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Straight from the horses mouth:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

Presenting,The Beginner's Guide to SEO!

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

I think URL rewriting is the answer.

You don't want the exact example tgr0ss gave, but you should be able to use it to produce URLs that point to, yet hide the /component/ directory.

"SEO is dead" is the internet version of the boy who cried wolf.

What it takes to create a well optimized website is constantly changing and expanding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing IMO.

Additionally, make sure your posts have rel=canonical.

I see there seems to be quite a large discrepancy in the number of links / linking domains between the two. Are you sure both are getting the same amount of links built? Have you manually checked?

Pretty much my attitude, have marked them as fixed in GWT, will see if they return.

Using the majestic fresh index I assume?

It's really tough to guess what the issue may be without investigating the specific domains.

One of the examples scenarios Google gives is:

Your pages have broadly similar content within a single language, but the content has small regional variations. For example, you might have English-language content targeted at readers in the US, GB, and Ireland.

Tough call, you might have to do some research to see if this solution will help in your particular scenario.

Here are a couple of recent posts:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-build-and-operate-a-content-marketing-machine

http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/creating-an-editorial-calendar-for-content-marketing/

There was another really good one recently I'll try and find to share.

If you can 301 to similar content, that is the best option, for users and search engines.

You can use 301 php redirects, for example:

// Permanent redirection header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: http://www.newurl.com/"); exit(); ?>

Which tool are you using?

If it's OSE, keep in mind it's only updated approx once a month, it was last updated on July 6. So, you won't see any changes between then and the next update.

Do you mean the Remove URLs feature in Google Webmaster Tools?

I believe that is intended for removing your own content, as per https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819

If you wish to remove your content using the URL removal request tool in our Google Webmaster Tools, you must first meet the criteria listed below.

To remove a page or image, you must do one of the following:

• Make sure the content is no longer live on the web. Requests for the page must return an HTTP 404 (not found) or 410 status code.
• Block the content using a robots.txt file.
• Block the content using a meta noindex tag.

I've had similar issues where sites smash it in Google but Bing doesn't give them many rankings at all.

Don't stress, the amount of traffic those sites refer compared to Google is a joke.

Maybe having Bing / Yahoo rankings look good on your reports, but it looks better when you are actually improving their search traffic via Google.

And how much do these 'opportunities' cost? lol.

Short answer: High PR links can help you rank, but if you get busted buying links, well, that does the opposite.

Looks like a custom Google search on a domain, probably running adsense.

These are just search results and are not going to help your rankings.

Are the sites identical but just hosted on different domains to target different regions?

Is there any variation in the English used on each site, for example, do you have Australian English spelling on the .com.au and US (or other) English on the .com?

If yes, you might want to have a look into the rel="alternative" hreflang="x" meta tags.

Checkout: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077

Especially the Example configuration: rel="alternate" hreflang="x" in action section

Just for clarification, when you say you've put in a removal form, which form do you mean?

I'd keep the old site live and build links to it.

This means you have an actual live and complete website that other sites are more likely to link to, as apposed to a coming soon page. It gives you the option to build deep links to pages on the site. You can 301 redirect if URLs change on the new site.

It also means you can start link building now, not have to wait 3 months for the new site to go live. As you know there is always a delay between the start of a link building campaign, and the results.

Hope this is more helpful.