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Rank tracker is updated weekly and it is generally accurate but as the results shift constantly it may sometimes be different to a 'live' check.  As an average figure however, especially when there's lots of keywords, it's still pretty useful.

Brian, I personally come from a slightly different stand point; relax. When changing themes these days I personally think that the Meta data is on the lower end of your concerns. Matt Cutts said even said in a video that if you have many pages that are missing H1, H2 etc. it isn't even worth your time to go back and add them. RobertFisher of DrumBeat marketing is an avid poster on this forum often says that SEO is a lot more than just ranking. I don't want to speak for him but from what I have gathered he uses a lot of the meta data has a hook, more than just a ranking feature. Combining the two pieces of information I stated, I try not to concern myself with H1,H2 as far as ranking, I view it like the text on a billboard or the marketing behind an advertisement. This is where the lines of SEO and Marketing begin to get blurred in my opinion. Use your meta data to sell your website and get the individual to click on the search result. Rankings will follow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTBEfd7z_Y <-- Matt Cutts video on meta Data

I was looking for an answer to the 2nd part of the question. Is there an easy way to tell google that you are the author sitewide? It would take years to go around and do DCMAs for every piece of content that's been stolen. One thing I've noticed: In Image Search, Google is able to do a very good at tracking the orignal picture and ranking that. In Web search, Google does a very poor job and often ranks copied content higher than the original.

Ideally, the closer you are to the homepage the better.  However - most of Amazon's products sit  Homepage > Thing Being Sold > Category > Subcategory > Product So I don't think it can really hurt that much - they seem to do ok with it.  But yes, closer is better in general.  Shorten the checkout cycle, though, and people may not care as much.

JVRudnick, your story reminds me of this cool new site you can use to see whether the NSA are watching you: http://AreTheNSAWatchingMe.com/. Also reminds me of the T-shirt I wore yesterday. ePQ7IPQ.jpg

Yes its a drastic change in navigation and I took a dive in the SERPS. I am still trying to figure out the cause of this. Thanks for the article. It will come in use.