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There is always a chance that this could cause you harm so I would proceed with caution and do what you can to remove it. On the one hand it could cause you problems, on the other, it might not. Then there is somewhere in between where it might have just a small impact.

Truth is, where best practice is concerned, that is not a healthy link so I would consider getting it removed.

Regards,

Andy

To give you an idea, I did a test to see if Yahoo still uses them, and they do - however, Yahoo say they don't place much stock on them but they could be the difference between you getting above a competitor or not. However, Google and Bing don't use them at all.

Personally, I don't bother.

Regards,

Andy

My first suggestion would be to remove the name being all in caps. It is understood that Google places will accept 2 to 3 caps in a row to try writing it as Mac Sales Company. That is what was causing me problems. Also add things like opening times and try to get happy customs to write you a review. Also worth reading this... http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528

One of my customers just has a page that is hidden from public view (www.url.co.uk/adminpage), no-indexed and isn't in the robots file and in 10 years, there has never been a hack attempt.

It doesn't really matter if it is on a new or existing page - however, on a new page you can title the new page to be something related perhaps? Then there is the school of thought that says if you have low quality content, get it replaced.

Regards,

Andy

As far as I am aware it hasn't arrived over here in the Uk as yet - what some sites in the UK are seeing is that some of their terms are being hit in the US though.

Regards,

Andy

"tip for future content: include things they can't include, like your name, your customers, etc etc"

If only this were the case - one of my large customers has thousands of pages of duplicated content - these scrapers don't bother taking out names sadly.

Avoid spinning content at all costs. By all means read articles, understand them and re-write them from scratch, but don't copy snippets or sentences otherwise you run the risk of coming under the watchful eye of the Google Farmer algorithm - and you definitely don't want that!

Regards,

Andy

It sounds to me like you need to move away from them ASAP! Is the site a static HTML site or are there databases involved as well? In bringing the site back, you need to make sure that everything comes back over and the transition is not messed up for you.

Link juice isn't passed equally through all links, but does trickle through at some level. Exactly what this is, is something of an unknown though. Perhaps someone can add a little more clarification on this?

I would say that adding another good quality link would make little (if any) difference and it is not something I would hesitate doing myself.

However, there comes a point where a page full of links will have a negative effect, but with just a few well targeted ones, I would say you would be fine with that.

Regards,

Andy

If it falls as a part of the quote then yes, I would certainly add that in for them. Could be a worthwhile payoff for you - and them

Google uses the IP of the server hosting the site as one way of delivering that content to the correct target areas. So in short, yes, this is a problem and one that you need to resolve.

It is an SEO tactic that is used if you are country specific and want to target other locations.

Regards,

Andy

You're welcome

It makes interesting reading, doesn't it And a very effective way they use to come up with those that are most profitable.

I would guess a few that would be hard work would be...

Sex
Porn
Homepage
Google
Click Here
Viagra

Some of the highest paying Adsense keywords can be seen here

Regards,

Andy

I personally would take your time looking for a company and whoever you do talk to, ask for examples of work they have done in the past. You want to see clear results from other customers of theirs.

Have a read of this as well - some good points and examples in there. Sorry, I haven't used anyone to do viral marketing for me so can't offer any references.

Regards,

Andy

Hi Todd,

The rule of thumb is that the first link that Google comes across is the most important one, so it would be worthwhile looking carefully at this. You can have other links on the pages, as long as there are not too many, because this can actually improve the user experience, so they will never count for nothing - just be mindful that the content is the important part right now.

Where possible try and embed anchor text in content that is 'on-topic'.

Regards,

Andy

What CMS are you using? It might be that you need to get someone to do some code editing for you?

Regards,

Andy

Content can be expensive, but can also be a necessary evil for you, if you aren't able to do this yourself. Writing just for the sake of it could be a very bad move because, as Dejan has already mentioned, it could trigger the new algorithm from Google, and that could spell you problems.

Best not to bother than write something poor

I have been doing this a long time now and have never come across anyone who endorses this as a technique. To me if it smells even slightly of desperation or 'grey hat' then I steer well clear.

You can  rest assured that Google will get what the page and site are about without having all of these multiple links to the same pages being thrown at them - in the same way they say not to keyword stuff because they don't need to keep being told

Regards,

Andy

I am assuming that they are looking at SEO because they need some help getting ranked in the SERP's, and what they have already have done is certainly not a practice I would endorse. My thoughts on this would be to remove all those links that take you through to the same page but with different anchor text. It is OK to have a few other links in the copy that take you through to other pages as, if nothing else, this can help with Google crawling the site and visitors whilst they are browsing through.

Regards,

Andy