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Sure. It is www.wijss.com.

We run a training center. We had 1 main website and 2 dedicated websites to certain themes. The 2 dedicated websites are older and the main website is about 6 months old. The 2 dedicated websites had a top 5 ranking for their most important keywords.

2 weeks ago we imported all the content from the dedicated websites into the main website. Then immediately after we did a perfect 301 redirect of these websites to the main website. 2 SEO companies checked it for us and so I'm very sure this is done right. Google immediately caught this up and gave the main website a boost. We where in the top 10 for many important keywords for 1 week. The next week all our rankings dropped. We only have a top 50 ranking for 10 keywords. Before it was 75 keywords in the top 20.

Do you know what could have caused this? Any suggestion, thought, ... is welcome!

My weekly ranking report shows massive loss of SERP's on Bing. For most keywords I was no longer in the top 50 which where first top 5. But when I checked it out for myself, I'm still ranked top 5 for these keywords. I then used the Moz Rank Tracker and there it also says I'm still ranking top 5 for these keywords.

What should I believe now?

Interesting view. That would be correct if we where a shop or service provider. Yet we take our subscriptions online and manage everything from a distance. The trainings itself take place at this location. How could I know for sure if Google would find this a problem or not?

In Google Places, I can also select other working areas. Does this have the same effect on local rankings as a separate business profile?

Hi Mozzers,

We operate in Belgium and just recently we also opened a location in the Netherlands. This is a trainingslocation but there is no staff present.

We want to add this location to our Google Places account. It seems we need to enter it is as different company profile.

Does Google have a problem with the fact that there is no staff present on adres of this company profile and the location is managed by our HQ in Belgium?

I'm considering installing Wordpress for my website. So I have to change the static URL's from /webpage.html to /webpage/. Yet I don't want to lose in the SERP's. What should I expect?

Thank you for the response. Yet I'm looking for a tool which monitors new links, not old links. My preference would be to get updates on a monthly basis.

What are the best tools to find the links gained on (monthly basis) by your competitors?

What is a good ratio for publishing blog messages on our company website? Which ratio is "Panda-friendly"?

HI Seomoz,

Yes, this question is to you :-), but it might come in handy for the rest of us.

With the revamp of your service and website, you guys also decided to change your web address to Moz.com. Myself and perhaps others here consider to do the same. Yet I fear loss in the SERP's.

Did you guys experience any loss in the SERP's for your most valuable keywords?

What was your plan of action?

I have been thinking about changing our webadres for quite a while but I'm too afraid of the impact on my SERP. I understand I would need to use the Google Change of Address tool & 301 redirects. Am I missing something?

What is your experience with changing the URL of a website? How has this impacted your SERP? In the past I heard someone say it will damage the linkjuice by 20%. Is that accurate?

If you change the URL, is there a blank period of where your old site nor your new site are indexed? Or does Google handle this transition well?

I readed on Search Engine Land that Google is targetting advertorials. I know of 1 advertorial about our company which links to our site. Is this something to worry about or is it only a problem if it is used on a larger scale?

That seems like a good plan. In which timeframe should I expect results (if any)?

When I copied & pasted chunks of text in Google & Bing, I did notice that Google showed way more results then Bing. This could also indicate that Google is more tolerant to duplicate content in their index then Bing.

The links you checked were totally removed from the index on Bing a few weeks ago. They are now back in the index, but not (yet) in the top 50. What does that indicate?

Hi Marie,

Thank you for the tip. I will definitely check if there aren't too many keywords on the page.

In the theory of Marcus, it could make sense that Google recognizes the original content, while Bing does not recognize us as the original content. Google places us on top, while Bing places us below. This indicates that Bing is using different metrics which are not in my benefit.

I also checked Bing WMT, but no messages.

HI Marcus,

No, the pages are 2 to 6 years old.

I will send you a PM with the link now.

Thank you.

Thank you Tom and Marcus, for your responses. It was really helpful. I value it highly.

Just to be clear, the penalty is on page-level and only on Bing. Weekly I see 1 or 2 pages from my website removed from the index on Bing (page 1 or 2 ranking before). I use the weekly ranking report of Seomoz as an indicator. This has been happening since January. When I go to Bing I indeed can't find the pages that lost the ranking according to Seomoz. They seem totally removed from the search index. Also no messages in Bing Webmaster tools.

I have no idea what is triggering this page-level penalty. So I'm looking for an expert on this matter.

I prefer not to share my website openly.

I'm having a hard time finding a (good) SEO company which specializes itself in Penalty analysis? Any recommendations?

I only found Bruce Clay, but they charge 8,000$ :)...

Hi Cyrus,

Thank you for the response!

I have taken the time to deeply review your comment. You did make some good points.

1. With reciprocal links, I'm not worried about a penalty but it would weaken the linkjuice if it went both ways.

2. I do believe bakeries will see the benefit in a advert in the guide, if only they need to place a link on their website, which is free. I would be amazed if this would been seen as buying links, let alone that Google could track offline publications. But but then again, Google never stops to amaze us :).

3. So many SEO's stress the fact that content should be something which your clients want to link too. I totally agree when your clients are consumers but not always if they are professionals. This market is way smaller and is less social vibrant. In this case I must skip my target audience and concentrate on their clients. Your tips are great. I will try to implement them!

I would love to digitalize the guide and have it run online. I have thought about before. But then you would get 3-way linking. This isnt very beneficial either.

Good points though... Will have to think on that.