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I think you're already on the right track. I use the Keyword Difficulty Tool and get a list of top ranking sites. Then I put those sites into Open Site Explorer and analyze their link profiles to get prospective link opportunities.

Directory Links most certainly still work. If you use this strategy make it a part of your overall link-building campaign but not the be all and end all. Also check the value and relevance of the directories as they may be subject to scrutiny by Google in the future. Good research here will serve you well. Make sure the page you're listing will potentially go on is strong and not loaded with other links as the power gets diluted with the number of links per page.

I like to call it building a diversified link portfolio using many tactics to guard against any major hiccups with a change in the algorithms of the Search Engines. Check out the webinars under the Learn SEO tab and the SEOMoz blog under the Community tab for great detailed info on tactics.

We are starting to see the comment spammers come out again with refined tactics because of the Panda Effect. Does your form allow comments on a blog? or deeper access? Bots and Hacks are always looking for a way in.

Nice Find on that article and Congrats on the Guru status

302 redirect (temporary) passes no link juice. 301 redirect (permanent) passes 90 - 99% link juice value.

Fixing it will require you to check the documentation or contact the company supporting it. This problem is fairly common still and some software has workarounds. This may take some research.

PageRank is an outdated stat. Google doesn't update it very much (if at all) anymore so you're looking at outdated data if you use PR. Page Authority on the other hand is calculated much more frequently. One other metric which you can get (and should heavily consider) from the updated SEOMoz Toolbar for Firefox or Chrome is Domain Authority.

Rand Just did a great Whiteboard Friday Video on Link Acquisition called Competitive Link Analysis Tips.

Both are desirable.  I'd personally go with Domain authority and Page Authority over relevance if I had to choose. Links from monster news sites, mash-ups and other high traffic sites really pack a wallop. Need Proof - go to the Keyword Difficulty tool and check the top ranking sites for a series of terms. We have found some result listings that have little to no relevance but massive domain authority which carries the day.

FYI Use the Mozbar plugin when logged in to get more accurate data than PR. Or if you're getting really down and dirty go with The SEOMoz Linkscape Tool and run an advanced report by site links.

Linking out is good if it is done in support of your content and the link points to trusted and valuable relevant content. (i.e. links that lend weigh to your pages' content) A page with a list of links with no textual context tend to be a flag for the Search Engines. (remember the days of the reciprocal link and link farms)

When you say your links are gone, do you mean your links in OSE? Or have companies taken down links to you for another reason?

Comeback story  - JC Penney has had their status reinstated in Google after a 90 day penalty and fixing up some things.

I would suggest researching the traffic sources in detail if possible to see if a referring site dropped thus causing your decline. Maybe they got hit with the update and not your site.

I would say yes they are cloaked links. I would suggest using HTML links only for maximum juice and to not anger the Googlebot. Serving different content to the user with and without javascript is a no-no. As for your crawl budget - best practice is to use a nofollow tag on the link and a noindex on the target page if you don't want it in the SERPS.

When I run into issues like this It's best not to go outside of the webmaster guidelines for moving a site. (updated 3/20/2011) Clearly they have not applied best practices for user experience and missed a golden opportunity in my opinion. Be grateful that they did. With some more work they could be dominating even more. The similar content issue mentioned in GWT guidelines link above will bite them I'm sure. But like Alan said, when is up to the algorithm.

I would stay the course and make your site the best it can be. The competition and the SE are both out of your control.

1 issue that jumps out immediately is the on page links warnings - recommended is 100 MAX. Just click on the yellow warning button and it will explain it. These are devaluing your juice. Site Architecture is a major ranking factor. Also, have you checked your backlinks? They may be getting hurt by the worldwide Panda that rolled out.

Next, are your pages optimized for their keyword/s? Check the On Page Optimization tool to see if you're doing all you can.

Finally - I see you had a major spike in traffic in November - have you tried to recreate the success you had? Check GA traffic sources for that time-frame and determine what that success was from if you can.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but it is a good place to start.

Please have a look at this question about local listing services : Manual submission trumps auto submissions in many ways. I know you're looking for a down and dirty service but like the post states - you can end up causing more work by using a service. I've used UBL and frankly was unimpressed.

The quickest and most effective way to get quality is to submit to the Acxiom, infoUSA and Localeze databases directly as they feed many of the directories you should be looking for. This does 2 things - it lets you control the quality and offers a short list for future changes.

Twitter - Facebook - Leverage your social channels - Industry contacts - I think SEOMOZ may offer a jobs posting location. If not it's not a bad idea. Hope this helps.

"I have a client who has a website which is getting fairly descent traffic in the current industry its in. He is launching a new business model, same industry. New domain, new brand etc." Excerpt from question

"If the other site no longer need be used, I see no reason not to redirect."

I would agree, but she says nothing about not using the old site.

That's the issue - the other site already has traffic for more keywords than just the new domain exact match. So why kill all traffic that the client receives from the old domain? - and leave what in it's place? Reliance on Google to catch up?

With fairly decent traffic (and conversions) I'm assuming, I would probably build the new site out and keep them both up until the new site gains some "Trust and Authority" (links and index position) You can leverage the power of the old site to link out to the new site (targeted keywords of course) to expedite the process. I would want to keep the traffic flowing and try to make the transition as painless as possible for the client. After the new site has achieved some credibility in the eyes of the Search Engines, then you may consider your 301 option.

Exact matched domains usually rank very well initially anyway. Hope this helped.

This recommendation is based solely on your question of course. If there are other circumstances at play then my opinion may change.

You want them on all pages as I'm sure Google is seeing copies of all your pages. This is really a best practices thing but I add them to all pages when the page is created to avoid just such issues. If you choose the www version you would use this tag for the Career center page:

In addition I've added a link to this great post on canonical

Hope this helps

I would start with the Beginners Guide to SEO  which is under the "Learn SEO" section on the Navbar

Webinars are also good for specific topics with detailed explanations

Good Luck and happy SEOMozzing

1. In addition to your 301 redirect issue Ryan mentioned you are internally linking to the non www version for your logo link: (this leaks juice on the redirect as well if you are going for the www version)

2 ) You really want to choose one version and go with it everywhere (be precise down to the trailing slash) - Google webmaster tools has a setting for this as well - sign up and choose your preferred setting / then save if you haven't already

3. Make the changes and check Open Site Explorer for both versions to see your links that appear the non-preferred way and see if you can contact your external linking sources to fix the issue to the preferred URL

4. I didn't see any canonical for the other pages (other than the home page) add those as well

5. Rerun OSE after your next crawl completes or use Xenu for immediate testing for the internal links - external may take a bit longer.

Best practices is using the 301 redirect method - permanent

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_alias.html#redirect

You can also contact the link webmaster/s if possible to let them know that the page has changed url.

For added stability and to let Google know you should rebuild your sitemap to reflect the change as well.

In addition run Xenu or Screaming Frog to find all your internal linking locations to avoid missing the buried internal links.