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In support of my question, please read this post : http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-wpmuorg-recovered-from-the-penguin-update Out of millions of links Matt is points out to a few websites that WPMU is linked with these thin/low quality websites, so doesn't that mean that if any of my competitor add my website on 20 - 25 such poor quality sites or directory, it'll effect my website's performance.

Many thanks for the response, I was however referring to a 301 redirect on the same domain (just  a new page on this domain). Would it still work?

ezine et al are much less effective nowadays. its all about going for articles on quality sites that aren't easy to get on. ANYONE can get an article on ezine and similar sites.

I agree, the site does not give the feel that you are a  company looking to provide consult or services.  The site does not clearly give a directive to the viewer that you are there to help in their Marketing. You do however have some articles about the topic and lots of ads........  It might be a layout and content issue.... hard to say with out spending a bit of time checking it out.

Make sure the non-www points to the www version or vice versa. If you have example.com and www.example.com, then you might run into this problem.

Hi Umit I took a look at that listing, and it is definitely shady, I can see why you want to know why they rank. To me it looks like they are gaming the places ago fairly hard. There are numerous things that the listing is doing that are possibly against guidelines. The first is the name, "London Builders" it doesn't just have the location, but it is also a strong keyword variation. this keyword is then repeated in the description, and the url. Using the location in your name and description is against best practices, and can get you in trouble. However it is also extremely effective. While any one of these things wouldn't be enough to rank this high, all three could have that effect. Also, the onpage signals from the site are also reinforcing the ranking. Frankly, the site looks incredibly spammy. Its a default wordpress template with a couple of posts over the last couple of years that use the keywords. Unfortunately its a example of some of the big weaknesses that the Google Places has right now. This looks like a case of a black or grey hat seo trying to rank a company in Google Places without the company having a actual website.

Maybe just a little more confused <g>  Thanks for the assist.</g> The 2 sites are quite related as to the nature of the content.  Perhaps doing a domain 301 redirect might be the best choice. We're flying blind here. Clearly traffic dropped significantly but we're out here trying to fix what we are not even sure is broken.

just started using ahrefs.... seems like the best one so far (over majestic, raven, etc)

If the blog has good DA I would suggest it does have good benefit especially if it is on topic for your website. I think its a combination of several factors such as: New audience that you wouldn't normally have access to. Related website giving you a link. *Author/Brand awarenes & trust. Not to mention I have had guest blog articles become extremely popular on twitter and facebook far more popular than I would ever been able to generate on my clients site alone.

Thank you Rand. I also think this is the best idea. Really appreciate the help.

Thank you John for the tips. We have a community on our website and could leverage that for such engagement.

Hi Harry, Not really a quick and simple answer, but there are numerous methods available for high value and white-hat links. For me, content is the best way to go - producing an infographic is an excellent method for gaining links, or writing an in-depth article as a guest blog on a high profile, relevant website with a link back to you. In terms of convincing someone to link to your site, let the content you produce do the talking - if they like it, they'll have no problem linking to you. Here's an excellent article from Jon Cooper with an awesome list of link-building techniques: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies And here's an article I wrote on the SEOMoz blog that covers producing high quality content: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/indepth-guide-to-content-creation-with-infographic Hope that helps you Harry! A lot of reading there but well worth it hopefully : )

No, there were no warnings in Webmaster tools regarding the harmful backlinks. I discovered this in checking the site. I wanted to know if there was any way to remove these links or let Google know that the links are not something that we wanted or paid for or arranged from any third party. _Google should have a method for website owners to submit a website that is linking to them that they want Google to block or ignore for rankings purposes.  _

The only long lasting way to rank for local specific pages is to offer truly unique content on those pages, and build unique links to those pages. The two methods you mentioned here, using near duplicate sites and pages, may work for a short time or in non-competitive niches. It may also work somewhat if a very strong link profile is backing it up... but in general these sorts of tricks usually result in a drop in rankings. If not now, then during an upcoming algorythm change. Often times, misguided webmasters think they are doing the right thing in launching these sites and pages, and no ill intent is intended. Unless the pages are obviously spam or doorway pages, then in my opinion it's probably not worth it reporting them to Google, but that decision is of course best left to each individual. Read more about doorway pages: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355 Consider how Yelp has 100s of pages about dentist, at least one page for every major city in America. Although the pages are similar, they are each filled with unique content and all have unique links pointing to them. Each delivers a similar message, but provides unique value based on that particular location. Add unique value to each location specific page, and you're doing great.

Thanks. I see how my sentence allowed longtail to be merged with PPC.  I actually wanted that to mean going after long tail with SEO efforts. This is a good strategy, but to recommend looking for a new job in a less developed industry is almost like saying just give up and try something easy. Some people can interpret it that way. I think that it is a mistake for an SEO to accept jobs that are above his ability level or jobs where the resources that the company plans to put into an effort are not adequate to become competitive. A lot of SEOs are selling the $500/month package to business owners who really should be spending the $5000/month needed to compete in their industry. One of my favorite quotes is... "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog." But even with that powerful attitude a smart chihuahua will stay in his weight class.

I was just thinking about this very thing this morning, get to the office and bang... there's the exact question.  What if the "secondary domain", the other ones I own, what if their url's are more keyword rich than my primary domain name.  Your answer seemed the most intuitive and beneficial to long term goals... pouring time into a "dummy site". Should we just be using these as vanity urls for tracking specific campaigns.  I'd have to admit... some of the urls I own are a little easier to remember and focused on a specific service (ex. seowhatever .com), than my primary domain name, which is my name! They've got to have more value... some are pretty darn good urls... the kind where you tell your buddy you bought it and he says, "THAT WAS AVAILABLE!!!!".

I honestly can't offer any short term suggestions. It's a big challenge to know what the best short term path is.  Ultimately, you'll need to remove all the scraped content.  Do that without replacing it and in the short term, you won't see any gains, though you may even see some short term losses as it's possible you're not being purely penalized.

Hi Bob, This is something very similar to what I am doing in getting links back to my website, great work! Modbargains mentions something that could be worth exploring "have the reviewers take pictures and post them on pinterest with a snippet of information, linking back to your bag site."