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I don't think there is, the closest I can come up with would be the BBB or the VeriSign, but again these are more for users than for SE.

Thank you Spencer.  I try to answer where I can. Good luck with your site!

It depends upon how much authority your primary domain has.  If only a little then go with the KW.com.  But if the primary domain has a lot of authority then the KW.com will need a lot of links to beat it.

Hi, Just a few things to start... Use your name ... IAC is not automatically known to the world and since your name includes what you do, I would lose the abbreviation in most instances and take advantage of the value inherent in your name. rename your page files using targeted keyword phrase for each page follow the advice Daniel posted Hope that helps

If you are happy with any URLs with query strings not being indexed your robots.txt will work fine. Do any or your URLs with question marks in them have links to them?  If so you might want to be careful blocking google from indexing them.  I would think you'd lose the benefits those links would pass to your site.

Well, lets hope that when they sort the h1 issue, it goes higher still I didn't check the source to look at the CMS, is it a custom CMS? Re: it's existing rankings, although h1's are important, like most SEO triggers, they are just a part of the pie... if everything else is taken care of nicely, then rankings are still possible even without optimised h1 tags. Oh, and thanks for taking the post the right way!

Thanks! I've got one in place Example: http://www.tvsphoto.com/ga I fairly sure its set up correctly 

lol I expected to have to search harder than that but just goes to show how common a problem it must be (not that it's a problem for you by the sounds of things lol): http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=&q=local+listings+merged&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGLL_en-GBGB403GB403&ie=UTF-8

Sometimes you see a bit more organic (in terms of people just naturally linking to things) indexation of content if pages are dynamically generated by a user selecting the amenity, location, etc, and then the database creates the page on the fly and then someone links to that.  Still it's nice to have a bit more control over page URLs  and give them a bit more established, static presence ahead of time. I wouldn't worry about their release in regards to amount.  Just make sure they function, have sitemaps indicating the new content, and try to drum up a press blitz on the new amount of pages in social and conventional space. Google does well with large increases if it sees a correlated increase in search or press.

I have the ability to place our own applications for our agency in unique folders but the links I will be distributing to other agencies are specific to each agency. They are links that are auto-generated by our web application that has the agency's identifying information embedded in it so that the agency gets their proper commission. This conversation has been good though because I was going to build a bond application library into the site with a link to each specific application. I will now restructure the site so that the link provided will lead to a well named sub-folder that has the actual application framed into the page. I should probably also make sure that I don't just frame in an external application ONLY. I should probably place content on each page alongside the application that is relevant to the type of bond they are applying for. Would everyone agree?

Thank you so much for your input! I hope this evolves into more conversation - I think it could be helpful! I'm also identifying what traffic is coming from YouTube, which is a bit easier due to the stats and info available at YouTube, but the information just doesn't seem to be as accessible from the location pages. Cheers, Alicia

That makes some good sense too. Thanks Bemcapaz. I'll dig around a bit and see if I can find anything on that

Thanks, Alan, you captured the dilemma perfectly. UI is important and SEO is important, so how does one quantify the pros and cons of each in the planning stages of a site. It's really kind of an educated guess. I tend to lean towards your assessment for all of the reasons you cite. I'm in a competitive keyword space. So while I put a lot of weight on UI issues, I'm not inclined to ignore SEO opportunities for just minimal UI gains.

Yeah the clean-up work can be quite intense on some sites.  The fact that we are able to help clients is a big thing on so many levels.   Having the patience to address issues like you describe is one of the most important attributes we can have.

If you are already looking at a site rework under aspnet the have a look at incorperating this with MVC which offers a much more structured approach and allows handling of redirects 301 and produces much faster loading pages without all the cookie state stuffing of straight aspnet.  It also handles security much better with attributes to control protocol and access rights.

This is more commentary for your next step, after you have this question answered. The links at the bottom right of the page seem more for search engines than users. As a user, I expected to be taken to a page about that particular topic, not have a paragraph or two display. My gut is telling me that some of the work that was done (in not the best way)  for SEO was at the expense of usability. You might look at installing Crazyegg or a similar tracking software that looks where users click on the page, even if they're not clicking on a link. In addition to making the SEO right on the site, you'll want to look at the user experience and conversions.

What works for my clients when I help them transition is to do all that's been suggested so far (even considering splitting out the work into phases if at all possible).  But also, it's doing a press release right away, getting social buzz about the new site, and working on adding / building up the content around the core phrases, then link to that new content from the home page. Then focus on link building efforts to reinforce the new URLs.  And see if you can get any existing link sources to change the URLs in those to the new version links - sending much stronger signals than just 301 redirected links. If you do the work properly, you should eventually have both the home page and the inner pages show up for your most important phrases.