the Moz guide on that here.  On a related note, this bit of htaccess code will redirect all non-www pages of your site to their www. equivalent:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

Now, if you can't redirect for whatever reason, you can use canonical tags.  Perhaps this is what you're already using?  Basically, all 3 versions of the URL should only have 1 canonical tag version, such as:

The code must be in that format and in the tag of your website.  All versions of the page should use the same version of the code.

I hope this helps.

With a gun to my head - I'd say thin content is "better" than mass duplicate content.

This is only based on helping to remove penalties from clients' sites - I see more instances of a Panda penalty when duplicate content is present rather than 'thin' content, as it were.

However, it's important to understand how the algorithm works.  It will penalise pages based on content similarity - so if a page has thin content on it - ie not a lot to differentiate it from another page on the domain - technically, Google will see it as a duplicate page, with thin content on it.

Now, my line of thinking is that if there is more content on the page, but the majority of it is duplicate - ie physically more duplicate content on the page - then Google would see this as "worse".  Similarly, taking product descriptions from one domain to another, and having duplicate content from other domains, seems to be penalised more frequently than the Panda algorithm than just thin-content pages (at least in my experience).

Your mileage may vary on this, but if forced into a temporary solution, thin content may be better for SEO - but conversely worse for a user, as there is less about the product on the page.  The best solution of course will be to rewrite the descriptions, but obviously there's a need for a temporary solution.

Hope this helps.

Hi Bastian

This process can look quite daunting at first, but can be quite easy and fun to do once you know how.

First, I always look at two criteria for redirecting a page - incoming traffic and incoming links.  If a page has a decent amount of either, I will redirect it.  If it doesn't, I let it 404.

Finding URLs with incoming traffic can be an easy one with Analytics.  If you have Google Analytics, login to the dashboard and click on Traffic Sources -> Sources -> All traffic on the left-hand side.  Once it's loaded, just below the graph you will see "Primary dimension" - at the end of this line click "other", then from the dropdown menu, click traffic sources -> landing page.

You'll now have a list of URLs that people have used to enter your site.  Pick a time frame of about 3-6 months and see how many people have entered the site via that URL.  If you have URLs with 5 or more visits (or whatever threshold you think is best), save the URL as one that will be redirected.

I think it is important to redirect landing page URLs as it is the very start of a user journey that people have used in the past.  It can be off putting to see a 404 straight on entry, so ensuring that the user is taken to an appropriate page via a redirect is highly recommended.

Redirecting URLs that have been linked to the in the past can be an important step to take to ensure that you keep all of your link "strength" or "equity" when you relaunch.  For this, we can use SEOMoz's Open Site Explorer.

Go into OSE and type in your site's URL.  Once loaded, click the "top pages" tab.  Export the results into a CSV and open that with Excel.  Enable filters, which can be done by clicking "data" and then "filter" while having any of the top row cells selected, and then filter out results in the "inbound links" column to exclude results containing less than 2, 3, or 5 links, depending on your threshold.

You'll then be left with only the pages on your site that have links pointing towards them.  Now, rather than just redirecting all those pages, it is worth checking each URL in open site explorer again to look at what links are going to those pages.  This may take a bit of time, but this way you can ensure that you will only pass on links that you're happy with.  You may have a page that has 5 inbound links, but on review you think those links are spammy.  Don't redirect this page and you will not have the new site associated with these links.

Hopefully at the end of this you will have a good list of URLs you should redirect.  Try and redirect them to the appropriate pages on your site for a good user experience  The rest you can leave to 404.  If some pages don't fit in the new structure but you want to keep for user or link reasons, redirecting them to the root domain is no problem.  And to add, I've redirected thousands of URLs to a root domain before and have not had any adverse effects.

Remember to update your XML sitemaps and resubmit them to Google/Bing webmaster tools as well once you're done.

Hope this helps and all the best with your relaunch!

Site speed is often a quick fix.  A faster site can not only help in SEO, but also for conversion factors of course.

Run your site through GTMetrix and have a look at the recommendations that come up.  If you click the recommendation, then the "What does this mean?" text in the top right, it'll explain what the change will try to achieve.  If you click "read more" on that pop up, more often than not you'll get a tutorial on how you can implement the change.

