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Search engines mostly treat sub domains as if they were their own domain. From what I understand they pass zero to no value back and forth from sub domain to main domain without linking them. So redirecting a sub domain with zero links will bring you no value. The only advantage I have heard rumor of is that a sub-domain will carry the age of the main domain... I have no experience or tests that would prove this or disprove it.

Well there are two ways you can sell a link, using white hat methods or black hat. White hat: the links have the nofollow tag applied and are clearly indicated on the site as paid links or advertisements. If your client chooses to use white hat methods to sell links on their site, then that is not a concern at all. I am guessing the above information isn't of interest, and what you really want to know is more about the black hat method. It's simple. If you client breaks the rules and gets caught, then yes there is a significant risk of all the bad things your client fears happening. Search engines have tremendous resources at their disposal. It's their job to grab information from many sources and relate them together. It is likely they could relate your client and his many sites together.

Kevin, I would delete both of the listings and create a brand new account; a listing "under review" can be under review for several months. Whenever you are working with a company that has more than one physical location you should make sure that all locations have their own address and phone number; no listings should ever share those two things. If there are older companies that are using the companies name with a phone number and address that you cannot get a hold of, then report the location as closed through the map section; this is about as much as you can do if you have no access to the old companies number or address. Hope this helps!

I agree with this post. Google Webmaster Tools seem to have a mind of their own. OSE it!

Thanks, EGOL and Ryan. This is what I've been leaning toward - I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an easy and acceptable way to do this on an external site that I was missing. One downside to the onsite method is that we'll have to use vanity domain(s) to send new visitors to this site since our main domain is our (relatively unknown and way too long) brand name. It sounds like it'll be worth it to avoid the hassles of dual domains, dual content and the associated mess. Thanks again for chiming in, guys :).

Thanks so much everyone - great advice it seams. I will continue to work on my on-page factors and especially my link building efforts. I felt like it was a long shot and you confirmed my suspicions. Thanks again!!

then why do other SEOers do it so much? Just sayin my philosophy... You don't have to agree... and I hope that most people don't agree.  You will not defeat a competitor by mimicing his strategies.  You defeat them by doing something more effective.  Keep in mind, there are only ten positions on the first page of Google for any given keyword and EVERYONE ELSE ranks lower.

I would be jumping to a new host right away!

Provide equally valuable or more valuable content and you will retain your position. The search engines allow new content to be tested to see if it will cement. Failure to stay up to date and relevant will give you competitor the advantage. If the railroads would have innovated and stayed relevant then you and I would be flying with Western Pacific

Sorry. Didn't mean anything by that. Lesser quality didn't mean poor quality. YOUmoz has great content. The main blog has even better content. And there are exceptions to every rule.

I believe my question focuses down to which is the safest path: 1. Never change file names on an established keyword landing page 2. Remove existing page and redirect to new improved landing page 3. Keep both until new one ranks as high in spite of some visitor confusion