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I ran a report and nothing really jumps out at me as spammy or horrific. A principal at their organization tweeted a few weeks ago about his "hatred for penguins". He even tweeted yesterday stating that he is "always the 1%" referring to the recent Panda update that only affected 1%.

While Open Site Explorer didn't produce many negative things I am definitely concerned. I guess the solution is to just simply ask him what is going on. He tweeted it for God's sake....i'm sure he realizes that Twitter is public.

If I move forward with the acquisition:

1. Should I, if there is a way, just acquire the domain and then attempt to unlink existing links?

2. Can I just buy the domain, completely kill the site, and then build again from scratch? Even if I do that, the links to the domain will still be out there.

3. Should I even move forward with the purchase if I know these tactics have been used?

Thanks!

Well put! I link out to a lot of .gov sites because they contain information that my customers find useful. As long as you are keeping your customers' needs in mind when writing content and/or linking, you are on the correct path.

As long as I can blog, and capture the SEO benefit from blogging, I'm happy. As a new blogger I'm sure I won't need much functionality. What did you mean by "better SEO" in your statement above?

Thanks!

I asked our developers to implement a WordPress blog on our site and they feel that the technology stack that is required to support WP will interfere with a number of different .NET production applications on that server. I can't justify another server just because of a blog either. They want me to find a .NET blog solution. The only thing that looks decent out there is dotnetblogengine.net. Has anyone had any experience with this tool or any others like it? Thanks, Alex

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I'd like to clarify a little bit. This is not our core site. Our core site is a branded domain (www.suretegrity.com). There are some individual products that i'm creating microsites for. I am not a fan of hyphenated domains either but these will not get put on the radio, or even get placed in much marketing material. It will be loaded with great content but the big difference here is just that the domain is now product specific. It's a search results only play.

I own a couple domains that are specific to a product and would like to know which one folks on here recommend.

Primary Google Search Term Example: "Tax Bond"

Example Domain 1: www.taxbonds.net

Example Domain 2: www.tax-bond.net

I've done research on here before and have come to the conclusion that hyphenated domains aren't bad (no more than 2 hyphens though). So, do I go for the EXACT search term with the hyphen or do I go for the pluralized search term without the hyphen, even though most people will not add the "s" in the Google search?

Thanks, Alex

All of our pages have been indexed by Google and we are ranking very well thus far. Here is an example of a search where, based on my searches, we rank well. Search for "Indiana ERISA Bond". You can search for any state name followed by "ERISA Bond" and we rank really well (Top of page 1). The pages that should show up for you are here:

1.  https://www.suretegrity.com/surety-bonds/indiana/erisa-bond

2. https://www.suretegrity.com/surety-bonds/indiana/erisa

My issue is with a different product we offer. Search for "Georgia Mortgage Lender Bond".

The pages I would hope to come up, in order of priority, are:

1. https://www.suretegrity.com/surety-bonds/georgia/mortgage-lender

2. https://www.suretegrity.com/surety-bonds/georgia/mortgage-broker-banker-lender

When I do my searches I show up at the bottom of page 2 and the URL that is being found is #2 above and not #1. I have spent a LOT of time thinking about this and am in need of some direction. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks, Alex

Thanks for your input. You are of the same mindset as me. I just want to make sure i'm not nuts for thinking this. Someone in my office said that placing links to external sites would cause me to lose out on link juice and would hurt me in google's eyes.

I created the links so that they always open in a new window. That was my attempt at keeping the user from forgetting where they came from. I'm not fully understanding your comment on conversion points and adapting the content to my site. Are you suggesting I have all content on my page vs. sending them away from the site?

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Thanks for the reply Alan. We'll wait for them to crawl the site again.