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That is not the problem.

Simple search for a piece of on-page content reveals that Google chooses .com as the content originator. Again in the results the page has problematic URL. Perhaps it's a redirect gone wrong but this could be solved simply by canonicalisation or 301 redirection.

This is in case Mick does not need both websites online. If he does there is still a solution but it would involve introducing geo specific signals to Google and setting preference in Google Webmaster Tools (among other things). Diversification of content would take time and may not be feasible in all cases.

301 redirects can  take time to be recognised. How long has it been since the directive was put in place? Have you checked that there is no problem with the way redirection was implemented?

There are several types of penalties (single keyword, all keywords, complete ban...etc). Search for your own brand and if you don't come up with anything than you're likely banned. Same thing with domain, site: command and info:

I would like to add one point many people forget - disclosure. Google is pretty forgiving in terms of linking of own websites if the disclosure is clearly stated and it doesn't look like an SEOs attempt to manipulate link signals.

My suggestion is to link to your other site via a specific page on your first site and explain their relationship. This is a good practice in general, not just search engines.

There is no way you will be penalised. You would however potentially confuse search engines as to who the content originator is and delay the ranking for the intended page. So as EGOL says it's best to use short snippets on the home page that lead to the full blog post.

Having company address in the footer could be a good practice but it's not an absolute must. The fact that it may reside in an include does not affect SEO at all if that include renders as part of the same document.

It should be fine unless that site was banned in the past for some reason, though that's pretty easy to check. If your new website changes substantially in topic Google will likely recognise the change and not factor in domain's history. This is from what Google said at one point, not sure if anything changed since then.

There are better ways to make money from your site. Worst case outcome? Manual action by Google. Best case scenario? Algorithmic PageRank reduction where your toolbar PageRank goes down by 1/3. e.g. PR6 -> PR4 making it less appealing for link buyers.

Indirectly by linking out to random sites can put you in a bad neighborhood and reduce your websites reputation and trust by search engines.

PageRank is rarely updated for public these days. If your redirect is set properly all your PR should show in the next toolbar PR update. If it still shows 0 then there are two possibilities: a) links that gave you pagerank don't exist anymore or don't have pagerank themselves b) penalty. Both are quite unlikely. I recommend you don't obsess too much over this and one day you will be pleasantly surprised with a bit of green. Keep in mind that will be only a historical record of PR when Google last took the snapshot.

954 underscores in the source code of the first result? God knows. I suspect maybe comment material has lots of underscore_usernames/

Likely it's not banned then - just not worth indexing. Chuck some decent content up there and you'll be fine

1. If the SEO company has the ability to easily remove those links then you don't want them anyway.
2. Sadly, you may experience a slight drop, depending on your overall link profile.
3. On a positive note, you likely have a much cleaner link profile now.

I heard Matt Cutts once talk about tag clouds as not necessary and the fact that Google 'gets it' without it. I say if you're linking to something do it contextually for maximum link benefit.

Does that temporary page rank now or not? Have you 301'ed back to index after your site went live again? It could be a matter of waiting for Google to pick up on the change.

I would go for a less cost and more linking domains given that they are all real sites. However it all depends what competition is like and whether you need authority or quantities (or both).

Hey there,

I can still see TrueLocal but not the others.

The reason could be that somebody has created duplicate listings for this address:

1. http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Stella-Settlements
2. http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Superannuation-Investment-Insurance-Advisory-Services
3. http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Aglink-Planning-Systems

What is this Google Places backhat!?!

I've also noticed a spammer has downvoted this particular listing and what seems to be all his competitors: http://maps.google.com.au/maps/user?uid=201850203609104288979&ptab=1

This is terrible.

In your opinion, what are the signals Google uses to judge the quality of an article or post?

Here are some of my ideas:

• Reactions:
  • Comment history
  • Sharing (Twitter / FB / Social Bookmarks...etc)
  • Citations / Mentions / Pingbacks
• Word count
• Content (Topical and qualitative analytsis, uniqueness)
• Domain (Qualitative analysis of domain article is published on)
• Use of images and media
• Use of references
• Timeliness (News, current affairs)
• Presence of date of publishing
• Spam filters:
  • Anchor text usage
  • Number, type and relation of outgoing links
  • Content (Topical, semantic, qualitative analysis including keyword usage)
• Author data:
  • Presence of author name
  • Connection / link to author profile (hyperlink, rel tag, meta)
  • Reputation of author (prior content, domains published and reactions)

Looking forward to your contributions.

There are two factors which may influence which one is picked:

• Links: which version is more linked to (internally and externally)
• Discovery: which version was discovered first

I normally don't fight Google on the version they choose (unless there is a good reason for that) and set the preferred domain in GWT to the one Google already has indexed. I usually just search for domain with no extension or brand to see which version comes up.

If your network is not a secret then ensure that you have full and clear disclosure on the site(s). I remember Matt Cutts once said this as an answer to a similar question on YouTube. Private registrations are common for non-SEO purposes so Google cannot act on it alone. However if you have 1000 domains with private whois that may start looking a bit suspicious.

Externally hosting images will not be a major problem and ALT text will be seen as part of your page content.