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Yes, I would do a 301 redirect to the new site and explain the transition. Should include the content you described complete w/FAQ and answer any questions the patient may ask.

In the query, if the brand name is slightly misspelled, you will still be ranked high (most likely 1) in organics.

I don't believe there is a SEO friendly way of doing this. It's possible to redirect using some JavaScript. However, not SEO friendly (as Matt Cutts puts it):

"For a while, we were scanning within JavaScript, and we were looking for links. Google has gotten smarter about JavaScript and can execute some JavaScript. I wouldn't say that we execute all JavaScript, so there are some conditions in which we don't execute JavaScript. Certainly there are some common, well-known JavaScript things like Google Analytics, which you wouldn't even want to execute because you wouldn't want to try to generate phantom visits from Googlebot into your Google Analytics".

Also, instruct Google on the way you want them to handles parameters (in webmaster tools).

Had the same issue and can confirm that it worked for me now.

Once again Egol hit the nail on the head. The only thing to add is giving incentives does help out the generation of user content. Such as: Add a product review/image/video for a chance to win a gift card.

No huge deal. Matt Cutts discussed this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsLWIuNNMU. The short of it is that the same division of PR applies as other links.

One strategy is feeding KW terms into Google Trends and figuring out interest levels. Next, figure out the total amount of sites ranking for that string (via quotes in a Google search). Once you have these two data points you can prioritize the string as you have a good indication of interest/competition.

I don't believe the geo location of the ip address will matter much anymore (we have a high-ranking site with an ip address in Germany). I think the larger issues may be tied in with how fast the server is and the frequency of change of the ip address tied to the site (so if the ip address changes a ton). Even if it is a seo factor today, I would not expect it to be weighed heavily.

Would be interested in hearing different opinions/experience with this though.

Definitely could.  Always have unique page titles/meta descriptions. If they KW is long tail, you could possible get these on the same page. If the title/description is the same, your ctr will suffer as most visitors will not click a second link with the same info.

Google is all about original content and anything you can do to make the content fresh and different will help Google, you and your visitors.

Why don't you call the first one "Introduction  to Building Paper Airplanes" & "Advance Building Paper Airplanes" or something like that?

Yes, it's typical. Users aren't familiar with the new site and conversion will drop a bit. If it's a small deviation, just keep your eye on it. If it is large, could be caused by many factors including: internal links, layout, cta's, ux/ui, copy change & etc. Did you check search console/analytics for any clues?

Neat tool. I granted access with a site that was affected by these updates. Seem to correlate well, but not perfectly.

Great find!

It seems like you are taking the correct steps. I'm guessing those pages were tossed in to the supplementary index (as they were most likely were dupes) and I beleive by tweaking your robots.txt files, over time, these should be removed.

Another thing to do is inform Google on what to do with those parameters inside webmaster tools:

Configuration => URL parameters

I would advise against it. The potential downside would be great whereas the upside is neutral at best. Just create some informational content hooks on the current site and lead to the conversion pages (a subdomain would be better than the doorway page--but still not advisable).

The best way of doing it (I'm sure you already know) is on a subdomain. I believe there is a way to do it via a reverse proxy (although I have never done it). See this article. Good luck!

Looks like your site is getting indexed.  Is the penalty referring to rankings?

If so, some sites pre-penguin experienced high rankings because of their backlinks. If some of those backlinks' "value" were pulled (spammy links) your rankings fell.

Even if some of those spammy links were successfully taken down, doesn't necessary mean you get the organic position you lost after penguin.

This may or may not apply to your case--but generally speaking.

Good question. I may be mistaken on this, but I believe Google will index the page not the anchor on the page (since they are the same). I tried to enter this:

inurl:#

and no results came up. So I would guess that it drops the anchor no matter what and simply indexes the page.

Can anyone clarify this?

So a site that has an informational blog with information/reviews and links to the parent site is worse than one hosted on another domain? Don't wholly agree (and I mention not advisable)...

According to Matt Cutts, a subdomain is roughly an equivalent to a directory.  So I believe it is more of an issue of information architecture and gives an opportunity for informatics to create a workaround on the site that is difficult to update.

Subdomains are also viewed as internal links/not external links.

I don't think heavily. As long as the prospect can find the form easily (via menu item or small graphic), I wouldn't include one as it will take up too much valuable real estate on the home page.

Based on my experiences sentences work better, but need to match the query as close as possible. Also, it is essential to use the target kw as naturally as possible and include a CTA.