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Actually, StuBabble, any page can contain authorship markup and may show up in the search results with an author's head shot.  You can use Google's Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that mark up is installed and how the snippet will look for any of your web pages.

Joshua,

It's my experience that Google disregards punctuation of that sort, however, I'd use both of them on the page.  I'd use "inches" in your written description of the product and the " in the technical spects of the product.

It's not stale content.  As the dates in the graph appear to correspond to Penguin 2.0, I'd be thinking along those lines.

Google algorithm change history: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Yes, the tool will show if your business is using publisher markup.

The problem with keywords on ecommerce sites is there tends to be lots of images of similar things and people end up using the same keywords over and over, which brings down their value as an indicator of what the image is.  Sure it can help but as page-level factors start weighing less and less and keywords loose footing as a factor, keywords in alt tags become an even lower priority.  My opinion is you're better off having fun with creating your alt tags than tying yourself to using keywords in each of them.

While those footer links back to the agency that created the website used to be commonplace and sought after, it's shaky ground today--even just one or two no-followed links from a client's  site could get you in trouble--in the future.

Today, a followed link or two from the footer of a client's home page and another one from some an interior page (each link having different, non-exact match anchor text) may still provide your site some advantage--and that's the problem.  Using those links to your advantage may help your authority in the present but you shouldn't be surprised if that authority is stripped at some point in the future.  You know what it looks like when authority is stripped?   A penalty.

If you are still getting a followed footer link or two from each of your clients, that shouldn't be your only means of building authority--it should be a supplemental means.  You really need to work just as hard as any other site in any other industry to build editorial links back to your site in order that you not suffer an authority adjustment down the road.

The best practice is to nofollow those links in order to prevent them from giving you problems in the future.

Laura,

Wordpress.com has a Offsite Redirect service that you can purchase for something like $12 per year, or something like that, and it provides a 301 redirect to your new site. If you purchase that service and upload your backup to your new domain, you'll be in good shape on the duplicate content issue.

If you just delete the old site and not pay for the redirect service, there will likely be overlap in Google's index of identical content from two different domains and unless you get a lot of good links going to your new site immediately, your old site would probably be recognized as the authoritative one for the first 4-6 months or so.

Ashley, there are a number of ways to view the source code of a web page on mobile devices depends whether you're talking about android or ios.  Once you're able to view the source code, you can determine of your ads are showing up on the mobile page.

I'd say the domain name does show up in the url and the search box. They're not links, however.

Have you identified how many of those 200 visits are converting in some way (unique phone number being tracked or referral visits from there to your domain)?  You could keep what you've got on blogger and stop blogging there, delete the content that's been duplicated on your domain and just continue blogging from your domain.  The value of moving the content already hosted on blogger may be minimal.

Your law firm is going to look better to potential clients if those prospects find content on the law firms domain rather than on a freebie alternative.

Don't think about Google "counting" the words on your page--it doesn't really care about how many words it contains. The thing about words is that when used well, they can give others a reason to comment or share or like it--and shares and comments beget more shares and comments.  A six word page with 50 comments is a whole lot better than a 2000 word page with none.  In answer to your question, the comments on a page do count towards to the pages's content but the fact that the page has visitor profiles that have commented on it is where the real value is.

Nice find--I haven't seen that before. My opinion is that this is just more evidence that someday, there will be no difference between local and organic search.

Daniel, the tactic you're going for won't serve you well.  Using free domains in order to create thin, keyword rich content gives your domain a footprint that looks a lot like spam and takes you away from practices that will help you better over the long run.  Fast and easy methods like that don't provide results these days.

Yes, I read that too.  I'm sure you noticed the part about

"Content Rich Sites Get More Links

People feel content is so valuable that they are willing to link to in-depth content more than they are willing to link to content that is short."

Don't confuse google liking links with google liking content.  Google likes links--the content...not as big of a big deal (for google).

Heather,

First things: 1. Are they still driving traffic?  2. Rel=canonicals are supposed to be used on identical pages or on a page whose content is a subset of the canonical version.

Those pages are very thin content and I certainly wouldn't leave them as they are.  If they're still driving content, I'd keep them, but for fear of panda, I'd 302 them to the main pages while I work steadily on putting real content on them and then remove the redirects as the content goes on.

If they're not still driving traffic, it seems to me that it wouldn't be very hard to justifying their removal (or 301 redirection to their main pages). Panda is a tough penalty and you don't want to get caught in that.

Keep in mind EJD, that content is but the means to an end--it is the visitor interaction/engagement that you (and Google) after and content is the catalyst that makes it possible.  What makes good content? As Alan says, it's content that is being linked to and clicked on, as well as shared and commented on on websites and social platforms.  How do you create "good content"? You study the needs of your audience, then create content that addresses those needs and  finally, strategic networking with audience and influencers to make them aware of that they will then engage with.

It feels like you're paying to much attention to the grains of sand and not enough attention to the beach. Think at scale--do you really want to be editing everyone's comments for ever and ever?  How would your audience think about that? If you're audience is prone to misspelings and grammer errors (and whose isn't) so be it.  One comment is worth a few errors and google's not going to ding you for that.

Instead, think about how you can get more people who are going to make those errors to your site. Don't knock your audience if they're engaging with your content.

Actually, I'm going to revise that answer.  When google provides the "Search for similar searches" option on the results page, such as with this search, it will show terms that were used in the query but were not found on the page as struck through.

Harriet,

It looks like you're  doing a good job maintaining a posting schedule but I'd say that with your broad topics, you may be biting off more than you can chew, as far as defining and speaking to a target audience. If your blog doesn't have an audience that is engaged enough to comment on posts and share post content with others, authority for the domain will remain low.

Your posts cover topics from home decor/accessories to dating, to makeup, to gyms, to love, to wishlists and there's no doubt that these topics easily fall within the realm of health and beauty and are relevant to a broad audience. But authority and pagerank are about audience engagement and links, which are hard to get unless you're able to communicate on a intimate level with your audience.    Big time publishers with staffs of writers are better able to do that on the scale of diverse topics that you are attempting.

I recommend choosing a core topic that may overlap into the various areas that you like to write about but which, by itself, is far less competitive and far more focused. Focus on you, for example.  Focus on what makes you interesting and then on how dating, gyms, love, wishlists, decor each/all make you more interesting to those you wish will find you interesting. You're much more likely to gain authority like that.

Kered,

Just nofollow them and you'll be OK.  Don't look at links that you control as an option to help you build your domain authority.  Agencies, tend to lean heavily on the sorts of links your talking about because they're so easy to acquire over time. But let me tell you, I've seen hundreds of agencies briefly rise to the top of the search results on the strength of back links from clients, only to fall off the cliff once some threshold has been passed.

You're not going to get dinged for the kind of link you're talking about if it is a singular occurrence or if they make up a small percentage of your total link profile.  The problem tends to be though, that one leads to two; two leads  to four; four leads to eight and eventually they outweigh all your other links and then, boom, you take the fall.