We changed our website recently and also changed the menus on it so some of our pages have a different path now. For about 2-3 weeks after the switch we noticed our Google Analytics fell off, then we checked mypagerank.net and out page ranks had gone from 3, 4, or 5 to 0 on some of the pages. Our web designer is being somewhat cryptic about why this happened. Can you explain what would cause this and if our page rank will go back up or do we need to do something?

Thanks for your earlier blog entry about how to verify my account with Google Webmaster Tools! Now I want to add an additional site to my Webmaster Tools account. Can you step me through that, please?

My online business has recently started receiving unsolicited orders from clients in a couple of foreign countries, so I've decided to create translated websites for each of those countries to see what the demand is like. The problem is, I'm not sure exactly how I should optimize these sites properly so they'll rank in the foreign language search engines, especially since I don't speak either language! Any advice?

Did you ever notice how when you do certain types of searches on Google that the results include cool and useful things above and beyond just pages that match? The one I use a lot is math equations. Try it by searching for "(300*0.75)/2" or similar. Neat, eh?

Turns out that not only does Google have quite a few of those tricks up its proverbial sleeve (try searching for a FedEx tracking number or movie title) but it turns out that those customized search results are part of a program Google calls "Subscribed Links"...

I write for other sites and a friend told me that I should use article spinning software so that I can have a bunch of versions to distribute, rather than write on a one-by-one basis. Sounds interesting, but what is it?

I have a question about back links. How do you get relavent back links without getting on link farms? I have been using twitter for a while and just started facebook. I was told to get a tinyurl and add a small fishing report on twitter and it would count as a backlink? I have written 5 articles on ezine but find that time consuming and did not help much.

I can't seem to get a straight answer when it comes to how a site is coded/built and the affects that this has on SEO. After having taken a few web courses (design to SEO related courses) it seems to me that the "best practice" with regard to building a site that is search engine "friendly" is with CSS, utilizing as few tables as possible. I've been told by numerous instructors that tables can adversely affect SEO rankings and they don't recommend constructing with tables (they consider this an outdated approach).

However, I work with a couple of web developers that swear this isn't true and refuse to move away from building sites with tables. Can you solve this mystery for me once and for all? And, if CSS is the way to go, should I go to the expense of having sites developed with tables converted to CSS in order to improve SEO??

I've been using Movable Type almost as long as you have, Dave, and just noticed that the way you name your blog entry archives is pretty different to how Movable Type 4 does it by default. I'm setting up a new blog for my sister and would like to see if I can mirror your archive filename format. My question is: how do you change the template file naming scheme in MT4?

What can I do to improve the placement of my photographs and graphics in Google Image Search?

I am talking to a search engine marketing company that guarantees I will be placed in the top 3 sponsored positions on search engines. This sounds like a pretty good deal -- should I go for it?

Hi Dave. I'm working on some publicity for my little company and have just learned about the importance of search engine optimization. My Mom tells me, however, that visibility comes through press releases, but I have a sense she's hopelessly old school. What's your take on this?

I've been learning about how to write Web pages with HTML and recently had a friend ask me if I was paying attention to sculpting pagerank once my site went online. I have no idea what that means. Help!

I have been diligently applying all the search engine optimization techniques you talk about, Dave, but I'm still unclear on one key technique: how do I have more people link to me?

I've been talking to various people about improving my Web site and they keep talking about SEO. I've figured out that SEO = Search Engine Optimization, but I don't really understand what it means to improve my site on a search engine?

Hi Dave. I've been trying to build an online business for almost a year now and still don't seem to earn more than pocket change each month. I've tried various approaches, from a drop-shipping e-commerce store to an information-based site with advertising to a course on search engine optimization. None of 'em have worked. So, tell me honestly, how do I really make money online?

Dave, I have a client who is considering using Kontera to insert keyword ad links. Our recommendation to them was to create internal linking, not keyword ads in the text. I remember you discussing removing the keyword ads. Was there a reason for this in regards to SERPs, or was that purely due to expert credibility?

I keep thinking that Google would hide this, but is there any way to figure out the last time that the Google search engine spider (Googlebot) visited a specific Web page? That'd be particularly useful for competitive research...

This is a rather geeky SEO question, but I have heard that Google considers internal site links as relevant as external links and that it's smart to "nofollow" links that go to pages you don't want or need ranked in the search engine. Is that true? More importantly, is it safe?

I have rebuilt my website using the advice in your great book Growing Your Business with Google. I hope that I understood everything correctly! And, of course, I have a question for you: I understand that there are companies that will add you to a site with a higher PageRank for a fee. Do you recommend doing this, if the site is related to your line of work? If so, are there any sites that you recommend, including your own?

A few pals have told me that they've "friended" me on the bookmarking site Digg, but I have no idea what they're talking about. Since they've listed me as a friend, I figure I should list them as my friends too, but I don't know how to do it. Dave? Can you help me out?

I recently noticed that a few of the sites I visit seem to be cloaking or hiding their links when they point out to another site. I've heard of this cloaking to hide affiliate links, but am wondering whether it's a good idea and why you, for example, don't mask your own links?

MySpace is really starting to suck. The latest problem I'm finding is that people are leaving me comments that are just weird, and seem like some sort of stupid advert for their own businesses, but they don't make sense. Do these people really think they're going to get customers from someone reading the comments on my profile?

Hi Dave. I work at a small, new company and I've been hounding the CEO to start a corporate blog. He mainly interested in increasing Pagerank and I've explained that a corp-blog will help with Pagerank, page views, branding, et al. (That is correct, isn't it?) Well, he's warming up to the idea and I want to give a roll out plan, but my tech knowledge only goes so far.

Ideally I'd like propose something that means nobody else has to do more work, so I can own it. When I saw that Blogger is now offering custom domain names (or whatever it is), I thought that might be my ticket. Would that be a quick solution to what I'm trying to do? What exactly happens behind the scenes there? The URL shows our site, but the blog is actually on Blogger's servers? Will that undermine the Pagerank goodness we'd get from (the inenvitable) in-bound links to our (high quality content) corporate blog?

I was recently interviewed by a magazine about search engine marketing and search engine optimization, specifically whether big companies are missing the boat and whether smaller companies are paying too much attention to SEO or not. Their questions and my answers follow.

I noticed that my local newspaper's Web site now has the lead paragraph of stories magically pop up when I put my cursor over the headline link on their site. Nice! How can I do something similar on my own pages?