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I know, it seemed odd to me that after they had been up for a few weeks (and apparently for everyone, not just certain people's serp's) that he would say it was "still a test".  He himself even said he thought Google was overdoing it a bit because of how much space it took up.

Hi Todd, I'm following up on some of the older unanswered questions in Q&A. Is the penalty still in place for you, or did you get it figured out? Are there any lessons learned that you can share with us, or any questions you still have? Thanks!

Hi Alan Really sorry to hear that I set up all my clients on different accounts so as to minimise risk of this type of thing. What you could try (perhaps for a less important GooglePlace / client). Set up a new ID and then go in via a search on GooglePlaces and see if you can take over the listing. Worth a try perhaps.

I think if you correct those things, build good quality incoming links and post content which users will enjoy reading then your site should start to improve in the rankings within a few weeks.

Thanks for the help guys! It is sad that you still get companies out there like this one... Have a good one! Shaun

That's what I'm after ideally, a company we can work alongside. Rand recommended Link Fish Media (a US company) who do offer this, but they're too busy to take on a lot of new business at the moment.

It probably depends on what you're looking for, but you might want to specify what type of SEO you're seeking: linkbuilder, auditor, strategist, content creator, etc, etc, etc. I know a lot of people that prefer to just create content or just build links or whatever else.

Hi, Algos do change around the world, different things can be seen in different markets. For example Google will favour .com.au domains in the Australian market because it is country specific TLD's. Sure you can GEO target the domain via webmaster tools yet it will not be as powerful. Also country specific links will work in your favour and copy which meets the users language for your area. Do some TLD's have more spamy things going on? Yes I agree some areas we see that .com market Google has really been fixing it up for a long time other markets are a bit slower to move, yet with all the recent changes to the algo like Panda we are seeing all TLD's come together in a more combined sense. Hope this helps.

If your server is using PHP, I think http://enarion.net/tools/phpsitemapng/crawler/ is a great tool/software to make sitemaps. Does this appeal to you?

Bing is actually providing their search results and ad on yahoo results pages.. they are now "bing powered"

An amusing take on it here: http://www.xydo.com/toolbar/15421107-eu_cookies_directive_-_what_it_means_for_you by Dave Naylor

Thanks for the feedback!  As for hosting on separate servers, I have thought about going that route, but then I look at some of the larger networks with hundreds of sites if not thousands and I am not guessing that they are all on separate servers.  I could do the leg work of some reverse DNS to find that out (will update this post) I can see with spammy sites how the same server would hurt a network as it could quickly become a 'bad neighborhood', but I don't think google would likely penalize sites on the same network if the incoming links are from outside root domains and the site is of decent quality I feel like the answer to this lies in the inbound links and the content quality of the sites, but am looking for some hard evidence to support my thoughts. A good example is Smashing Networks series of sites... I need to do some research on that

Looks like they're being real selective at this early stage. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/comparison-ads-now-part-of-new-google.html "At this time, AdWords Comparison Ads remains available only to a limited number of advertisers. Over time, we hope to increase the availability of Comparison Ads to additional advertisers. You can find more information about AdWords Comparison Ads in our Help Center." I can't find anything more specific than that. Barry at Search Engine Roundtable keeps a close eye on things like this, and would be one to blog about it when it's opened up for more people.

I think the moral of the story is that unless you think you are going to get traffic from DMoz or Yahoo Directory, they aren't worth your time. You can get far better, more relevant, higher PR passing links than those for less effort.

try beyondroi for Spanish stuff, not sure about French though.

I got a SEO certificate a couple of years ago.. Very official looking paper and all!.. and then my kids got to it and colored on it. Looks much better!

It is neither good nor bad for your site. The idea is you are anonymously sharing data. All information which can be used to identify your site specifically is removed. This process allows Google to do some higher level analytical analysis of your information. Google can use the information they learn to make better business decisions. It has nothing to do with you nor your site, except they require participation in order to make their process work. More details can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=87515