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Both answers so far get to one of the points that I was going to make, always update redirects so that there is not a chain, but I wanted to add something else. You only need redirects as long as someone is linking to those pages. You should be taking time to fix any internal references to changed URLs and contacting websites that link to the old URLs and asking them to change the URLs. That should be a part of any site URL change. If you have only revised your URLs once, you only need redirects for 3-6 months while the search engines reindex everything. In that time, you should have changed all links to the old URLs. In your case, I'd drop all old redirects except for the last one and see what 404s you get. Find the referring site, and contact them to change the link to your site. Once that is all done, then you can work on this latest revision to change those links. Hope that helps!

Another thing to keep in mind is how the DA of your competitors has been behaving over the same period.  The number doesn't matter so much as how it moves in relation to your competition.

Hi Christopher, I'm not going to touch question #1 - that's a big can of worms that everybody has different opinions on. The big factor seems to be "Did you get a manual penalty?" If yes, there is a fairly standard set of steps to follow that wraps up with a Disavow. If no, you may or may not get any good out of doing a Disavow. But question # 2 is easier. I used the Link Detox tool at linkdetox.com to check my backlinks and really liked the way it clarified and classified each link. There is a trial package hidden way down at the bottom of this page: http://www.linkdetox.com/plans-pricing/   that lets you buy two opportunities to run your site through the program for 100euros ($130). That's what I used. You could also first check out the Penguin Analysis tool at penguinanalysis.com and invest $10 to run a few of your primary pages through it to see how likely it is that you have a algorithmic penalty from Google. If you don't, then chasing after a Disavow project may not be worthwhile. There was a Moz blog about it here: http://moz.com/blog/its-penguin-hunting-season-how-to-be-the-predator-not-the-prey Good luck!

Hi Tim, Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

I can understand hosting the forum on a different sub-domain if it's markedly different from your site.  If you market the forum separately and the forum and your page link to each-other it could have an SEO benefit, but if you don't plan on treating them as two separate entities under your umbrella, I'd look for new hosting.

Review the suggested searches as you type your query     The moz.com/improve-rankings-with-semantic-research blog post is also VERY helpful in Semantic SEO.

Hi C2G, While each directory has its own rules, Google is quite clear about their stance on this, in the Google Places Quality Guidelines: Businesses that are under construction or that have not yet opened to the public are not eligible for a listing on Google Places So, at the very least, until your client has moved, you cannot update his Google+ Local page. I will add to this that, because you should never publish anything but the current NAP (name, address, phone) of a business on a website or its citations (for fear of clouding the record and harming current rankings) you probably should not do advance work on this of any kind. Instead, this would be a good time to be sure you've created a spreadsheet of all of the client's current citations, so that as soon as the move is official, you're working off an organized document doing his citation editing. And, if it's in your job description to do so, the coming months would also be a good time to come up with the content you'll be publishing once the move happens. This could include both editing of current content, including on-page SEO, and the development of new content announcing the move. So, in my opinion, the next 3 months will be a good time for organizing and planning, but the actual 'doing' should wait until the move actually happens. Hope this helps!

There is a list of recommended businesses via a link at the foot of the page.  Most SEO guys are now very experienced in dealing with penalty issues as it has become so common.

You're right, it's working now. Thanks!

Just to throw my two pennies worth in....guest blogging is on the radar of Google so if you are going to start writing guest blogs that have your link in the author bio at the end, be very careful! It leaves a very obvious trial that Google can use to see if you are over-doing it on the guest blogging. Instead of guest posting, why not think of the problems that people have in stock trading and reach out to finance websites/bloggers. Think of a widget that you could create that would appeal to bloggers as this could be a source of links for months. If you get short of ideas then I'd recommend buying http://www.linkbuildingbook.com/ which has been written by Paddy Moogan. Great read!

I'd suggest you nofollow all those links. You say "which don’t really fit the mold for “excessive link exchanging.”" but you are forgetting that each page will contain the same link, therefore creating god knows how many backlinks from ALL the pages in your site to the other sites, and the same for all the others. As an example, I had a manual link penalty applied, and when applying for a reconsideration, which was declined, the example links given by Google included a link to my business site from MY OWN personal site, something that said "I am the Owner of X" being X the link, and THAT link was one of the 3 examples in the negatory. So again, I'd suggest you nofollow all those links, and actually only doing it if the sites are really related to one another. Read the article about something that Amazon is doing and EVERYONE thinks they should be penalized for: http://www.seroundtable.com/amazon-footer-links-spam-17857.html Hope that helps!

Just a quick note that all links in the Moz Q&A forum and in the comments have the nofollow attribute automatically added to them.

Hi Nick Thanks for your response. Yes, creating fresh new content is the stronghold for any digital marketing strategy. However after reading the article you sent me has only increased my desire never to touch a directory. It seems to me directories, however much impact they play right now, may become a thing of the past tomorrow... We'll stick to developing relevant content for our clients and publishing digitally using authoritative sites, blogs, social media's extra. Thanks again Nick and a Happy New Year to you. Gary Victory - Elite Group Marketing, London

Hi Daniel You can access PRO by going to pro.moz.com/campaigns The back to PRO link will only appear if you have active pro campaigns on that side. Any new campaigns created in Moz Analytics will not have a link. Hope this helps!

Happy to help.