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I would highly suggest as EGOl points out looking into hiring a reputable firm to help you with this - As, what I have suggested will only get your domain under your control, to then configure it as you wish.

.htaccess is an Apache server side technology, this is what controls the actual 301 redirect (or through Vhost) but the nameservers of the domain must be pointed to a server you can control first.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/reclaim-website-from-bad-web-designer-host.shtml

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/426118/how-can-i-take-control-of-my-domain-that-is-registered-to-me-but-controlled-by-w

This might help clear it up

If you own the domain - you have the rights to do with it as you please. If he owns it then he does.

I would not say he is "required by law" to do a 301 redirect, but you can forcibly take domain and registrar control, to then do with it as you please - by contacting your domain name registrar or current host. (unless developer is your host, then you will need to go straight to the registrar.

Be sure to have the new host/environment setup prior to this though as you will need to tell the registrar where to send domain control rights (name servers) then at that point you will have domain control at a Host/registrar of you choosing.

Yes,

you would most probably give them your IP, except that if they are an agency you would not want them to still have domain control - So just personally, I would get registrar access and get it switched to network solutions or some host like that.

Then, once the registrar transfer is complete, then you have control to point the domain where-ever you want.

http://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic

http://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains

The above are more for SEO checks, but to answer the specific A-record question, the A-record is what you would change/create to point to the new server where Wordpress install will be.

Or, if you are swithing regstrars as well you would just change your name servers to point to the new registrar/host.

Most host technical support will help you with this (domain switch not SEO checks), and some even have "free migration" services

Hope this helps

Thanks!

Yeah it was a pretty big brand issue - Although, I cannot say with full ceartainty this below fixed it (since I do not want to put it back to test and have it possibly re-appear)

I changed the "Contributor" section link to our blog instead of root domain in G+ author account.

A few days later, even after removing publisher on homepage our Google + still showed up on the right side (G+ connect) for our brand terms and the correct author showed up for articles in blog.

But the internal pages (not on blog) with Publisher, stopped showing Author picture without removing publisher tag.

Maybe this will help someone else!

As stated above, Rel Author is not anywhere, or rel Author association signals anywhere on the page, I know they "are testing things" right now (aren't they always) But wondering specifically anyone else was seeing this Rel Author/Rel Publisher transposition

Hi,

This is occurring on a few of my pages on a website I manage.

Our homepage, which only has the correct rel publisher code to our brand Google+ page, just started this weekend showing with Rel Author rich snippet.

Also, a test with Google's rich snippet testing tool shows the correct Brand Page and Logo, not authorship. Only is SERPS does it show incorrectly

Has anyone had this happen, and how did you overcome?

HaHa - did not even check, yeah you are indexed... recent though, no cache on some of the pages has been created yet, so prob within a week?

Homepage was crawled on April 25th

Getting G+'s on fresh QUALITY content is one of the best ways to quick index with Google in my opinion these days.

Just a suggestion, I would NEVER noindex an indexed site just because of content changes.

make a clone, point the domain using vhost, temporarily to a subdirectory make your changes then re-point domain in vhost (or if cpanel just use a pointer) - This way no one is the wiser to the changes INCLUDING Google.

Or just make the changes, the ramificatrions of noindex are much more long lasting than a content change (unless it was left in shambles for weeks)

4 letter words are appropriate at certain times, in certain situations..... Much like directories.....

Does this help?

http://support.volusion.com/article/seo

I would also try their support, it says with purchase, you get lifetime support on product, and SEO as you mention should be a hallmark of any CMS (these days)

"_RankPay uses proven SEO practices to achieve rankings and abides by industry standards, including: credible link building, relevant blog postings, trusted social bookmarking, and select directory submissions in order to build a consistent, customized SEO program for each and every customer. _

Our SEO Team has partnerships with hundreds of publishers, blogs, and directory sites. Nearly all RankPay SEO activities result in permanent exposure, even if the program is no longer in Active status. We work with our partners to identify relevant context for opportunities to further strengthen our customer's SEO programs."

So basically they use white hat, and on page to rank for terms they know they can rank for, they most probably do not take on all clients, only small to medium businesses that can see easy results in an easy market, by white hat.

The issue I see in this, is there is no longterm business growth strategy, only the putting of all eggs in the Google Keyword basket, in the hopes that these terms will make money.

I am with Matt, cannot give a opinion on whether to use it or not, but it really depends on is all you are trying to do is get keywords? Then it might work for you.....

I personally would suggest against youtube and vimeo embedding in your situation ---- read what SEOMOZ associate Phil Nottingham has to say in this thread on a similar topic.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/video-hosting-question-host-on-website-via-wistia-type-solution-or-upload-to-youtube-and-embed

In essence what you are doing, is not really the goal or audience of Youtube in my opinion.

Look into Wisita, not only do you get conversion integration, detailed analytics  that can help you make informed decisions about the videos future, Wistia is actually seen as content, so can be indexed as rich snippets.

With that said, you can also keep it in Youtube and VIMEO, and it will not be duplicate content, just use Wistia on your homepage....

Hope this helps

Starting Point -

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

Webinars are also a good way to get caught up

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars

White Board Friday is a very quick and dirty way to get campaign knowledge and tactics

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/whiteboard-friday

Before you can even think about tools and reporting you need to have a foundation for where you want to be in a year, 2 years ect.. -  these above resources can help you find what you are specifically good at in SEO realm and how to get better in other areas.

If you start with reporting, tools and just focusing on "Better Rankings" you will only be looking at the small picture and setting yourself up for a race you won't win.

"What are your thoughts on this does it really help and do you think Google will find a way to not count them as spammy?"

This really is not "spammy" possibly not the best marketing tactic, but hard to call it spammy, as this person most likely only has a base of friends and family anyway. So it is well within the "community" basis Facebook rules are based in.

But I do agree, that this is not a tactic as what "value" is this business providing by posting this to users - What is the reason they want to get to 200 likes, and how can they tie that to a campaign would be a way I would look at it.

Oh, I heard that too, but they still list it? Thought they might have added it back?

I believe this could be an answer to your question -

https://ifttt.com/wtf

If this, then that automation engine that allows you to set up action based on channel triggers

I would add, to say between a memcache plugin and an .htaccess solution you are comparing apples to oranges....

Total Cache utilizes memory to cache (so even the cache can be slowed by the system) But with Supercache it is a static copy served using .htaccess

So saying one is better than the other in a blanket response is kind of dead wrong --- They both do different things in different ways for different reasons/end solutions.

Also, I had never used Smush, but it increased my load time and dropped my score with both Google and Pingdom, but I could have done something wrong

Hi,

not familiar with a plugin that does just that for images, but http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/ creates a cache copy of the whole page and serves it gzipped.

There are some mods and customizations to be made, you can choose to use it in php or htacess mode.

Since WP is already php memory intensive, I would suggest using the .htaccess setup and making it compress.

But there are many options you can toy with to see if it improves loadtime

Alternatively http://www.picresize.com/ is a nice site that is free and allows you to compress to size/format easily, if this is an option for you.

Hope this helps

Yes, would suggest canonical as the easiest resolution -

And Irving is right PDF's are most definitely indexed, I am not sure how they are interpreted and if they would specifically count a dup content, but not sure this idea would EVER be something i would suggest as it it seems to have lots of negative repercussions.

I would most definitely agree that relative links is probably your issue, and if you canonical and remove inline relative links and make them http absolute this should resolve itself in a month or so.