14 comments (Add your own)

1. Anna wrote:

I know URLs are important in SEO, but if we have several URLs forwarded to one main one, which ones count for Google? all of them or just the main one?

I also know that country-specific URLs score big points for people searching within that country, so if we want to optimize for a certain country such as Canada, is it better to have ourdomain.ca as our main domain, or can we achieve the same effect but forwarding ourdomain.ca to ourdomain.com?

Right now I have mydomain.com, and I want to optimize for google.ca - should I literally change my main domain to mydomian.ca? Will forwarding a .ca give me any bonus points at all?

Thu, August 26, 2010 @ 11:19 PM

2. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Hello Anna, I'm sorry that I didn't get to your comment sooner. Apparently I'm having some issues with being notified by the system when I get comments. Moving on...

1. All of your URLs will count if they are used when linking to your site. They will especially count if they are aged domains or have any kind of PageRank attached to them. Your main URL will always count the most - so make sure any other URLs you have are being forwarded to your main one using a 301 redirect (not 302).

2. If you are not in Canada, I would suggest having whatever URL that your main demographic is from. If most of your visitors/customers are from a certain country, you might look into getting a URL that reflects that.

3. However, if you simply want to appeal to the country and it's specific search results, it will help if you own the domain for that country (such as .ca).

Hope that helps!

Thu, September 2, 2010 @ 2:41 PM

3. Dianne wrote:

I found your information very interesting and helpful. Thanks!

Thu, September 2, 2010 @ 3:02 PM

4. Jeffrey Nichols wrote:

Concerning dynamic websites (such as blogs), how should URLs that lead to dynamic pages be formatted? I notice that the article links on your blog have their words separated by hyphens (this particular page being seo-general-questions). Some characters can't be used in URLs, however, and thus have to be encoded with a function such as PHP's urlencode function. How do search engines view encoded URLs? Are they perfectly acceptable, or is it better to have a way to get to the article other than the article title (such providing a second article title when posting the article that is used for linking purposes where you know that only alphanumeric characters and hyphens will be used)?

Thanks!
Jeffrey

Sun, November 7, 2010 @ 2:52 AM

5. Christopher Nelson wrote:

It's always best to have the most logically named URL's and file names possible (using hyphens if you can). If this is not possible under any circumstance, try not to worry about it.

Just do your best to make file structures, file names, and URL's as obvious as possible to both users and search engines. Encoded URL's are not bad per se, but it is *preferable* to have logical names using hyphens to separate words.

Like I said, if it's not possible, try not to worry about it. I have written a bit more about this subject in my book, under "Potential Roadblocks".

Sun, November 7, 2010 @ 2:11 PM

6. Nick wrote:

First I want to say that this is a great SEO eBook. I'm a beginner at SEO and have to say it's a much easier read than some other ones I've seen.

Second, I wanted to ask a general question. One of which I didn't see in your book. I've been seeing on some blogs that say that having video on your site and on youtube, metacafe, vimeo or any other video sharing site is good for optimizing your site. Is this true and if so, what are some tips.

Thanks again!
Nick

Mon, February 28, 2011 @ 7:20 PM

7. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Yes, having links from sites such as youtube, metacafe, vimeo, etc. can have an effect on your search engine rankings. Just make sure that either a link inside the video or in the description points to the website in question.

Most of the time, people use youtube as a pathway to their site, making an attractive video that ends with a link to their home page. Sometimes, a youtube video will show up higher in search results due to youtube's very high page rank within Google and other search engines.

I don't like to rely on these things, as they don't always work the way you want them to. Personally, I like my sites to perform well in and of themselves, and be pathways unto themselves as well. I have been toying with the idea of making a youtube video for several websites under my control, but the time it takes to make a great video vs the reward is not that gratifying.

Having a video on your site will not help as much as having a video on youtube's site that links back to yours.

In short, it won't hurt, and it even might help a little. Hope that answers your question!

Tue, March 1, 2011 @ 2:47 PM

8. Nick wrote:

Thanks so much for the quick response! I can't wait to begin using your techniques that you discussed in the book.

Tue, March 1, 2011 @ 9:33 PM

9. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Interesting usernames guys. While I agree that creating usernames made up of keywords that link to your websites is a good idea in and of itself, most blog owners don't appreciate it because they feel like you're only there for one reason: to advertise yourself. Also, there's not much you actually get out of it SEO-wise, since most blogs (including this one) add "nofollow" attributes to links inside comments. This means that search engines that crawl this page will not be following the links you added. Moving on:

Buy and sell: Check out the section listed on the right of this page titled "Black Hat SEO Practices".

Free Ads Website: Check out the section listed on the right of this page titled "SEO: Link Building".

Thu, June 16, 2011 @ 5:24 PM

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Mon, July 18, 2011 @ 5:31 AM

11. Snaptechno wrote:

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Mon, July 18, 2011 @ 5:32 AM

12. Snaptechno wrote:

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Mon, July 18, 2011 @ 5:33 AM

13. Michael wrote:

Hi, I bought your book trough amazon (for mine Kindle). I've been using it for diploma thesis and really need to have ISBN for the citations. I haven't found this ISBN in the book. I am pretty sure, that every book has to have it. Can you please provide it to me???

Many thanks
Michael

Wed, December 28, 2011 @ 8:35 AM

14. Barry Richardson wrote:

Internal linking: If a blog has, say, 10 posts or pages, what would be the best internal-linking strategy to follow? Should they all link back to the Home page?

Sun, February 12, 2012 @ 10:03 AM

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