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Heya, my pleasure... it's from 2009 but most all of the services listed are still relevant (surprisingly!)

I'd do 5-10

There is evidence that Google sees hyphens in the root domain as spam. A lot of lead generation publishers, unable to afford domains like www.freecreditreport.com will resort to buying spammy domains like www.free-credit-report.com. A lot of porn sites utilize this tactic as well. I would definitely steer clear of this as a tactic...most sites that I see using this almost always have manipulated link graphs, paid links, etc etc. Hope this helps. Be well!

Thanks for the tip!

There's a badge for that http://www.seomoz.org/dp/badges

Scan the URL with this link vetting tool http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm if it's got tons of bad associations (people they are linking to and people who are linking to them are linking with)I would suggest getting your link removed. Use this tool before reaching out to a site you want to get linked on too, this way you know what you're dealing with

No, from my understanding, Google continually indexes your pages. Rand updates his Search Engine Ranking Factors and he puts the new information at the same URL: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

thanks for your answer guys! Sean, I do whatever is neccesary to get the .edu.. at least anything that isn't against the google guidelines!

Hi Daniel. what about all the domains registered under the same account, so the same whois info. Just wondering how that will play out if I build 5 or so of these sites? Derek

I pulled out some metrics on a few http://www.garethjames.net/authority-directory-list/

I've been using voltrank for several months now and i must say i love it. It can give you a nice and steady link growth comming from quality sites. All sites i promote using voltrank move up it the serps. Check their form for more success stories: http://forum.voltrank.com/showthread.php?4-Do-you-guys-have-any-quot-success-stories-quot-using-voltrank&p=908&viewfull=1#post908

I am actually stil waiting for the final lists to ensure a comparable search result "study". Regarding subdomains & worst approach: thats whats confusing me (maybe due to my newbie status with seomoz): The domain authority for the TLD is lower than the ones for the subdomains. I actually figured this to be a hint, that subdomains do inherit this from the root domain. But I hope to be able to tell you more in 2-3 weeks, when I have those lists ready and can compare the search workds/phrases over all countries.