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Href lang tags are your friend here I've got a site set up as .com (our global catch all) .com/uk .com/us and .com/de Get the tags right and you're golden - having fewer pages wont matter either it'll just be a lot less exposure/SEO in those countries

As I understand it Penguin is no longer penalizing sites for bad links but just devalues them/don't count them. So I imagine getting targeted by such methods by a competitor, or even acquiring questionable links from PBNs can't hurt you anymore, but just return 0 value?

Thanks James. I only wish the client would use a different ecommerce platform, but they are committed to Webjaguar for now.

Exactly what Thomas said.

Hi Umar - This is good advice, and consistent with my thinking. The educational site is ranking very well and we're in the process of giving it a facelift - new design, etc. It is not a .edu - it is essentially a large blog site that discusses a specific area of homeopathy. The content produced for the educational site will not be thin. I also plan on introducing more outbound links to other authoritative sites that are not the commercial site to diversify the link profile. Much appreciated!

I was trying to politely say that you have some old advice that I don't think is worth investing any time on. If you want nitty-gritty details read the moz blogs and seo starter guides for newbies. Read from 2014 onwards (SEO info gets out-dated very quickly and you kind of have to keep up-to-date with it regularly - the longer you do it the more adept you'll become at sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of 'advice' - I have read newly published SEO guides this year offering advice that if followed could potentially get a site blacklisted today but would have worked in 2009! - it's annoying because any Tom, Dick or Harry can say they are and SEO expert - it doesn't mean they are one!) Ignore any 'advice' that says 'this is an easy fix' because there aren't any. Good luck.