Is it ok to correct someone who spelled and styled our name incorrectly in a blog post?
-
A writer recently recommended my company, Swiftype, in a blog post. However, he called us Swift Type, which adds an additional t, splits our name into two words, and uses an additional capitalization. Would it be out of line to email him and gently correct him? I appreciate the recommendation, and will absolutely focus on thanking him for that, complimenting his content (which is fairly good), and just add the correction at the end of the email. While it isn't a huge deal, a search Swift Type brings up the Swift programming language and SwiftKey as first page results, while Swiftype only displays our content (he also didn't link to us, so a user would have to search to find us - reaching out could also be a chance to spur him to link to us).
-
I agree reaching out is something we do all the time, however we did have a very good link as the DA was high and relevant and all we asked was that they used our named incorrectly, we also pointed out a typo on the article (we put it nicely).
As well as correcting the typo, not responding to our email, they deleted the whole section about us, and in the process removing the link.
So contacting them is something we always do, however sometimes there can be consequences, on this one I wish we had just left the our branding wrong and kept the relevant link.
-
I also agree with Alex, definately reach out to see if it can be rectified, in most cases webmasters/commenters/bloggers are more than happy to perform a quick edit.
At the end of the day you have a brand to maintain and having it mispelt can potentially dilute your credibility and how people search for you.
There is no reason why you cannot request a link but be careful, despite being a recommendation from an external site/person, you want to make sure that google does not class it as a press release. PR page content links now tend to require a no-follow as can be deemed as external advertising. Although I would imagine the language used is much more natural, personal and this will hopefully not be the case.
-
Thanks - that was my feeling as well, but as I'd never done it before, I'm interested to hear others thoughts on it.
-
It is absolutely fine to reach out and gently ask for a correction, in my opinion. I have done it myself several times recently and all individuals contacted were quite happy to oblige me. The important thing is to be sincere and genuine in your message and remember that the person on the other end is likely busy so keep your message to the point and give precise instructions to minimise any need for back-and-forth email clarifications. Be patient - but chase after a month or so, if necessary - and do follow up to thank them for correcting once they have done so.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does a site with only one blog post a month rank alright?
I manage multiple websites and want to start new ones but want to know if one blog post a month is acceptable for SEO since I'm worried about rank.
Branding | | hssm20191 -
Avoid Keyword in New Domain Name?
We are looking to rebrand our domain name. Our existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. We own www.metro-manhattan.com and were hoping to use this domain. The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc. Is the fact that the new domain contains "Manhattan" a negative? I know that the fact that it has a hyphen is weak. Manhattan is part of such keywords as "Manhattan office space". Regarding the company name, is the fact that it contains the target phrase "Manhattan office space" bad? Our company name may sound like exact match anchor text and I am not sure what to do about this if anything. I would really prefer to keep our name but it is necessary to change it to improve SEO we will do so. Would it be better to change to a new name like "Integrity Real Estate" which does not contain target phrases or keywords ("real estate" is not a major target phrase as it is to generic) ? Or how something like www.mmos.com for the domain and leave the company name alone? How would I go about finding a company that would assist is in creating an SEO friendly domain name and perhaps a new corporate name if necessary? Thanks, Alan
Branding | | Kingalan10 -
Using keywords instead of brand name on G+ to rank for local terms.
I noticed something this morning, when performing a search on Google UK for "Intensive driving courses southend" the first position is awarded to a driving school that is using exact match keywords instead of brand name on their G+ page to rank for local terms. See this for yourself here: https://www.google.co.uk/#q=intensive+driving+courses+southend Until then, my site had held position 1 for this term for well over a year. Every gut instinct I have tells me that this will not work forever and its not something I should implement, however I'm interested to hear if anyone else is using this tactic, and how its working for them? How can I compete with this "grey hat" tactic?
Branding | | Silkstream0 -
How to improve the quality score (QS) when bidding on competitor brand names in Google Adwords?
