So, are you saying that a link having traffic kind of disqualifies it as spammy? Or at least in the eyes of Google?

I don't think so. I usually fetch and render then submit my pages anytime I add one to my site, or make a significant change, like adding content or changing images. Nothing unnatural about it.

Submitting the page to Google for Indexing doesn't guarantee that the backlinks will be crawled, but it can be a good way to try to force them to be crawled.

The way that I understand it is that the click helps the link to be found faster than if it had not been clicked. It might have equity and pass link juice prior, but before Google finds it, it might not be counted as a link to your site. Does that make sense? The link needs to be discovered before the link juice is actually counted. At least that is the way that I understand it.

I do know a few professionals who believe that if a link isn't clicked link juice is never passed. I don't know if that is necessarily true. It makes sense that a link could be discovered but not have any equity because it isn't being used. I wonder if someone has a better idea of whether or not that is true, or if it another secret Google keeps

Don, sorry to hear you are having a tough time. You are so good at what you do, don't let the man get you down

I started working in SEO as a hobby because I loved to write content. I did it for free for my friends' businesses and then started teaching myself some of the technical stuff. Now I work in house as the online marketing director. I hate being the only one in the company who knows anything about SEO and AdWords. I feel like I am always speaking Chinese to these guys. I have a few consultants, but it isn't the same as having a team of people to bounce ideas off of or double check my strategies. That is kind of why I like the Moz Q&A so much, it is like my team away from home lol.

It is a tough decision, the rebel in me wants to find out if you considered starting your own shop and taking your clients with you because I know you could handle it. And if ever something came up that you couldn't tackle you could find answers online; Moz, Search Engine Land, or any other resource. That is kind of the beauty of SEO, you can find the answers without getting out of your pajamas.

Again, sorry to hear this is weighing you down.Good luck!

The files aren't duplicate. I am familiar with using the XRobots tag. I was really just curious if my theory would work.

Thanks for all your input.

Our products have about 4 PDFs a piece, which really inflates our indexed pages. I was wondering if I could add REL=No Index to the PDF's URL? All of the files are on a file server, so they are embedded with links on our product pages. I know I could add a No Follow attribute, but I was wondering if any one knew if the No Index would work the same or if that is even possible. Thanks!

In that case, you really don't need the 301 redirects. The canonical tags should have updated correctly when you made the change in your platform.

It can take months for Google to start deindexing old URLs.

Have you done a search in Google to see what pages they are still indexing? You can type in site:"Your Website" and it will give you the full results of URLs that are indexed. If there are any that shouldn't be, you can fetch and render them in GWT to force Google to crawl the 301 redirect, which should expedite the process. I am sure you submitted a new sitemap once you made all of your changes, but, if you haven't that could also help speed up the process.

I think the better way to pass the authority is to set the canonical tags on the page to the www. version of your site. This passes the same amount of link juice and page rank as a 301 redirect. If you were changing the URL completely I would say a 301 redirect would be best practice, but I think the canonical tag is more appropriate here. Do you have the ability to set the preferred version of your URLs in your store settings on your platform?

I would add user generated reviews and comments. Even a product q&a option is helpful. If you can get enough unique content on those pages to outweigh the duplicate content then you shouldn't have any troubles. I would recommend the user generated reviews in this instance over canonical tags because it will prevent the pages from ranking. You are basically telling Google that one of those pages is the authoritative one, which will prevent he others from ranking. The duplicate content is the same way however, unless there is something uniquely valuable on those pages. In this case, customer reviews would solve both problems. There is nothing more valuable to a searcher than hearing what other people have to say about a product.

Take a look at this article about domains. It is very high level, and it breaks down the importance of brand vs. key term. Hopefully it can explain it a little better than I am doing right now, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZY7EmjbMA - Here is a video on how duplicate content is handled by Google.

Here are my thoughts, it would be better for you because the searcher who types in the specific make and model in your inventory will be able to find it quickly, as opposed to having to click through a site. Theoretically, that is the benefit. It could also be that pages don't rank because all of the content is viewed as duplicate.

