Welcome to the Q&A Forum

No problem... Installing a blog to your main site shouldn't be a problem really msot of the CMS out there tag on pretty easily. This site is a great resource so come back often - Since my recent joining I think I have doubled my knowledge levels and still so much to learn,.... Best of luck with it - Kieran

The idea I have on this topic, which I would like to test, is to provide links to the same page with different anchor points. mysite.com/vitamins mysite.com/vitamins#vitamin-a mysite.com/vitamins#vitamin-b Using the above example, vitamin-a and vitamin-b would be anchor links to a specific part of the page. We know Google supports this method and will index the various links to a page. The results are common in SERPs, but the official notice from Google can be seen here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/using-named-anchors-to-identify.html What I would like to see if more test results to measure if PR flows differently to anchor links as opposed to regular secondary links to a page. Some testing can be seen here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-anchor-links-to-make-google-ignore-the-first-link.

Just a thought...would it be more beneficial just to use a 301 redirect to redirect the domain to my main domain name? Would it retain the link domain authority?

Hi Harry, Partial anchor text is a way that someone would link to you, not what you publish on your site. It's not something you can control or influence by what you publish on your site, beyond the general site theme.

Gregory - Check out this new blog post, might contain just what you're looking for; http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-profile-tool-to-discover-linking-activity

Hi Paul, Great answers from Ryan and EGOL. The other thing to keep in mind is that traffic doesn't automatically equal business. While it may seem attractive to be "free from Google" and other search engines, there is an important consideration that must not be forgotten. If the Lion's share of your traffic is perhaps from RSS subscribers or referrals from more general sites, how many of those visits are actually delivering you people who need a lawyer? When I need a lawyer for myself or a family member (when my need is immediate and I am ready to contact the one that seems best able to help me), what am I going to do? Will I: Look for a blog to subscribe to? Surf around and read other websites looking for links to lawyers that might help me? Go to my favorite search engine and search on a term that will take me straight to a list of local law firms in that practice area? While diversity of traffic sources is important, the reality is that if they were not the most useful means of finding what you want on the web, search engines would not still hold the place they do. I have a number of clients who are lawyers and would agree that the approach Ryan has described for you is the best way to go. In addition to that I would say that the key in developing content for them has always been remembering the mindset of the client. A person who needs a lawyer is a person who needs help. The practice area and seriousness of the situation will dictate what type of help. Hope that helps, Sha

Hi Greenman, Google has stated publicly that they do read pdf documents. "...However, while we can process HTML, PDF, and Flash files, we have a more difficult time understanding (e.g. crawling and indexing) other rich media formats, such as Silverlight" (from Google Webmaster Tools Forum) So, I think this strategy will definitely help your seo efforts. As with all things seo, there are a million ways to chase backlinks (here is a good list of back-link article to read) so I wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, but I think your off to a really good start. Good luck with your site! -bryant jaquez

Hi Atul. Based on your question I have spent some time trying to locate an official reply from Google on this topic. I was not able to find such a statement. Therefore, I modified my reply from "Google will discount links (from the same C-block)..." to "Google can discount..." What we know for certain is Google is a very intelligent organization and they have entire teams dedicated to ensuring search quality is maintained. Google specifically wants to ensure links are independent in nature. Links from the same C-block is clearly an indicator the link may have been influenced and is not independent. I would even go further and share it is common belief amongst SEO professionals that C-blocks affect links. The entire concept of "SEO hosting" is based upon offering hosting with different C blocks. A great white board friday discussion on this topic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/which-link-metrics-should-i-use-part-1-of-2-whiteboard-friday Rand shared in the above video "the best single metric, non-aggregated metric, that we've got to predict Google's rankings with correlation data is the number of Linking C-Blocks." TL;DR - There is strong evidence which indicates C-blocks information is used as a ranking factor, but I was unable to locate any specific statement from Google confirming this information.

I personally don't think it is necessary. The worst that can happen is that a competitor knows you are checking them out. Any good company checks out the competition. If you are trying to hide your origin, it would be better to search from your personal account as the company IP maybe more easily identified. Again though... I wouldn't worry about it at all. You don't need to be stealthy.

Thank you for the advice everyone!

PRNewswire is by far the best although it can be quite pricey

You used to be able to map a domain onto a high PR site and it would mimic the PR after a while.

Great question and Dan already provided a superb answer I would just like to add my 2 cents. It is valid to assume that posting topical content can gain you links but the truth of the matter is we can't know for certain what will float . We've created content that we thought was top notch only to see it wither and die by the wayside and some times we'd just throw something together and that gets picked up and generates decent links . So build links with the intent to generate some visibility,traction and traffic and if the content is good organic links should naturally follow . Content and links in this game are kinda like Batman and Robin , pretty good on their own but awesome together. Definitely link to relevant content from your blog posts . Relevant links pass juice be they external or internal . As far as blog posts being cut and dry , write more and try different slants, market with panache . Lawyers get paid by the minute to offer their thoughts and your readers should be lucky to be served this free. Hope this helps ..

Try TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/WidgetEmbed). Their hotel widgets have been hugely successful (and evil!).

Thanks Shelly. My bad...2 different questions in the same question :} My current CMS where steripen.com is, doesn't provide me ability  to integrate wordpress or any other blog tools. It's a standalone 3rd party cms platform. Unfortunately the blogging tools are antiquated so short-term I am forced with subdomain. I decided to look at it that "I can provide my users with the best presentation and utility of info about SteriPEN by using the subdomain (and WordPress)." I'll have to live with the seo consequences for now until we overhaul steripen.com soon. In terms of posting to the microblogs, this to me is like whoring content. Unless I can build the blogs in such a way that they are non-SteriPEN branded niche blogs focused on a topic, I just don't see it. And I don't have the time/money to invest in that right now. Tim

Yeah MozRank to PageRank is a reasonable measure to use. MozRank should usually be about the same as PageRank, so if PageRank is a lot lower, you can infer that Google have applied an penalty to that site and reduced it's page rank. Because page rank isn't updated often, there are times when it's not always accurate, but usually it's a good indicator.

301 them to the parent page in that category

if it is a dofollow link and it is free  then go ahead and get it. It does help a bit, not much. If it is a nofollow then it does not help with pagerank but the anchor text of the link still counts. So if you want to rank for idaho potatos, even a nofollow link with idaho potatos in it counts a bit. Dofollow counts for pagerank as well.