Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi,
I am so sorry that a general advice was offensive for you.
You know best what caused what.
I apologize too, on regard a quote I did not translate properly for you.

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Hi,

Sorry, no good news. I checked from here (South America). It is not working for download. Although if you have an old installation, it is working smoothly. I think, due to the holiday, you will have to wait till tomorrow.

If you need to verify something urgently I can do it for you.   

Mª Verónica

Hi Matt,

Great video!
I truly think that it should be at the Homepage of the Community.

I was courious why there are many queries from newbies, ie less than 20 points, very interesting questions without answer.
Well, if it will take me from 5 to 30 minutes to answer a query and no feedback received. Next time, I will think twice.

Your video might help by educating the new community members and encouraging all to take time to answer, at least from time to time.

Thank you for the effort!

Hi John,

Good question. Local website optimisation is part of a whole. If LWO is done properly and there is consistency of the NAP all over the internet, as well as by having good reviews. Therefore, it will attract more visitors and as a good secondary effect, the website performance in SERPs - if it is technically correct, no Penguin nor UX issues, - yes it might help to boost the rank of the homepage. Although, you might should consider to optimise the homepage as well. The best guide by Miriam Ellis.

Mª Verónica B.

Hi Colin,

Not exactly!
We are not talking about backlinks. Backlinks come from other websites, therefore we cannot control them, except upload a disavow file for Google.
That is quite different.

We are talking about the hundred of "ghosts" of deleted pages - we deleted them, because our website was hacked.  
At the time we deleted all those, that is not enough.
Crawlers will "see" 330 or more pages with 404 status!
That is awful for SEO, due to the crawlers/Google "understands" that you do not care about user experience, means you have so many erased pages that if somebody goes there, there will be nothing.

1.- Moz Top Pages to find out all the spam pages and then Google, of course to be sure.
2.- A new page, not completely empty. Should say something like
"We are truly sorry...   Thanks."
This is for the crawlers, it is supposed no human knows about those spam pages. Except the one that hacked your website.
3.- Redirect all spam pages in the list, with a 301 - a permanent redirect  to the noindex/nofollow page you just created.
4:- Verify, copy and past from the list into the navigator and check if goes to the new page, also verify the page status with Moz bar.

Thanks. Good luck,

Mª Verónica

Hi IcarusSEO,

As Alick has said, you do not need to write it into the meta description. Although, if you have a local business you might consider include it into your NAP (name, address, phone) if it is necesary as part of your business name.

On regard the meta descriptions, Google now allows up to 320 characteres, although best SEOs recommend about 290 characters. Therefore plenty of room for write compelling meta descriptions. Good luck.

Mª Verónica

googles-longer-snippets

Hi,

Sadly, today the spam score is 49!

First, you have to probe to Google that you are a new owner and that you will keep the new website into the Google best practices.

The first thing that you have to do is include the website into Google Search Console and upload the sitemap. https://search.google.com/search-console/about
Hope this helps and put your website in the right path. Good luck.

Mª Verónica

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for your good wishes and thoughts of hope!

Starting this 2018 full of hope.
When it comes to Local SEO and Google, some headaches do not go away.
It comes to my mind a client with only 11 though honest reviews in Google.
Trying to achieve some success, though his main competitor who bought over 1.000 self/fake reviews, is top listed everywhere.
This is the moment when it is hard to tell a client: "your competitor is clearly cheating. Please, do not do the same".
It is the right thing to do, hopefully will be rewarded some day, but when!.
In the meantime, he is losting a hugh of potential sales.
Clients/visitors truly believe that over 1,000 reviews are for real.

Hope a new algorithms update soon, I mean if a list has more than 1,000% reviews on regard its ecosystem, at least a double check should be in place.

Happy New Year 2018!

Hi Colin,

If the backlinks/inbound links are spam, yes upload a disavow file, only related to those.
If multiple ghost pages in WordPress due to erased hacked pages, yes the new hidden page with all the above instructions, only related to the spam pages.
All the best,

Mª Verónica B.

Hi David,

Good question!.
Best to use the nearest Server location of your major target market or the NAP location?
I think, the best is the Server location of the target market, hopefully with an equal IP and NAP.

"Server in Sydney, IP & NAP in Melbourne (no issue with Possum), the inbound links (no issues with Penguin) might come from all over the world, if strictly related to the business. Example, your client sells handmade bags imported from NZ, it is fine to have some inbound links from the bag industry in NZ,"

In this case will be Server in Sydney, IP & NAP in Melbourne for the major target market Sydney?

Your client might have a deliver service to Sydney. If having a second NAP in Sydney will be optimal.

Set up the Google My Business for 999 kilometres around the NAP in Melbourne.

In that case is advisable to have inbound links from Sidney to reinforce the interests there, as well as customers reviews in Google, whom have IP in Sydney.

Not so local and having more customers with the same resources!

Hi Mike,

Great! Do not worry, I know about the issues with the Spanish accents.

You are absolutely right. Your answer is very complete, with all the options available.
I have only mentioned, the cross linking, assuming that all the other options were already tried. Which might be not be true nor the best option as a start. Specially if the practitioner does not have experience enough.

Mª Verónica

Hi Sarah,

• I can see a few issues. First, if you check in Google
  " site:homefarmlogs.co.uk " the website is there, but not the homepage.

• Did you include the new website, i. e. after the migration from http to https into Google Search Console? Also, check into the GSC if you have a manual penalisation.

• I can see multiple meta descriptions. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vvsh9BdiG5NsOZaXY0tgdSgvUa1KQ_04/view?usp=sharing

• Maybe, you might use the Yoast plugin for write down the meta tags and the images alt tags.

• The website appears located in Roumania, you might need to contact your host provider.

• The speed of the homepage is over 3 sec. Into Google Search Console you will find accurate data on that regard.

Hope these helps. Good luck!

Mª Verónica