Well, there are a number of tools that will give you a rough idea of how 'unique' the copy is, such as PlagSpotter, Plagium and of course Copyscape.

Some people may argue that if it passes Copyscape it will be unique enough, but I don't think this is necessarily true.

If you watch this really useful Whiteboard Friday from Rand in January, you'll see the need for each bit of your content to have unique value, in order to help it rank and pull in organic traffic.  To my mind, I feel that the content needs to a new take on things where it can be and to appeal to your specific demographic, which of course differs between Canadians and Americans.

If I were you, I'd try and rewrite as much as possible.  I'm sure things just can't be changed, but try and create the content in a different style and approach to before in order add a unique value.  At the very least, you will be able to A/B test the difference in response between your US and Canadian blogs and you might find that you've come up with copy and content that produces a better response, or one that's more akin to what you're looking for.

Hope this helps.

Hi Robert

According to Algaroo, a tool that tracks the level of volatility in Google AU, there doesn't look to be anything out of the ordinary in the last few days.

I jumped into MajesticSEO to have a look at their backlinks, and what struck me was that out of their top 50 links (according to Majestic), around 20 of them have been deleted on the 21st and 22nd of September.

I'm also looking at their links on a whole - there are a lot of blogroll links, which looks quite unnatural, plus a number of directory links (which aren't necessarily bad but may have been devalued).  A number of these blogrolls were site wide, so the deleted ones will have resulted in a very sharp fall in the number of links.

I can only speculate as to why those links were removed - whether prompted by Google or not - but it's clear that either removing them has caused the drop, or they have been prompted to remove them by Google after finding out about their link scheme (if it was one). Similarly the massive amount of directory links could be the cause - not because they're penalised, but because they have been devalued.

Hope that helps.

Hi Edmond

You'd be able to use the copy without any problems, but you won't be able to rank for it specifically.  If that's not an issue, then read on.

What I would do is add a canonical tag on your page back to the original press release.  You can read up on canonical tags here in this Moz guide.

So say the press release is at this URL: http://www.pressreleasecompany.com/yourpressrelease

You can take the press release and publish it on your own page, such as: http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpressrelease

On your webpage, you would need to have the following code in the section of your HTML:

rel="canonical" href="http://www.pressreleasecompany.com/yourpressrelease" />

With that bit of code, you are letting Google know that you have taken the press release from elsewhere and that the original copy can be found there.  You are using the copy just to feature and add user experience to your website, and not to try and rank for any terms.

Google will acknowledge the tag and will not penalise you (or reward you) for using the duplicate copy.  I think it's also a good idea to include a brief introduction to where the press release came from and what it is about before using the copy, just to show that you are citing your source.

With those steps, you will be fine in mentioning external press releases about your company on your own site without risking being penalised.  Always a good idea not to overdo it, but with the canonical tag you won't be seen as duplicating content for nefarious or ranking means.

Hope this helps.

Hey John

If you decide to take action action, then being aggressive with the links is a good approach. Both in Cyrus Shephard's great Moz blog post on the disavow tool and also advice from Google itself says if you suspect an entire domain to be spammy, go ahead and disavow all of it.

However, from my own perspective, I would only go through and create a disavow file if I knew for sure that I was suffering from a manual or algorithmic penalty.  I have seen very little benefit in being proactive with that tool (eg rankings are good, you spot bad links in your link profile and disavow them to be safe) and, in fact, I have seen a number of cases when a disavow was submitted "prematurely" - ie, a site was ranking fine and then disavowed some links and saw rankings fall.

If we want to look at it from a slightly skeptical point of view - if you're not suffering from a Google penalty, do you really want to inform Google that you have suspicious links in your profile?

However, that is a matter of preference based on my own experience.  I would certainly take note of the links you think are bad (and perhaps put together a file ready to go, just in case). Worth noting that prweb.com has made all of its links nofollow anyway, and so as they're not passing on link equity it doesn't seem logical to then disavow them (as they have no SEO benefit) Also, keep in mind though that if you visit the page and the link is not there - and especially if you do a google search for cache:http://www.example.com and see that the cached version contains no link - there's a very good chance that the link has already been discounted anyway and so would not be flagged in a manual or algorithmic check.  Seeing as you have so many links from the domains, that may be occurring.

