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Ryan is right. However I believe PERFECT on-page can still overcome links to some extent. I see it happen everyday, however the root domains I work with have some authority built up which helps to some degree.

Hi Derek, the change of focus from pure/classic SEO to a larger Inbound Marketing vision that you have noticed both by SEOmoz and Distilled is the consequence of the evolution of Search Marketing itself. I suggest you to check out the 2011 Search Engine Ranking Survey by SEOmoz itself, which is showing how just the 42% of the ranking factors are links related (Page Level and Domain Level). Summed the links' factor still have a relative majority. And surely they lost % respect the 2009 version of the survey. Social Signals have taken a great importance and the survey shows how it is common the idea they will be even more important in the future. Just for this reason it is good to talk and dive deeper into the relation existing between SEO and Social Media. And regarding the page metrics, the survey again shows how them are considered to be important now and more in the future. The reason is quite clear: Panda. CTR, Bounce et al are probably to be considered Panda factors... as it is the duplication issue. Because of that it is overly important to talk and dive into what cause those metrics to be good or bad, and it is usually the Content. Are links neglected. I don't think so, and a lot of posts I've read both here and in the Distilled blog confirm my belief. Just that links acquisition is thought differently, "inboundly", that says: as content and expertise redistributed in any possible online channel that can lead traffic, generate social buzz and cause natural linking. Because, and that is the strength of the Inbound Marketing approach, it is now not possible anymore to rely on just one tactic to gain visibility, traffic, conversions and ROI, but a strategy that sees the integration of SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media. Ok... I hope I helped you understand why this "change".

My advice for keyword research is too not just factor on exact match and broad match, you need to factor in other forms of research to supplement your data. You need to remember this data is only a guide from Google Exact match data is in no way an accurate determination of what traffic the specific keyword gets. MY advice it the following - Split up excel into the following: 1. line Exact 1. line Broad 1. line other research 1. line competitive analysis for the term. You need to pull information from various sources, do not rely only on Google. Kind Regards, James Norquay.

If I were you I'd start with a new google account just to be sure that nothing negative is carried across... but that may just be my sceptical view. Being very pre-cautious if I wanted to make sure that nothing negative affected the quality site, I would also probably put the lesser quality sites into a different analytics account. But like Barry says, if they're hosted on the same server dedicated server or in the same IP range than google can make an educated guess that they're linked. In the longer term, why don't you begin bring the other sites up to the same standard of quality as the best one, then you've got nothing to fear.