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I personally have had less of a problem with robots.txt not being followed by Google than I have had developers muck with the robots.txt file. In my particular case, they would update the development site with information from the live site (as we were adding more content to a database on the live site and they were syncing it). They'd copy over the live robots.txt as well, and suddenly the development site was being indexed. I use Code Monitor for all of my robots.txt files, live or development, so I can be notified when they change. https://www.polepositionweb.com/roi/codemonitor/ I suggest verifying the development site in Google Webmaster Tools. From there, you can request the content to be removed (after you've blocked in robots.txt or used the meta noindex), and you can also use their robots.txt tool to see if there was possibly an error in the file.

I dont have any evidecne an old link is any better then a new link simply because it is old. A lot depends on the linking web site, if it is gaining authority and rank then your link will also gain value. But this can be the reverse.

It seems to me that that would almost have to be part of the puzzle. If you read, which I know you have the SEL post on what social factors Bing and Google look at it touches on it if only peripherally. re: 3) Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it? Bing: Yes. Google: Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search. I can't help but think that the number and type of lists a person's Twitter account wouldn't be an obvious thing for them to include in their 'author rank'. Also the previous question hints at it as well: 2) Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are? Bing: Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan) Google: Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life Also - if you think about it this could be symptomatically included as well. Because a person is included on more lists on specific topics (or not) they are likely to be more popular, which is likely to coincide a higher number of followers, RTs, etc. So maybe it's not directly related but it's a sign.

I only do that, due to the fact tumblr and blogger are with 99% area authority as you can see this blog, so those listings can bang the search consequences for the listing key phrases and that they do as properly.

Right, the most important keywords are the first one's on the left. If you feel it best to add a title, do it, but it will be slightly better Search Eninge Ranking wise to omit the title.

Hi again, Keri, Thanks for all your analysis.... I think the pages you found on archive.org are the root of the problem - this was when the domain name was 'parked' at WhyPark... I think that's where Google gave it the original penalty - not fair IMO but at any rate I have confessed my sins in this regard ages ago to no avail. Thanks for the content tips too - I'll fix them up now (there are 5 games currently on the site btw - not sure why you couldn't see them). Thanks agin David

spot on, no-follow does leak link juice, it just that it is not awarded to the linked-to page. the only use for it is when you dont vouch for the linked-to page. No-follow for a limited time did not leak link juice, but this made it hard to get links because everyone was trying to hoard link juice, many still believe no-follow does not leak link juice and are still reluctant to give a follow link.

Thanks for the replies.  The site is for a law firm so yes, most clients visit the office. So I will stylise  a  vCard formatted address and placing it high up as suggested. Then will see if the geotarget tool picks it up.. @David - the tool is the seomoz tool : http://www.seomoz.org/geotarget

90% client work, 10% personal side projects mostly for running my own SEO experiments which may end up helping me with my clients.

The Caffeine udate was claimed to make instant updates to the Index. To me this suggests that as soon as the link is indexed it gives value. However, part of Google's patent suggests evaluation of links over time, so the history of a link could add value to that link. So like fine wine, links with age are worth more.So the value you are looking for may not be achieved until the link itself as aged and increased in value. What you suggest is that in your findings the value of a link is not immediate for ranking. I believe that is heavily dependant on the difficulty of the desired ranking. I have seen a link or two provide imediate value on obscure rankings. Where as, competitive rankings need the added value of time and quantity. Take an average for 10 5-star reviews. Not competitive. Easy to move the average by a few more reviews. Now consider average from 100 reviews. Much harder to move average. Take 10000 reviews and a new review is a drop in a bucket. Very competitive rankings will not see immediate value. Disclaimer, I am a pest control guy.

May I suggest this blog post from our friend Danny: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause The take-a-way is yes, they do now, and probably will more so in the future so got on your social.

If those pages are indexed by Google and Google returns them in SERPs then yes, they will 404. That is why you need to test the page first and do a header redirect 301 to either the category page or the home page. Hope that was the This Answered My Question : )

Until MichaelC shows up Sounds reasonable, I would also put a canonical tag on it saying the / is the official page. What might also be an option is to put a parameter on like ?hm (if possible) and in Webmaster Tools - Site Configuration > Settings > Parameter Handling you can tell them to ignore the ?hm. However I'm not sure how well that works and I would have the canonical in there as well.