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Hi Kara, Welcome to SEOmoz! Thanks for coming here to ask that question. It might help if you think of it the other way around -- are there credible sites that would allow a magic software to create links from them? You might want to read the chapter on building links in our Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links. It will give you a good introduction to quality link building.

A couple more for you: http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/seo-editorial-calendar/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/04/17/editorial-calendar/

Is there a tool or report that can point me in the direction to review only inbound linking results? Yes, Open Site Explorer can do exactly that. As to your original question, adding yourself to Dmoz and Yahoo will not cause your PR to drop. I can't speak to the "other directories" recommended to you without reviewing them. How exactly have you determined your PR dropped? Toolbar PR is only updated about 3 times each year. Do you also have some low quality links to your site? It is possible other low quality links have been devalued which led to the PR drop.

We have a number of e-com stores and honestly I don't think it makes any difference, Google is pretty good at figuring out what are 'store' pages and what is actual content. If you don't want those links to pass link juice just no follow them although I think there was something a while ago about no longer needing to do that. Perhaps someone else can clarify that. Bottom line for me though would be to just design the site that makes the most sense to the customer and not worry about Google.

Usually it takes about 30 days or so. Below are two links regarding the OSE update schedule: https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/345964-linkscape-update-schedule http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/25141119/Linkscape%20Schedule I hope this helps.

Greg A paywall is referring to content that is hidden behind a paid/membership system / member's only access. So if it's restricted to the bots, there's no SEO value. It's like if you click on particular sections of SEOMoz, which are members only, they are not really open to the bots, in which case, there's no real direct traffic from Google hitting that page, so no SEO optimization needed. (Although there's a way to provide bots access to data behind your paywall and then it "could" be indexed. The question then becomes, would you want it indexed ?)

I thought I was correct  Thank you and sfseo for letting us know!

Thanks for all the responses everyone!

Thanks Kevin useful link I hope this tool does come out and we don't have to wait months.   Surely would save google a bit of admin having people asking for reevaluation of their site.

Yes, 100% agree Irving comment about the IP's (same network), also google looks the domain registration owner to determine if both sites comming from the same person or company. Hope it help

It's cool, but it feels like Bing trying to grab a little attention. I doubt they're at a point where they can process link data for a Penguin-style smackdown the way Google can. I do wish Google would do the same. In spite of the fact that it might lead to some abuse. Right now I could basically run a blackmail scheme against legitimate webmasters by pointing crappy links at their sites, then telling them to pay me $500 to take them down.

Sounds like that may be part of the issue but I wouldn't expect such high fluctutions. Keep on creating good content, share it and promote it, and keep away from using really anchor intensive keywords. Best of luck!

Also, the beginner's guide to SEO has a good overview on linkbuilding at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

I would say both, your blog and guest post.  You want people to know that you exist, that is why guest blogging is great, because in addtion to the link, you are in front of an audience that otherwise would have never heard of you. But...if they visit your site, you need to have useful, relevant and helpful content so your new visitors stay on your page.  Secondly, you want Google to associate your keywords to your site. So do both, have great content on your site and write awesome guest posts.

Article sites don't have much value these days, I would suggest maybe repositioning the content for guest post spots. You can always use http://myblogguest.com/ for guest blogging opportunities.

"If I did that for every question that I answered here at SEOmoz, I am willing to bet that people wouldn't like it." I think that most approaches would get treated as spam if you over-do them.  Probably a good reminder that any technique/tactic that you use that includes the word "every" would probably be better turned down a notch or two!