Ask Ur SEO Q's 2011
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- 86 Responses
- citizen_h0
Are standard browser dropdown menus read by spiders as well CSS styled dropdowns?
- ukit0
Anything that is in the actual HTML of the page is read by spiders, including dropdowns
- citizen_h0
Does using cufon or sifr compromise SEO?
- mydo0
is uniqueness important?
does duplicating content on other web pages adversely effect ranking.for example, if i had a blog content mirrored within another site. would google like that?
- trooperbill0
@jadrian_uk i wouldnt do that. best to have unique urls i.e. /uk/en/ or /us/es/ (american prices in spanish)
- trooperbill0
@citizen_h yes dropdowns if written to the code (not within javascript) are indexable
- trooperbill0
@citizen_h no sIFR works fine... just dont overdo it and make sure that with javascript turned off you can still read the content and headers etc
- trooperbill0
@mydo yes duplicate content is the biggest cause of issues with a site. make sue every paragraph is unique (paste them into google search to view similarities - if you see lots of bolded entries, re-write it some more)
- numbers0
What about the fact that Google themselves has come out and said there is no actual penalty for duplicate content?
I found the article above's explanation more believable, that it would not kill you to have duplicate content but not help you either. Think about hundreds of news organizations all reprinting the same article from AP for example
- trooperbill0
@numbers that was the whole point of PANDA (an update rolled out over Feb - now) it devalues entire sites for having duplicate and/or low volumes of text on a page.
the issue was with scraper sites ripping content off other sites and outranking the originators. PANDA seeks to fix this imbalance. if you read up on it you will see lots of people crying because they hadnt spent enough time making good quality content and simply duplicated the same stuff off other sites.
- numbers0
^ Right, but the link you posted is talking about duplicate content within a single site. For instance if you have three differently titled pages with identical content.
I'm more skeptical that Google is able to enforce a "no duplicate content" rule across the entire internet, or would even want to.
Think about all the republished articles and copy and pasted quotations out there. Even if they don't promote identical content, they couldn't possibly slap a huge penalty on you for it.
- nosaj0
Is there a way for a small company to leverage owning multiple domain names? Specific keyword focused micro-sites on separate serves linking back to the main domain maybe? Or is this more work then it's worth?
- mydo0
so i write a blog for www.thedrum.co.uk i'm guessing posting my articles on my own site would be good for both of us?
- numbers0
It wouldn't be good for both of you. The only question is whether Google would actually penalize your site (or theirs - or both) for having the same content.
I suspect they don't, considering all the times this happens in web publishing. At the same time, you're always best served by having unique content, otherwise Google might decide the other site's version is more relevant and serve that up instead when it matches the user's search.
- trooperbill0
@numbers google has to pick a source and does so by picking the one thats indexed forst or that has the most citations... so in short yes google does devalue content republished. tryit you'll see
- That's pretty much what I said - I was just disputing the idea that there's a huge scary penalty that gets slapped on younumbers
- Seems like a common misconception that's out therenumbers
- yeah not a penalty but given the choice why not just make new contenttrooperbill
- trooperbill0
@nosaj yes this is a great idea but you must treat them as independent sites and put in thr work... theyre a link that your competitors cant replicate so its best to make them super powerful ones.
- trooperbill0
@mydo nope i wouldnt do that. the drum gets indexed more frequently than your site... best to write about your post and link to the active post on the drum.
- SteveJobs0
is it ok to use images of text for aesthetic reasons as long as alt or title tags are used?
- i_monk0
How do I apply these tips to posters and brochures and letter heads?