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Hi Peter, Don't really understand your question about permalink & url - as far as I know a permalink is just an url which remains permanent. Could you give an example of what you mean? GWT is checking if pages exist - it's not showing you errors if only a part of the page (like the image is missing) - Screaming Frog is much better to help you with this. If Screaming Frog is detecting the issues, it implies that there are links to these images. When you go to the "Response Code" tab - filter on 4xx errors and click on the image url - you can see in the window below under "inlinks" which pages are linking to this image. Dirk

Thank you Travis. You are correct, Cloaking is what I am concerned about. However, there is so much software coming out, that one questions whether an overlay from a 'respected' provider (CrazyEgg and alike) would be ignored by Google for cloaking purposes. The software we wanted to test is Evergage. Has anyone tried out this (type of) software and seen Google response from it? Thanks guys for your opinions.

Thanks Mike, for your interesting views on other issues that come with a short URL. So true! I agree on the domain/DX600 and the domain/NX600. This is a WP site, so it should be fairly easy to go with example: [**www.**domain.com/nikon-DSLR-camera-NX600] Not that my personal opinion matters here, but there is a value for a visitor to see that short URL, rather than the [www.domain.com/cameras/compact/all-in-one/DSLR/20mp/2013/Nikon/NX600], right? As logical as those folders and sub folders may be, it is a blur for a visitor and can very well be confusing for a search bot with all those folders it now has to verify. The question is purely about the bot: would a bot find it better to have the folders or would it not matter to the bot.

Riplash & PVB : Thanks for sharing your observation about local.    2 - 3 months ago, I joined a thread and asked whether anyone thought optimizing for local would decrease national search SERP rankings and no one seemed to think it would.  My main site got mauled by B&W critters in April.  So, if I set up a new site to replace it, I'll set up a micro-site optimized for local and move the good local links there rather than to any replacement non-localized site.  Again, thanks for sharing this useful info.

Hi Peter, Like Pashmina, I'm wondering if what you are seeing relates to the Venice update. Did you catch Mike Ramsey's YouMoz post on this? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update Some changes have definitely happened. Miriam

... There is a table on the web page (scroll down) which you may discover quite beneficial. It outlines the various pitfalls of various styles of neighborhood-precise URLs, you can see here. I'd count on this form of stuff to maintain actual for the newer provincial TLDs

Thanks Nick! Honestly, I have searched how I could address a technical question but up till now have not been able to find how to address a problem. Just a hint.

Sure, Here is a list of some content Moz and Distilled have done on Video. http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/creating-awesome-videos-for-seo/ http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/youtube-seo/ http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/getting-links-and-seo-value-from-your-youtube-videos/ http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-way-to-host-video http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-stuff-done-by-video http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-sitemap-guide-for-vimeo-and-youtube http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80472

I personally would use a subdomain for tracking purposes. A folder may make tracking visits, roi, etc. difficult.

I like to name at least one of the pictures with the exact keyword I'm targeting in the title tag: greatest-home-example-ever.jpg and then the alt attribute would be "greatest home example ever". Then, for other images on the page, use similar, but varied file names and anchor text, such as: great-home-example.jpg, greatest-home-example.jpg, etc. I have no idea if this helps rankings or not, but I also like to optimize the meta data in the image. I figure it might help, so why not! If you're using Windows, you can right click on the image, choose properties, click the details tab. Put the keyword in the title, subject, and comments. I'm sure you can do it on a Mac as well, probably just as easily.