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Automated link building? I think you'll find the majority here would advise against any such software, that kind of thing can do more harm than good.

Mmmhhh,

We're seeing a similar effect in competitive search in Sydney, the term 'website designers' brings up relatively weak sites, few if any of which appear to be optimised for that particular query though they are for closely related searches.

Has G vastly reduced the influence of backlinks and turned up the over-optimisation filters?

For my two cents I'd lean towards responsive design rather than a separate site/subdomain. Its so much easier to maintain one site rather than 2 or more different versions. Stripping out content is always a ranking danger so why go there?