Hope this helps

Hi there

First of all - your logic is sound.  Trying to add additional, useful content to the product page could help its SEO performance.  There are obviously a number of other factors that will determine its success, but the principle logic is good.

Up until very recently, I would have said go for the solution you have proposed above.  It was a great way of getting useful information on the page - for both the search engine and the user - without having to interrupt or disturb the user journey.

However, things look to have changed within the last six months.  It began in September with this webmaster world thread saying that Google was no longer indexing content in onLoad hidden sections and was later confirmed in November with Google explicitly stating that Content In Tabs & Click To Expand May Not Be Indexed Or Ranked.

Whether that change is being fully enforced yet, I'm not sure - but if it's on Google's radar it may be wise to avoid this kind of onLoad content usage.

So that leaves you with having to present the content on the page straight off the bat. That can be tricky , as you run the risk of overloading the user.  But if you can keep the content concise and useful and can design the page accordingly, hopefully you can achieve it.

Hope the above links help.

Hi John

The first thing I would ask in this situation is - did you 301 redirect the non SSL (http) versions of your pages to the SSL (https)?

If you didn't - that could be a big problem.  First of all, that could run into a couple of duplicate content issues and canonical issues, as you would have two versions of each page battling each other for prominence.  However, what I think would be more of an issue is the fact that if you didn't redirect the pages and if you didn't change any of your inbound links - the links that you had pointing to the website might now be pointing to inactive pages, and the link 'equity' your site had may now be lost.

This might be a redundant point as you may have implemented the redirects - but it's always the first thing that I look out for.

If you're looking to redirect all of the http pages, this bit of code is something you can add to your htaccess file to redirect all URLs on your site:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

Again, apologies if you have already done this but if not, I hope it helps.

Reciprocal links get a pretty bad rap, for pretty solid reasons.  Link exchanges with masses of sites, whatever the relevance, does look pretty unnatural and may flag up as a link network. We definitely don't want that.

However, if done sparingly and kept to really relevant and related sites, then it's a nice traffic sharer, link builder and authority builder.  SEOMoz and Distilled pretty much have reciprocal links on the go, but that's because they're highly related and offer great content and work for one another.  In turn, as a user you may be more inclined to visit either one from the other's website, while the endorsement can serve as an authority check.

I'm quite a fan of legitimate testimonials where link reciprocation occurs. That can look natural and, again, is a nice trust builder.  I'd never go too crazy with reciprocal links and I'd only ever keep it to websites who are related to, have preferably worked or collaborated with you on a project and that you, yourself, would be proud to endorse professionally.

Follow that, and I think some reciprocal links can be OK. But there's no doubt that the tactic has been abused by some. Don't give Google any reason to think you've fallen into that bracket.

Negative SEO may not be technically illegal - but extortion is.

What you have described there looks like extortion to me.  240 sites built to link to you, verifiable whois information, contacted the culprit, he has requested money from you to remove the links he built.  That's extortion - and you have it in writing.

It might not be the most solid legal case, but it can be enough to scare off any disgruntled webmaster who is doing this.  If you have anyone who can draft a legal letter to serve, I'd get on this.  It should put a stop to it.

However, as Jonathan says, it is unlikely that this kind of negative SEO will have any sort of impact, particularly if you have disavowed the links.  When uploading a disavow file, I'd also put a "# comment" in there saying that this is because of a negative SEO attack.  240 identical sites and links from the same whois (and probably IP) - Google is going to know this is a negative SEO attack on you and will discount those links.

But I'd scare that bastard into submission if I were you.

They could spread it over 4 months if they wanted to and I'd still see it as a waste of money.

First of all, you're not being given the list of directories you'll be posted to.  That much of an unknown alone would put me off.

But most importantly I think directories are a complete waste of time and money.  Google has been very aggressive in devaluing links from directories as of late - and with good reason.  When was the last time you used a general directory, like Best of the Web, to find or navigate to anything?