Hi, I have researched few sites on this topic and I could see that the competitor keyword should match with the add text relevance, landing page relevance and CTR. Any other factors more to be included to improve the quality score? Reference: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2285536/Google-Updates-How-AdWords-Quality-Score-is-Reported
Branding | | zco_seo0 -
Moving Blog from www.topic.domain.com to www.domain.com/blog
Hi Fellow Mozzers, Just started off here on seomoz.org and am super happy to have joined the community! I've recently started a new job as web optimization manager for an education company. There is a lot to do and one of my first tasks is to figure a better strategy for our current blog. I've convinced our management to move our blog from topic.domain.com to domain.com/blog. My research has shown that this is a better strategy so that our blog can receive the DA of our root domain, get more people to click through our site, and even receive more natural searches (PLEASE, someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Anyway, our blog is currently hosted as a Wordpress blog and we're wondering if it's more worthwhile to build a blog platform ourselves or continue using Wordpress. I am not a technical guy and don't know the backend stuff to make it happen, but my concern is primarily for the optimum search capacity. Also, our bloggers frequently put links to different portions of our website - does this hold any negative SEO value in terms of too much internal linking? I personally wouldn't assume so, but then again I could be wrong. Finally, we also track our main website using Google Analytics- currently, the only tracking we have installed on our blogs is the default provided by Wordpress (yes yes I know, but that's why i'm here -- to fix these weaknesses). I'm assuming we will be able to better track using GA when the switch is made. So, I guess my questions are: (1) Is my research correct in that it's better to have our blog hosted as domain.com/blog over topic.domain.com (2) Are there any best practices in making this switch and/or any negative implications with continuing to use Wordpress or should we build our own platform (we have the internal resources to do so, but would prefer to take the easiest and best route in terms of SEO and community building). (3) Will it still be just as easy to track using GA. Thank you!! Pedram
Branding | | CSawatzky0 -
Which Domain Name to Choose
A non-profit I run owns two domains - ChristianSimplicity.com and SimpleLivingWithGod.com. I have just started producing content under ChristianSimplicity. These are long-term projects and we have resources to commit to them. They do not need an economic return and that is not going to be sought. Ultimately I want the sites to rank high on the key words like - Simple Living Living a Simple Life Living Well The Good Life Christian Lifestyle Christian Simple Living I have a two part question. . . I'll ask the first part now. The second may be irrelevant depending on the first answer. **Which domain name of the two is best to start out the site? ** We already have some content on the first site, but are early enough in the process that it isn't a big deal for us to switch and I don't think we will lose too much with respect to rankings. Will the second domain name partial match on key word phrase help significantly more in ranking for the harder term Simple Living? I already rank 14 for Christian Simple Living - and I'm willing for that to drop to have the longer term goal of ranking higher on Simple Living. Thanks.
Branding | | WithGodInc0 -
How much would or have you pay for a domain name?
I wasn't asking the question from a complete lack of experience but I put this question on the forum here last week…How much would you pay for a key rich domain name with the correct extension? I'm setting up a new website to sell Whitby Jet and one of the members of this forum suggested I should buy the domain name www.whitbyjet.com it was for sale for $300 or £200 in UK money and they thought it was a bargain. I thought it was worth the cost even though I've never paid anywhere near that amount for a domain name.
Branding | | whitbycottages
.
There is a company offering www.whitby-jet.co.uk or £1500 ?!!!! I have bought key rich domain names before, which were very descriptive also but only paid the registration fee with no additional costs
.
I just wondered how much members of this forum have paid for domain names. And why they thought it was worth the cost... SEO Branding etc.? By the way the company that was acting as the intermediate for my new doaminis is an absolute pain. They didn't perform the transfer process quickly until I bombarded them with emails My new domain is still not working one week down the line. In the past I bought a domain cheap and it has been working within 24 hours directly.0 -
Should I host my blog on-site or off-site?
I'm working on a personal project at the moment...basically the blog will be active before the website - it's one of those things where the blog is the journey to the finished website kinda thing (picture it sort of like an adventure traveller who plans to write a book about his travels, and also blogs about his experiences as they happen - eventually leading up to the launch of the book). Ideally the blog would be a part of the website, so all the links the blog gets help your website to rank (and it's the website I'm interested in ranking obviously, not the blog). But there are two problems: 1. I don't really want people using my website before it's completed. 2. I'd kinda like to have a different design and theme to the blog, and for it to have it's own domain and branding. I also don't want to clog up my website with random blog posts - and I'd like the freedom of an independent platform to do things that my website is not designed for. Any suggestions on how to solve this problem? Is there a way to let Google know that the blog is a part of my site even though it's on a different domain? How would I funnel all of the link-juice from the blog most effectively?
Branding | | makeshiftyy0