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Hi JohnWeb12, Your final link is actually not taking me to the intended results, because it's localizing to my own city, so I can't see this. But, yes, in the other links, there is reason for concern if any third party is creating a Google+ Local page for your client. The one thing I'm not clear on is that, in your provided example, 2 different addresses and phone numbers are being used - one in Edgewater and one in Annapolis. I would need to fully understand the situation to totally 'get' what is going on here. If the company in your example is just one company, and, let's say, the address on the directory page is virtual rather than a real location, then, yes, that could certainly hurt the business. If, in your client's case, 2 Google+ Local pages have been built for the same location, then that is totally a violation. It's fine to list a business on a directory, but I would never recommend that you link a Google+ Local page of any kind to a directory page. In fact, I will go so far as to say that no third party should ever be creating Google+ Local pages for businesses. Those should always, always belong to/be in the control of the business owner, and not anyone else. So, while I wasn't able to access that very important final link to get what's going on here, I do think you have reason for concern, but how harmful the situation may be isn't something I can ascertain unless you can publish your actual client's own details so that the nuances of the situation are clear.

Hi Molly, Thanks:) So glad you found that article relevant. When I wrote that piece, it was because this concept of city landing pages is so important, but so little had been formally written about it. The response has been great! I'm very happy if it will help you. Good luck!

Great. Just audit it, fix problems, audit again, write more great content and give it time. Even if you fix the problem (assuming it was an onsite problem) it may take some time for Google to show the love agian.

Just my thoughts, but it may work in the short term, but we are all too familiar what can happen in the long run with these types of software.

Hi Jesse, Without a little help from a googler in the forums there is only one sure way to determine whether you have a manual penalty or not - a reconsideration request. BUT with the knowledge that you have of some issues and the absence of an obvious effect, I would not recommend the reconsideration route, as it is likely it may actually GET you a manual penalty which at this stage I am doubtful you have. I would continue to do good work for your site and at the same time, put some effort into eliminating the most troublesome of the links you know about. Keep a close eye out for any effect (especially when news of the next penguin refresh appears). also...good on you for taking a proactive approach to this and having the guts to make it an issue that gets dealt with. Sha

In addition to what Moosa has said I would advice you look at historical rankings and see when you were hit and compare this with recent Google updates to see if you have been hit by an update - that sounds whats most likely happened here. I'd also advise doing a "url" search on google and checking your site appears, if so it's indexed and your issue is not indexation.

Just the usual. Good content. Good promotion.

Just to second what Mike said - it's always tough to speak in generalities, but I can't think of any benefit to this approach. Typically, 301s are the preferred method for changing URLs. If you just kill the old pages and introduce new ones with the same content, you not only may experience some short-term duplicate content issues, but you lose inbound links and ranking signals to those old URLs. Are you concerned about transferring a penalty via 301s? I'm just not clear on what the goal is here.

Wow some great answers. Thankyou. Im in such a predicament now,I intended to keep the content and have a local section on the site with local events and local forum etc, thus also retaining a community around. The anchor text i was going to build during the non-business phase was placename. And as i want to build the new business as a brand its new anchor text would also be placename. I am eventually wanting to pursue seoplacename, but i do have a lot of learning & practice to do yet (1-2 years) so, I wanted to build a "site age" to go with the 20 year domain registered age(is this relevant to rankings?). Or would i be left with the wrong type of community...

Hi Nick, Do the clients already have an existing phone number?  Is it well-indexed by Google?  If it is not well-indexed, the client should first establish a permanent phone number and that number should be well-indexed before going ahead with this service. In general, dynamic javascript insertion works fine, as long as the existing phone number remains on the page in HTML somewhere, preferably in close proximity to business name and address (the footer is a good place for this). Make sure they are NOT sending tracking numbers anywhere outside of this client's website. Period.  No matter what they tell you about how their system is implemented.

Hey BeardoCo – thanks for the reply! He's planning on guest blogging elsewhere. I suppose all the advice and whatnot I read on the SEOMoz blog is aimed toward SEOs and people who build their own websites, and so I'm wondering if it's normal for a consultant who's not really affiliated with your company to be trying to write content relevant to that industry? Thanks.

I would also suggest reading the Beginner's Guide to SEO, especially the link building section at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links. Personally, I would rather do nothing at all than do a package like the one above. The one above just means that at some point, I'm going to need to spend a lot of time to clean up those junk links. I view this as similar to spending a couple of hundred dollars a month to provide someone with spray paint to put your URL on the side of a building. It's about the same quality. Again, this is my personal opinion, and not the official voice of SEOmoz, but we take a fairly similar if more muted stance on these type of packages. Spun articles are junk. My favorite is  an example of a post on alcoholism -- instead of "think before you drink" it read "think before you beverage". Here's an example of an .edu link. http://courses.csusm.edu/ricastudy/module01/discussion01/_disc1/00008603.htm They're not all quality. Ok, stepping down off the soapbox. You have a number of trusted community members here that are also giving you great advice. Those with Authority, Guru, and Oracle underneath their names have been around for a while and have lots of participation and are generally good people to listen to.

Thanks so much! I'll have a look at issues with respect to the Panda update and I'll see if I find anything there.

Your competitors will need to pay to renew those links, you won't. Your competitors spend $200 on a link for a year, you spend $200 on 10 quality articles. After a year they have to renew the same link for another $200, you have the option to generate another 10 articles, either way your original 10 articles are still active.

Check PM please!

Thanks James!

Hi Mike, Thanks for that. I figured as I hadn't received any emails from Google that it shouldn't be a problem. Cheers