They're just very artificial in their nature and, as a result, despite of the PR or PA/DA, your link is going to look artificial.  If your link looks artificial, then your link will be devalued - or even worse, you may be penalised, especially if you use aggressive anchor text.

My 2 cents: don't waste any time with services like these, or directories in general.  There are so many more relevant links you can earn in other ways.  Might be harder, might take longer, but those are the links that will make you rank in the long-term.

Hi there

It's a bit of an odd circumstance and I'm not sure whether you should do this.  Reciprocal links can look suspicious to search engines, but putting aside that issue for the moment, let's look at the SEO impact.

If you link to the site from your own website, it shouldn't effect your rankings.  If the site is high authority as you say it won't be a problem.  Problems can occur when your website is linking out to spammy or penalised domains, but this shouldn't be the case here.

If you're planning on linking to the site, I'd advise you to do so in the most contextual way possible, to avoid it looking like a link designed to pass PageRank (which, really, it is - hence my hesitance to say "go for it").  If you can reference the non-profit organisation, highlight who they are, what they do and how you two have collaborated together on projects, then you're reciprocal link should look A-OK.

It's an odd one because I'd always advise not to create or earn links for the sole purpose of passing PageRank or SEO value.  On the face of it, this is what it looks like.  But if you consider that your link may help to boost the site in the rankings and in turn your referral traffic, which is a considerable amount of your business, I can certainly see the reasoning, put it that way.

What I'd say is that if you're going to do it, do it right and just as you would when creating any content.  Give detail, user value and pull on the experience you've had together.  It might end up being a piece of content that goes a long way towards building legitimacy and brand trust, which would be great.  I'd also add that your link may not be enough to improve the ranking of the site, which means its all the more reason to make sure it looks like a real bit of content.

Hope this helps

Hi Andrew

Guest blogging can be a great thing - if done correctly.

I'm never much of a fan of a service that makes you blindly commit, so if you were going to go further with that company, I'd request some samples of their work and websites that they have written for.

But to be honest, I think you'd have better luck in looking for guest blogging prospects yourself. You can do this in a number of ways - MyBlogGuest is a popular place to start finding prospects.  I like searching for blogs listed on Technorati as well.  Gaz Copeland also put together a brilliant spreadsheet that will combine your target keyword with a number of search terms, so you can search Google for sites that have pages like "write for us" or "contribute to this site" etc.  This can be a great way of mining prospects.

Now that you have some prospects, here's how I filter them: the primary feature that I look for is an engaged audience for the industry I am working for.  That means, looking at the social shares and comments left on the blog in previous posts.  This is key for me, as I see guest blogging as a traffic and relationship builder first and as an SEO tool second - for the simple reason that I believe traffic and relationships are higher converters.

For the SEO aspect, I look at a solid PA and DA score and also I verify their backlinks using Open Site Explorer.  Check that the highest quality links going to the root domain look to be relevant and editorial and not just spammed somewhere like in a comment section.

You may have heard from some doomsayers that guest blogging is going to be penalised - these are exaggerated claims but not entirely unfounded.  Guest blogging has been spammed by some and you do see some really crap quality articles put together for the sole purpose of getting a link (on equally crap blogs).  You want to avoid those.  This is another reason why I primarily look for engaged audiences and social media interactions - if you find blogs like these, you're more than likely to have found a place that only wants quality content.  Get your content on there and everyone wins.

Hope this helps you to get started!

If you use Reverse Internet: http://reverseinternet.com/, you will be able to see any shared Google adsense or affiliate IDs as well.  If this is the case, it's probably a network.

If they haven't hidden the details, you could also try looking at the whois data with Domain Tools: http://www.domaintools.com/

Google can be pretty anal about these things.

You'll increase your chance of a penalty removal if you physically remove the links and show evidence of your work and progression.

I can't really put it better than this guide on penalty removal by HitReach.  They've removed hundreds (or thousands) of penalties and this is their methodology.  Having done something similar myself, I can vouch for it, so I highly recommend reading it and implementing it.

And just for fun, here's a comic of theirs

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