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It certainly seems to be part of the picture so far. We've had some canonical problems we were chewing through before this and those that had that fixed seem to be on the rebound. Still, traffic isn't back to where it was but the bleeding stopped.

I don't know if there are any real effective "free newswires"  You may be able to find a database of press contacts for your particular industry, but most companies  vocas / prweb / and busineseswire attempt to make $$ for putting press through the wire. As for the 3 mentioned newswires above, i have used all three and can safely say that businesswire is leaps and bounds better than vocus / prweb... the rub is that it is also exponentially more expensive.  bwire does offer real organic SEO with their news outlets as opposed to the other two. however, for decent inexpensive reach, i can recommend prweb.  You can get a good press release out on the wire for about 80.00. I hope this helps.. if you have any more detailed questions about these, ill be more than happy to clarify in greater detail.

One of my blogs fell from a PR4 to a PR3 but traffic might be the best in 5 years. The toolbar page rank is a pretty poor indicator and I prefer to look at Mozrank and SEOMoz Page Authority. Here is a good post on the topic of why toolbar PR is a poor metric: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/06/pagerank-8-reasons-dont-care.htm

Understood - thanks Dan, perfect.

Thanks Tom. I got your e-mail. It says "full" at the moment but it looks like you will be very popular on Google with lots of new friends

Stephen, Can you offer recommendations on another solution?

The best kind of competition is when it gets personal. Not necessarily about prize but more about status, ego, achievement and daring. Apart from competitions you can try viral content. Here are a few examples of viral content I created: http://www.giantstars.de/ (Flash & Video) http://analogik.com/acid_trip/ (Flash) Hope this helps.

Is there a reason why JS is better than Divs/css or does it matter?

All from external sites,

Hello James. We have done some controlled studies which do show a positive impact in rankings for particular pages within the website when based on a very controlled, or tight taxonomy. I believe this is because of the ability to develop internal links to pages that might not receive a large number of internal links in the website. Additionally, since these pages are in the breadcrumb but likely not linked from other places within the general template, first link attribution is a factor. Also, it is important to understand the impact of breadcrumbs on conversions. There are numerous studies which show the positive impact of site stickiness and metrics like bounce rate, TOS and conversion rate from well defined and helpful breadcrumbs. What's good for the user is generally good for the search engine. Best, Todd

I've seen a lot of debate regarding subdomains and folders and it seems the folder structure may be the best long term course of action but I'm still a bit unclear on this. I agree with folders.  Lots of discussion on that in the Q&A.  Search to find more. What is the best approach to ensure that all SEO addressed on the site has the most impact and moving forward, what is the best method to scaling the SEO for franchisee owners. Do a great job researching the typcial keywords for your niche and apply cookie cutter optimization for each city where you have a franchisee.  Such as "Scranton Auto Glass". What is the best practice to help each location be best positioned in search in the future. Produce lots of interesting and informative content about your niche.  Don't thump your chest.  People don't want that. Write exciting content that anybody who needs your service and product would want to hear. Zero promotion.  All informative. Best on the web content that will rank and attract links that will benefit your entire site. How much should the corporate franchise site typically provide in terms of SEO services to franchisees. It sounds like the leadership understands SEO.  So set up a good model with templates for content production by franchisees and help them as much as you can.  Set them up to succeed.  It benefits the entire company. How does the lead SEO consultant scale those services to franchisees? Produce a web form that makes it easy for all franchisees to provide unique informative content that will populate their webpages.  When they press the submit button, a program on your server converts this input into drafts of their folder files.  Figure out a way to make existing franchisees compete this information.  Make it a requirement for new franchisees that must be completed before their franchise is awarded.

Hi beeneeb, I will be using the blog to create credibility and draw in perspective customers on topics within my industry.  It will be a blog within a website.  Thanks for the answers everyone!

I have an active blog getting hundreds of posts per month with most posts going into two categories (one by topic and one by geography).  It has nearly 200 categories.  We don't use tags.  What we have is wild enough - but those categories pull in an awful lot of traffic and on average get a couple of posts each per week.

I'm endorsing EGOL's comments but I'm going to add that it's a really tough call. I think he's right that those links can dry up (especially over time). I also think that exact-match domains are losing some of their value, and Google may start pushing that harder. Clearly, though, they still have value. I think a lot depends on the content similarity between the two sites and how much you can maintain new content that's relevant to the old links. If you can really support the old site's audience and selectively 301-redirect (on a per-page basis), you've got a better shot. If you just buy it for the domain name and then gut it and 301 everything to the home-page, you'll start losing that link-juice fast. Of course, it also depends a LOT on the price-tag, IMO. Any domain change carries risk, though.

I believe there is a significant difference between a link farm and a directory. And although there are likely going to be differences in how everyone views the two, the basic differences to me are: Link Farms: -No editorial discretion in who is linked to -No editorial discretion in how one is linked to -Often generally require a return link or triangular link -Free for all approach to posting a link -Often no real review process in terms of quality -Do not have clearly defined guidelines for the process -Allow you to link in any way you want (link anchor) -Do not have content and promotional guidelines for content -Created specifically to manipulate SERPs via surgical text link manipulation Quality Directories (I believe there are about 15 total of these on the Internet myself) -Editorial discretion in who is linked to -Editorial discretion in how one is linked to -do not require any link to be listed -Review process in terms of quality -Have clearly defined guidelines for the process -Link to you as a business -Have content and promotional guidelines for content -Created to provide value to searchers I would stay away from link farms to be sure.