Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Samuel,

Text links will definently pass more link juice than an image due to the fact that crawlers can better read the html text than alt attribute from an image, as it is more difficult to parse.

Also in my experience I have found people linking to the site using an image really do not put an alt attribute

Hope this helps,

Vahe

From looking at Google Webmaster Tools forums, they have said you can have a maximum of 50,000 URLs which I am assuming applies when you create a video sitemap.

There are software/tools which you can use to create specific video sitemaps online. Here's a page I found to create video sitempas using A1 sitemap generator - http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/help/video-xml-sitemaps/

Make sure that you review the thumbnails and meta data used as it is important for how it appears in SERPs and the nature of users click through.

Other resources

• Creating sitemaps using externally hosted videos - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-sitemap-guide-for-vimeo-and-youtube a cool one from one of the Mozzers
• Here was a previous QA post on video sitempas - http://www.seomoz.org/q/video-sitemaps

Hope this helps,

Vahe

Ryan,

htaccess is the best way to go. The truth is it could potentially slow down your site due to the many server requests applicable. 250 is not too bad. However there are alternatives you can consider for speeding up your site.

(1) If your site has other aspects which are slowing down the site, why not improve on those elemtn

(2) Host your sites assets on a CDN, makes your site alot faster.

(3) If your old pages have very low authority use regex and redirect them to the relevant category page, rather than mapping them to the alternative new page. I wouldn't recommend this unless you really have time restrictions.

Make sure you however update the broken links for the old page to the relevant new page for both internal linking & external linking purposes.

Hope this helps.

The link operator is fairly limited. I would suggest pulling the external referring domain report for Majestic or if you are an SEOmoz pro member, use OSE's in combination with GWT external link reports to pull the list of sites.

However to be honest you will not be able to get all of these results as most of them might be removed or so low value that it wouldn't get picked up by these tools.

Hope this helps,

Vahe

Kathy,

You will actually be doing your site a favour should you decide to change your URLs. Having static instead of dynamic URLs will not only make it easier for search engines to crawl and index the URL in SERPs, but make it easier for users to also link to the site. This should negate some of the loss of linking URLs that you will encounter. Also as you said keywords in the URLs are a major plus.

Before you make any URL changes, it is crucial for you  to take the following steps for minimising the impact for your sites traffic:

• List where the old URLs are being linked within the site (your internal URLs)
• List where the old URLs are being linked from externally (people linking to your pages).
• Create a separate sitemap XML file for the new site URL structure
• Implement your 301 redirects using regex on your htacess file
• Make sure you exactly match your old pages to the relevant new pages when 301 redirecting. Most people would get lazy and redirect to the home or category level pages.
• Check for any pages not properly 301 redirected internally by  looking at the number of 404s and broken links applicable to your site.

Once you do change over the URLs start updating the old urls linking between your sites pages. Over the long term you would then need to contact the websites which have used the old URLs and ask them to update to the new version. Leave your old XML sitemap file applicable in both Bing and Google Webmaster Tools until you see them both indexing most (if not all) your new URL pages from your newly created sitemap.

Tools that I would use for the following steps could be XENU or screaming frog (my favorite).

Hope this helps

Hi Erik, If there is a good intent (which there is), this is normal. It's similar when SEOmoz will record the number of 301's, you are looking to see whether or not what you have implemented has actually been noticed. In general for your scenario I would have done a 301 redirect, using the htaccess file to strengthen the domain authority. In addition, Erik check out Google Webmaster Tools to ensure any other duplicate page titles are not appearing for the site. Hope this helps, Vahe

Hi Mike,

You can use the magento partners program page to find developers, or better off conduct location specific searches on Google i.e. magento developer australia. Don't be to specific as to my experience it is slightly challenging to find a quality magento partner.

Hope this helps,

Vahe

It would be better to use the complete address for the following reasons:

(1) This can be cited across other websites, which can help your site build more links

(2) Depending on the URL shortner service (in this instance Google does), does/doesnot contain a 301 redirect, which means either way you would be loosing some link juice value you would have otherwise received for a page.

Hope this helps,

Vahe

Hi Michael,

Best to use the feature request form so that it can be formally ticketed - http://seomoz.zendesk.com/forums/293194-seomoz-pro-feature-requests

You can also email help@seomoz.org for that "direct" approach.

