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Thank you for your reply and suggestions, actually ahrefs returned quite a number of links... what I don't understand is how you can see 350 links inside the "Just-Discovered beta" of OSE... I see just 23 links for the following URL: www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/ard.asp Ideas?

Thanks Everyone for your input! To further clarify, the 2 Chinese sites in question have essentially slurped our pages and in their automated process, have created non-existent links that have never existed on our website and that have no pattern similarities in URL structure. Based on this, I am inclined to disavow the PR1 site, but work to 301 links from the PR5 site via .htaccess. Thoughts?

Thank you Kurt, that's exactly what I thought but I wanted to have confirmation from the experts community. Thank you again!

Hi, no I haven't needed to, so to be fair to you (which doesn't come across in my original reply to you - apologies), you are right to be cautious. My thinking, based on what you said "I either haven't been able to make contact with webmasters, or they are asking money to remove the links", was that if you have done those things then you have done what Google asks in trying to mitigate the issues. In other words, you have demonstrated you have tried to do the right thing. In that case, then disavow is an option for you, but maybe, in hindsight, with 20-30 links affected that represent <5% of your backlinks, then you should do nothing and concentrate on further offsetting their impact by growing more good links. What I wouldn't do is pay for them to be removed. IMHO, for sites that are trying to earn money from holding sites to ransom then that only encourages more sites to ransom. If the site is asking for payment as a sort of "administration fee" (which I still think is unreasonable) then maybe ask them one more time. If the links are genuinely bad and the host site(s) have more than just yours, then they are endangering their own site by keeping them. I hope that helps. Peter

Hey! We're clear. I was able to reproduce this on my end as well. Thanks for the follow-up and extra info though Sam Moz Helpster

Hi guys Really funny to read this! I had some advice from a former compettitor  (he has since sold his cateeing business) his site has little or even no interesting content (a handful of blog posts) but ranks well for all the keywords that we Desire . I asked him how he did it and he said that he put his site on around 600 directories! He still ranks really highly even though he sold it a year or too ago. The other thing he mentioned was buying blog posts on other sites about his. So if I was to Wright some interesting content and get people in the catering industry to link to it. I should over come the directory spamming approach that he has taken? Perhaps a free tool or check list for weddings or something? his site gastrocatering.com mine is sussexchef.com

From - http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=508088 COPYRIGHT All content included in or made available through any Amazon Service, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, and data compilations is the property of Amazon or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content included in or made available through any Amazon Service is the exclusive property of Amazon and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. In short, you don't own those reviews even though they are about your product. The reviews were left on Amazon.com, and are therefore the property of Amazon.com.

Thanks Kane for sharing the article. There seem to be some communities which have very distinct taste, like Hacker News—I did need a different headline to make it appealing to folks there... Thanks.

Crazy, I have quite a bit of experience with this exact scenario: law firms using geo subdomains to target specific areas. Here's my findings and suggestions based on actual results and experience: SEO on domain.com benefits atlanta.domain.com. This is a fact. If Starbucks decided to create subdomains tomorrow for every location, their subdomains would benefit from 91 DA. That's how Findlaw, lawyers.com and all those guys get first page placement with high DA and low PA. Digital Diameter is right, subdomains are more effective and directories are more efficient. UNLESS you have a really good multi-site CMS. Then you can be equally efficient and more effective. I hope this answers your question, if you want some help or have any other questions, PM me.

I'm going to take a stab in the relative dark and say this: 1. Building local links and citations should help as it would with any site. 2. It is unlikely that Google will assist you further than that. They appear to penalize broadly illegal sites, but they do not appear to get into the details beyond that. If you feel businesses are illegally offering a service, it seems like that would be more of a legal / regulatory issue than an SEO issue per-say.

Look no further than our beloved Mozzer Ryan Kent. http://moz.com/community/users/312503 He's the 2nd highest ranked user on Moz. I personally referred him some business. Tell him Francisco from Planet Marketing mentioned you.

Thank you, That put my mind at rest. I was also concerned about the wayback as I have used it many times to find out details of an old page when the google cache doesn't show me what I need.  So an extra thank you for that info link as well.

Hi! We would love to add the ability to see goal completion and conversions from GA integrated into Moz Analytics. We don't have a specific timeframe for it just yet, but I'll let you know when we have it on the schedule. Thanks and please let us know if you have any other questions! Miranda Rensch - Product Manager

Patrick, Great answer! I think the fact that certain numbers in the "Avg. monthly searches" field appear repeatedly can be a bit confusing. Now that I know this field means Exact Match, I guess it follows that the numbers in that field are rounded coarsely, or in such a way that tends to produce similar numbers. For instance, the two keywords in the set which each have 5400 searches. Anyways, thanks for the great answer. It is very helpful and encouraging to know that the result I am chasing after may yet offer good potential. Warmest regards, Greg

Great list Keith. I would add: 2. Contact webmasters to delete them and document progress Documentation (use a Google Doc) is a key and you can share it with them to show that you are taking steps to adhere to their guidelines. Include date, url, email of webmaster, and status (links removed, didn't contacted back, wanted money and so on).  Good luck!

Hi Vince, There is Link Risk at http://linkrisk.com/ Also here is a review from back when they were in beta testing   http://www.stateofdigital.com/linkrisk/ I have not used them because when I did my link analysis only Link Detox was available. If you give it a try, please share your experience.

Try contacting the webmasters of the spammy sites to takes the links down before disavowing (see Matt Cutts video on the subject).

We don't have access to AdWords data in an API format.

Keith, Thanks for your quick response. Do you recommend share buttons or like buttons that have a count next to them on the website, rather than the ones that do not?

So you think, you are a seo specialist? Really!