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

This is not a question but something to share. If you click on all of these links and compare the results you will see why _ is not a good thing to have in your URLs.

• http://www.google.com/search?q=blue
• http://www.google.com/search?q=b.l.u.e
• http://www.google.com/search?q=b-l-u-e
• http://www.google.com/search?q=b_l_u_e
• http://www.google.com/search?q=b%20l%20u%20e

If you have any other examples of working separators please comment.

Very good point.

Omg. Thanks. I will certainly implement rel="canonical" should have done that in the first place... any tips in terms of consolidating counters? I don't think either Twitter or Facebook have that (and neither does YouTube). To bad...

Absolutely. You're spending time doing low quality links and you're spending time getting high quality links. One of these two is a valuable investment of your time, the other one isn't. Perhaps it's time to stop link building and work on content a bit?

Here's a dead obvious advantage of YouTube over Vimeo:

• YouTube profile page link is dofollow.
• Vimeo profile page link is nofollow.

Why is this important? Because PageRank flows to those pages internally and from other sources and in Vimeo's example it doesn't pass any love back to the author.

Your risk is not in PR itself but in your link building style. I would avoid buying links from known link sellers, blogrolls that go out to totally irrelevant topics, paid editorials etc. Natural link growth is characterised by both high and low quality links at the same time and in different proportions.

Having only high PR links that look like they were purchased can hurt you if you get manually reviewed by a member of Google search quality team.

What an interesting topic. Has anyone done any testing around effectiveness of PDF vs HTML resources and whether it treats anchor text in the same way?

I guess you would 301 if the offer doesn't exist/apply anymore and canonicalise if the page could have a long-term practical use even after the promotion expires. Right?

Suggested title tag:therapist: You need it if you can't read it.

My advice is not to be scared of document size. Have as much data in there as needed to inform and provide regular call to action throughout. Good semantic structure will help Google understand what you're really about. Don't stuff your TITLE with many things - I am guessing you're about a single product or service. Often people try to put too much in key areas, forgetting that Google will pick up miscellaneous other terms from the page and have it rank for it as well.

Exactly - Don't touch it. Start with new pages and you'll be fine. Even Google admits that 301 may not always pass all the goodness across.

If I think about this a bit, in a natural environment there could be websites that are set to noindex yet they still accumulate links. That won't be a problem. If you suddenly lift noindex and votes start counting for your position your site still start getting ranked, however I don't think it will absolutely shoot up. As far as too many links too quickly goes it's still a low risk, however, I would not waste time building links the way you do now. There are plenty of solid "should have" links anyway in each industry - so to stay safe I would focus on that before the site goes public.

What type of link building did you do?

My vote goes for 1) as it goes in line with Google's request for disclosure and it will contribute to your branding as well.

Best of luck!

50 sites is enough to hurt your rankings if Google should detect a scheme (either by algorithm or manually). Without seeing details it's hard to say how high your risk is but I would refrain from exact match anchor text, heavy interlinking or anything that may be seen as blatant manipulation. If you're compelled to do something then I will share things I have seen and experienced, but cannot endorse or recommend as it's all pretty much greyhat:

I have seen examples of mini sites created on exact match domains and harvesting traffic that way sending it back to the main site. It's an effective exploit of Google's preference for showing brands for branded search, and almost not an SEO tactic as it's dead simple to achieve - however again it is a scheme.

Some webmasters use their microsites to offer links to naive webmasters and ask for links to your site in return. The odds are, you won't get any great link from that.

Another option comes to mind... if they have really good content I would move it to your main site and redirect these 50 domains to your main domain. Again, something Google might find suspicious, even though you did it for legitimate reasons.

Perhaps a safe way to link would be to provide a disclosure type statement on these sites advising that this site has been acquired by [you company name].

My overall judgement is - it's a pandora's box. I'd be scared opening it!

Hi guys, I've done something rather stupid... allowed Google to index two variations of a single viral piece therefore fragmenting the way it's being distributed and diluting its effect.

Here are the URLs:

1. http://analogik.com/acid_trip/ (68 Tweets, 254,000 stumbles)
2. http://analogik.com/acid_trip/acid_trip.html (24 Tweets, 155,000 stumbles)

If I 301, what happens to counters?

What can I do?

PS: I cannot update my post on Youmoz now that it's published but I cannot stress the importance of a single solid location of something you want to act as a linkbait.

Exactly, and what I also try to explain to people is that privacy policy type page is additional signal for Google when they try to understand the type of site you are and how trustworthy it is. Why in the world would you noindex something like that?

Well said. You and Daniel are spot-on.