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Hey Kristopher Penguin is part of the algorithm and as such, you won't receive a notification. If you do get a dodgy link message then it means you have been manually flagged which can be worse. There is a good overview of how to go about this here: http://cyrusshepard.com/penalty-lifted/ Hope that helps buddy. Marcus

It's a reasonable assumption to make and I'd say if you can get those .co.uk links, then by all means pursue them. However, it can be argued that Google does recognise .com as a global domain name, not just US specific.  So if you were to get links from a .com, while not .co.uk, it wouldn't be as far behind in value as, say, a .pl or .in. Ultimately, where and how you're getting the link will matter more on your link profile than the referring domain extension.  It would look out of place if a .co.uk had an 80% incoming link profile from .ro domains for sure, but if there's a healthy mix and even a non .co.uk extension being the majority of incoming links, you could still rank highly - provided that the links are on relevant site and come along with content that is beneficial for the user. In closing, if you can get those links then go for them - but what will have a more defining impact is how you're getting the links. If it's done in an above-board, white-hat way, then you shouldn't need to worry too much about what domain extension it comes from.

Just another thought if you dont mind pls .... although the new service is not connected to locks and keys, its still a roadside recovery service as is our existing auto locksmith service - so there is a slight connection in that we offer a emergency roadside service - Bearing this in mind I think you are right in that a new site is best.  In addition to  a new site, does it make sense to have a landing page for the new service on the lockcity web site for google searches, but not have it linked into the menu? i.e. lock city customers cannot see the new page from the menu, but if people land on the new page through the search engines, they can still navigate around the locksmith site? Thanks, Abi

Google's not real keen on having just search results for other content in its index. For people, you'll need to convince them why to link to your site instead of the source site you index. I couldn't get any of the links on the homepage to go anywhere, they just brought me to the home page, and I tried in two different browsers. There are lots of ideas for getting links on the SEOmoz blog, but they generally center around having good content. I'll be honest with you that SEOmoz may not be the place to get the type of answer you're looking for. It does tend to be a fairly white hat crowd around here.

The site is very new (it didn't have any backlinks until 16th November) and your inbound anchor density is good. Personally I think its a bit of a dance. The site is new and each backlink is quite a change for google to rank you with. When the site is more established I think it will become more stable.

Hi Ilya, No, there is not a backdoor way that I could advise. Google+ Local is all about local businesses and that does not fit your business model. Regarding citations: A citation is typically defined as any mention of your company name with full or partial contact information (address, phone number). It does not need to contain a link to your business. If it does contain a link, this would obviously help your business, overall, in the organic SERPs. If it is a non-linked citation, I suppose that might increase the prominence of your overall business, in that it would appear that lots of sites are talking about your company, but as you don't have physical offices, you would presumably be promoting places that don't really exist. In my view, that doesn't make sense. Regarding creating profiles at Yahoo & Bing: Yahoo's Local Listings Guidelines are here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/ll/guidelines/local-01.html These guidelines state: Provide accurate contact information. You must provide an accurate business address (including a valid street address) and phone number. I cannot turn up Bing's guidelines for some reason, though their FAQ is here: http://www.bing.com/businessportal While I cannot find them, I am pretty confident that their policy is similar to Google's and Yahoo's, in that they want physical businesses, not virtual ones, in their Business Portal. Regarding How Google Can Tell You're Virtual: I imagine they have a variety of strategies. One I've heard discussed is that they can tell via streetview, if something looks fishy to them. Another would be what you are saying about your company on your website, and what others are saying about you. If your business model is clearly virtual, chances of fooling Google are slim to none. So, I'm afraid this isn't the answer you're hoping to hear, Ilya, but my advice would be to work on your organic SEO rather than trying to fit your virtual business into the Local box, because it's just not the right platform for what your company offers.

I don't know how effective using an affiliate program on your ecommerce store will be, but here is some advice re CJ: If you have any issues with an affiliate program, CJ won't mediate, they will instruct you to contact the partner directly through their built in mailing system. The times I've tried this I've never received a response. Some programs don't allow deep linking, which means you have to send traffic the partner's home page, which is highly ineffective. This is not limited to CJ affiliate programs, but it's something to look out for when selecting partners to work with. I personally prefer Share A Sale, but you should try them both and see what you think. Hope that helps.

Thanks so much, but without this pain we would never have got the client! We're the good guys, just trying to unravel a tangle of American .edu links and sitewide footers from other American sites for a business based firmly in the UK. What the last guy was thinking we've no idea... Thanks for taking the time to contribute

article directories aren't as effective since the major panda update a while ago. social bookmarking has its place, just like anything else. Do not bookmark from hundreds or thousands of low quality, PR 0 social bookmarking sites. It;s unnatural and Google will know what you are doing. Instead focus on fewer, high quality social bookmarks. Major social bookmarking sites help you get crawled and indexed faster, as long as you do it naturally

Here are two strategies for dealing with dupe content and press releases a) write an article for your site about the news, and write a second article which is the same topic but different wording (not spinning) and use that article for submitting as the press releases, link in the release to your first press release article URL  on your site b) write a press release and post it on your site and get it indexed. use the same press release but not the entire press release - cut it a little short and include a "read more for the full story" link that links to the full press release content on your site I prefer option a but it takes more time to write two articles, still i think the benefit is worth it.

Excellent Tom, very useful comments.

A lot of spam filtering seems to have gone social. Not like Facebook social, but rather, providers looking at spam reports. Gmail, for instance, looks at spam reports and learns from that. Yahoo doesn't allow direct spam reports, they just say to report spam to your provider and they'll get it that way (not helpful if you run your own email server). It's important to remember that the Spam button has become the new unsubscribe button. Users don't have to click any strange links and hope that they're legitimate, they just flag it as spam and it goes away. We had horrible results with some of our early email marketing because large amounts of people were marking our email as spam (one provider dropped us entirely). So what makes me open an email? Keep your subject clear and concise. Personalizing helps some but many people have those coming in anyways. I want to know why you've sent me an email. Make it look nice. Most spammers won't try to make nice emails. Done properly it will grab attention. Also, avoid images. Most email clients will filter them out and ask users if they want to see them (hint: the answer is usually no). Last but not least, be sure to use a properly configured email server and be sure your domain has a SPF DNS record and/or DKIM. SPF in particular is easy enough to use, it just lets people know what servers are authorized to send email for your domain.

I've recently gone through setting up a lot of affiliate integrations. I personally favor Commission Junction and Amazon for products. Commission Junction and Amazon both have very intuitive API's, so you can automatically pull over products to stock up your site with inventory. I don't believe Linkshare had a nice API, which is why I chose not to use them. But they are a reputable company and I've known others who had good relationships with them.

What do you mean by two levels?

The domain authority doesn't count for much here, as anyone can set up a blog on a blogspot subdomain. Seems to me the best way to check the value of those backlinks is looking at the blogs that link to you: Are they well-written, up-to date and authoritative? Are they topically connected to your own site? Then they probably count for something. Also, have a look at the backlinks of those blogs - if those are valuable, the blogs' links are probably good for you too.

Thx for help

Okay thanks for all your help.

It is definitely not internal links within a sites, backlinking consists of links from external sites to your site.