I would make the decision based on what is best for the searcher, which would be to have an organic SERP with exactly what they are looking for.

I disagree. I think that if there is any short term value it will be exactly that, short term. There is not enough value for the short term. It will eventually make it harder to rank and then you will have to start over. EMD (exact match domains) have lost significant ranking value. It is what comes after the .com that is important, what products are in your URL, what key terms you use, not what your domain is. It is too easy to manipulate, which is why it has lost its value.

I believe that the preferred method is in the HTAccess file. When we reformatted the URLs on our site this was the most efficient, cleanest way to do it. This kind of Dynamic Redirect protects you from 404 pages and losing your page values. I didn't see any negative effects using this method of restructure. I had about 6000 pages that each had to change URL, it was a nightmare. We migrated to a completely new platform and file server, so we had to change URLs.

I hope that is helpful. I don't see one method benefiting your engines more than the other. I would suggest doing whatever will be the least amount of work, will be the cleanest way to do it and will in the long run keep your URLs clean and without erroneous information.

No, it will not register as a click. It will register as a conversion. If you aren't seeing that column in your interface, go to customize columns - conversions and add that to your interface.

The Panda/Penguin updates have shaken up the rankings quite consistently over the past couple of weeks. I noticed that my company, and my competitors have dropped a couple of points as well. I don't think that drop in DA is something to freak out about right now. If you have not received any notices from Google, it could just be that things are still trying settle down after the topsy turvy couple of weeks the engines have seen.

As far as search impressions go, there are a few things that could be happening. If you changed your URLs when you redesigned your website then you can start to see reduced impressions as your new pages become indexed and start moving up in the searches. Something to be careful of is if you see your impressions dip below your lowest average before the Penguin update. I have a few SEO friends who saw huge surges in impressions as Penguin was rolling out, and then a decline that they haven't been able to recover from. As long as you are staying above that lowest day of impressions you should be fine.

It could also just be a lack of searches on those days. It is something to keep an eye on, but probably too soon to start worrying about. After updates, you kind of have to wait and see for a couple of weeks. The results are all messed up and usually don't start to even out for awhile. As far as I know, the Penguin update still isn't complete, so that could still cause some trouble for your impressions.

Have you checked your landing pages report to see where your organic searches are coming from? How about your keyword rankings? Have you noticed any changes out of the ordinary?

Hi there,

I work for a rather large supply company as well. When we have large items go out of stock we repurpose existing pages to advertise new pages. If it is a small product, like a part or something, we 404 the page.

This is an example of a repurposed page: http://www.apelectric.com/6241-Generac-Guardian-Series-14kW-p/6241.htm

404 errors are not a negative thing per say. Of course you don't want hundreds of them because it creates a negative user experience. If a product is truly discontinued, it is better to let the searcher and the engine know that. No following the pages isn't the best idea because it can prevent traffic from getting to your site. We have about 87 404 pages and they have not influenced our organic rankings. I don't recommend 301 redirecting product pages because it can be misleading to the searcher. For example, we rank really well for the Generac 6241. I wanted to 301 that URL to the replacement model, but if someone types in Generac 6241 and lands on Generac 6461, they are probably going to bounce right off the page. That is not good either. One thing I have done in the past is redirect the product page to a related category page. So, the Generac 6241 could have been redirected to the Air Cooled Generators page. I think this was the better way to do it however.

If a page has value, and can be used as a way to direct traffic to another source that is my favorite way to handle discontinued products. At the end of the day, a $15 part doesn't justify the amount of time it will take me to redesign the page, so I let it become a 404 error.

This is a video from Matt Cutts at Google on how they handle 404 pages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oya9Pl7ukNo

I agree with Ryan. I would just add that the value of an exact match domain is no where what it was 3-4 years ago. The way that Google is evolving its algorithm encourage sites to have a "brand" and not a domain that has a highly competitive key term instead of the name of the business. It would be the difference in www.babypowerder.com or www.johnsonandjohnson.org. Baby powder might get more searches, but Google with associate JohnsonandJohnson.org with that term because they are related. Does that make sense?

Fix them, redirect them back to a relevant page and then mark them as fixed in GWT.