Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Agreed, community is something that can not only educate but get you going and inspire to do more and better. It does get a bit lonely if you are hiding under a rock for too long.

I find the linkscape useful not so much in grouping but sorting competitor links by strength and priority leaving the least potent stuff at the bottom and focusing on the most juicy links at the top of the list. Often I'll split it up into two groups and assign different people to work on different link strengths.

OSE index is limited however it may be the case that your other site's links get indexed more thoroughly next time.

If the term is not competitive you can do quite nicely by just mentioning the year specials on the page as part of the sentence and perhaps a sub heading (H2). However if it's a heavy term you might get some extra points if you have a dedicated title tag / url etc for it therefore a page for 2012 product would be beneficial. Google always says "think about what would be best for users." Perhaps that's something you should ask yourself also, would users benefit from separate pages? If a product page already ranks and has links to it it's much easier to get it ranked for new terms (especially if they are a variation) than pushing a new page from scratch. A happy middle would be new pages but interlinked across offers for different years, therefore passing votes across.

Sounds like my next test. Exact match brand domain (no great links, indexed) VS linked up and shared FB page.

Now back to my Tai Mai

Your own domain will naturally rank better for branded search.

It's hard to say without looking at the site however it's likely it's tripped the new quality filter. Try improving content on a single page and see if it makes difference. If yes, then apply to others.

Google is very good at figuring out that www and non www versions are the same site - so content duplication will not be an issue (this happens too often for them not to handle properly). One advantage you do have is consolidation of yoru link juice towards the same canonical version and therefore achieving better results. Set your preference in Google Webmaster Tools to a choice and stick to it - everywhere - even in your email signatures and printed material.

As far as www goes we've purposely dropped it and went with non-www, I personally think www is silly and meaningless however this means we have to from time to time police and correct how webmasters write down and link our URL and ask for www removal if found. Not too hard if you monitor yoru brand via Google Alerts.

I vote for Open Site Explorer as my single most used tool.

I don't think you're gaining much with a complex subdomain play. My recommendation would be to use the usual format: domain.tld/geo/category/degree-name this format will provide clear URLs which are easy to understand by both search engines and users.

Yes it is. Going through this whole thing myself with a few sites.

Exactly

No need to repeat word software so much, Google will know what you are about. Write it down naturally and keep the number of links to around 100 per page. The rest should be handled by site hierarchy.

Google know's it's in the footer (pretty much always) so it will treat it like a footer link. No big deal, just not as potent as a content area link.

Why not just have logo as logo with ALT on it and H1 where it should be - right above the content area?

Another solution would be geo targeting users and pre-setting their location with option to adjust. Use dropdowns or ajax to select cities. I find the top nav a bit strange - not sure if I would use it. Another option would be a prominent search field to give users quick access to their city's deals.

I would get straight to the point and move the license field right on the first landing page. You're creating additional step and giving people a chance to give up. Testing different page versions will be the only way to tell for sure.

Guest blog posts are not a bad idea, though bloggers are going to start being more sensitive to link hungry blog post requests. Do I see a new marketplace being created just like link sales....? Hope not.

It may take some time, but you better start making a move on your content. Think about what else you can bring into your product descriptions that other sites don't have (apart from rewriting descriptions). Providing additional data/value could be the easier way out - especially if you have data floating around or can collect it using your current traffic through surveys etc.

Having a TLD specific to a country/region makes sense not only from SEO but also business point of view. I understand what it means to start again and building links again from scratch however you have a good headstart and a super relevant link from your old juiced up site. Google will figure it out it's the same brand, country specific and will start treating it as a family of websites. Make sure you use all local signals (phone, address, business reg numbers and are present in local directories). When interlinking own sites ensure good disclosure is in place.