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Google knows u own both sites. Don't interlink them unless you are doing it to point someone to the other site for a store or something like that. In that case nofollow all of the links and you'll be fine. If you are doing it to try and pass PR and boost you rankings then don't do it or both sites could get penalized.

You're good! Even more pages indexed in Bing. Google: 2,190 results Bing: 3,390 results If you haven't already, signup for Bing Webmaster Tools and verify your site. Bing has some really good tools on there and it's a must for an SEO now just like Google Webmaster Tools insight is. That will show you index status and other issues more accurately. Good luck http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

I think you are right here, however the pages have links from sites we now probably don;t want from a  link build perspective. I am concerned that these links (mainly low PR sites, forums etc) may do more harm than good so to funnel any link juice they have may be more damaging. Any other suggestions here?

First thing I would look at when considering the changes your are is how well is the current website doing in the SERPs - does it get much search engine traffic? Is the domain name itself important to the business? I would look at keeping the domain and look at either addressing the current duplicate content issue with canonicalization or changing your CMS and pointing the old urls to new corresponding ones using 301 redirects. I have done this successfully in the past when changing the URL structure of a site and I didn't have a negative impact on search traffic, in fact quite the opposite. That way you are passing on most of the value gained by any links to the old URLS and then you can concentrate on the new CMS and all of its benefits including implementing a new user friendly structure, without having to worry about the old structure and following it..

are they a competitor?  If they replaced all the legitimate signals with their own, it's much more likely to be a spam site, or a dirty-tricks competitor or just a dirty-tricks site in general.  In that case, I'd demand removal under DMCA and filing with Google for a removal from the Google index.

Hi Rais, Google are, or plan to, penalise sites that are heavy on ads. Some SEOs believe this was part of the Panda algorithm update and others believe it is or will be part of a separate algorithm. For example, Matt Cutts has said: "If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it. Do they see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?" Advice on the Official Google Webmaster blog reads: "Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?" ... just something you might want to consider. Good luck.

Actually it's a bit more complex than Rafi explains. If the main site is an ecommerce site (sells products), it's okay to have the blog on the main site unless you end up with a high volume of content on the blog that can weaken the "purchase" intent of the main site.  In that case, the blog on a sub-domain is actually somewhat better because it separates the "informational" intent out and can in turn build up a stronger authority signal as "informational" as a sub-domain.  But only if you drive a lot of traffic, engagement and links to the sub-domain. If the topic is isolated to a niche topic not generally strong on the main site, that's another valuable reason for the sub-domain path. Again, by isolating it within a sub-domain you're preventing dilution of the topical focus of the main site.  That also applies if you have products or services that you can build up enough content within that niche to justify an entire sub-domain. If the main site is informational and the blog is informational, and there is a lot of cross-topical relationshps, it's best to keep the blog as a folder/directory within the main site - in this scenario you get more value by going this route because of the commonality of intent and topical focus.

_Do not take it an SEO advantage. It helps you build your brand and of course, you get a link back when you are making a comment. So, for sure, there is an SEO benefit that you simply cannot ignore. _

Yes my friend. It happens with Google as they are trying hard and working towards their ultimate goal that is as follows: "We would like to give the user what he wants and not what he types in the search bar" So all that one can do is to just stick to the best practices, put in diligent and sincere efforts to make our websites provide a good if not the best user experience. I would also like to suggest you that if you can make the title, description and the content go hand-in-hand tightly, then you will not have to worry about Google picking up a title on its own. Yet, no one can guarantee even if you do so will make Google will pick-up the meta information that you mentioned.

Hi, I didn't use it and I am not planning. This data you can get them with webmaster tools and seomoz tools.

Hi Max, Are you aware of the advice that if you move, you should create a new listing? Just wanted to make sure you knew that.

stand corrected, what i meant was to set the preferred domain on GWT and do the 301 via the servers. Thanks for pointing that out Keri.

Thanks Marko, and I am so with you on the impatience part. I have two sites I manage still being outranked by a competitor using black hat tachniques. I know, not only because their backlink profile makes it obvious, but also because I used to work for them. I have been tempted, and even mildly pressured by my current CEO to do what they are doing. I keep saying "Stay the course. Do what's right. Time will take care of this problem." But in the business world, one only has so much time (and patience). I mean, if your competitor can hold on with the black hat tachniques long enough, and still enough of your traffic to adversely effect your business...to the point of not having a business...what would you do? So yousee, I totally understand your impatience. I think you are doing the right thing now. Consolidating those sites is probably your best shot at getting back on track. While the blog post might be very interesting, I sincerely hope you don't have to write it! Cheers, Dana

It's OK. Panic over. I thought you were saying that you had copied somebody's content. I would recommend starting at the bottom. I wrote an answer to a similar question not too long ago: http://www.seomoz.org/q/first-links-for-a-new-site One thing to remember is to think naturally. If you are looking at starting link building projects then always question whether the methods you are using look authentic and organic. One last thing to remember, please don't ask people to write fake reviews of your sites and/or products. Don't take shortcuts in SEO or you will get stung like the millions of other sites using the same tactics as you. The chances of getting anybody on SEOMoz to partake in questionable methods is pretty low (or actually nearly impossible).

yes he is correct. they can be in the footer on your homepage if putting them in the header is a bad user experience. this will also help pass PR to them since and Google assumes that since it's linked to on the home page it's important content.

Well; we don't want literally to hide it. The keywrods are very relevant to the end user. It's not like we want to mislead the search engine or the end user. But...it cannot be too conspicuous.

it's not a strategy, it's due to technical limitations on the dev side. i agree though thanks. So, I asked this question to a very advanced SEO guru and he said they could be seen as doorways and present some risk and advised against it. That combined with the probability that they will most likely get dropped from Google's index anyway and we know that Google says they want pages to be part of the sites architecture has me leaning towards nofollowing all of them and maybe experiment with allowing 1000 to get indexed and see what happens with them. Thanks for your input folks