Hope this helps,

Vahe

If you purchase the paid version ($20) you can create an XML sitemap for unlimited number of pages - http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-generator.html Also you can use other software i.e. a1 sitemap generator or crawler based software such as Xenu or Screaming frog to create your XML sitemap. However my recommendation would be for you to create individual XML sitemaps per category. Whilst it is not necessary, it will improve the likeliehood of search crawlers better understanding your sites hierarchy, according by product platform. This will help search engines index the maximum number of pages possible. Don't forget to also create an image sitemap. Hope this helps, Vahe

Google is starting to see subdomains as internal pages to the root domain. Hence the value of subdomains have greatly diminished. More info here - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html

So if you are looking to target multiple keywords, it would be best to create a sound site structure that includes optimised content and URLs for your targeted keywords.When developing your internal linking structure, make sure these pages also link to both the home page and category page.

There is no hard evidence suggesting that one is better than the other, in terms of value. However consider this, the more people add you to their circles will increase the likeliehood of people +1ing your home page. So focus on providing quality content to like minded people. More importantly, spend time finding the people you wish to share the content with. Hope this helps, Vahe

Hi Shara,

I think this would be more of a site optimisation issue rather than a drupal issue.

Anyways you should optimise your page with keywords showing up in:

• Title
• Meta Description
• H1 Heading tag
• Content - This includes text and images
• Navigation - Internal links, breadcrumb, URL
• Footer

Keywords tag is ignored by Google, whilst Bing use it as a spam indicator to detect any fishy  activity on a site. It's a preference thing in this instance, however personally I wouldn't want my competitors to find out my target keywords for a page by looking at my meta keywords tag.

Resources

Rand's posted a great article here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Here is a more recent (updated) video here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/advanced-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday

Hope this helps,

Vahe

You can pretty much use any rank checking tool, but my preferred ones are Advanced Web Ranking and Sheerseo.

Just be careful that the tool you use for your large keyword set does not conflict with your ISP settings, make sure you use multi proxy  server to prevent search engines blocking your IP.

Hope this helps,

Vahe

Hi Alec,

Answers to your questions:

Heading Tags

The above mentioned is not fine. To get more information about the logo, search engines rely on the alt tag. This has far less value that using a text based H1 tag. If you also think about it, the same logo is being used for every page, so you are essentially using the H1 tag per page.

So yeach page needs to have a unique H1 tag and this needs to be the first title.

Page naming convention

It might be an issues depending on the content and they type of external linking done in the past. I would probably add a secondary kw target, slightly more broad on each page so that it doesn't look keyword stuffed..

Hope this helps,

Vahe

Hi Guys,

This question is specifically towards trying to make the connection between achieving clients objectives based on your SEO initiatives.

Google Universal SERP's tends to make me try to think towards devising more of an online strategy rather than a specific SEO strategy. Whilst obviously social, video, content marketing and all that is increasingly important channels. I think it makes our actions based on trends rather than what matters most for the site to be visible - gain traffic & links (but not limited to this).

Questions:

1. What framework or thought process do you use when devising a tailored SEO strategy for your clients?

2. How do you translate all onsite SEO initiatives off-site?

I know there is no one fits all answer, however I would truly like to seek the SEO experts out here.

Please use your example (not mine) as I think it will best help you answer this question.

Note: No reference to the digital marketing framework by Avinash, I am already familiar with this. I have also not made this as a discussion, as I would truly like to get feedback from successful SEO's.

Thank you for your answers in advance,

Vahe

In addition to stephen's great links learning excel for SEO is key http://www.distilled.net/excel-for-seo/

This page is a very good place to start - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tactics-to-increase-blog-traffic-2012. Even though it does focus on blogging, just make sure to not create great content, but making it accessible for users to find and share. Finally get yourself out there by engaging with others with the community and bringing your unique thoughts to SEO. In the end your dedication will pay off as you learn from your mistakes and improve your skills.

Seanuk check out this page - http://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/469068-an-overview-of-your-pro-membership

Tons of videos and how to blog posts for using SEOMoz Pro Tools.

If you also have specific questions, make sure you post it in the help section.

Thanks,

Vahe

Hi Vince,

I think they refer to primary, secondary or tertiary keyword targets used for the page; primary being the main keyword used to optimise the page.

Hope this helps,

Vahe