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I understand why you would think disavowing links would be time better spent, but any professional would tell you that anytime you add a disavow file to your site, you are essentially raising a red flag and giving Google the in to really inspect your profile. That can be extremely detrimental in most cases. Links have age, just like domains. Fresh, new links will carry more weight than older spam links, especially if they are driving traffic to your site. I would spend my time building new links and not disavowing any links unless I am trying to remove a penalty. As I understand it, you have already been cleared of a Penguin penalty, so I don't think your time is best spent on disavow actions. However, there might be people in the community who disagree with that theory. As far as the EMD goes, there are over 200 ranking factors. Although it might be easy to point to their domain and say that is why they out rank you, you can't really do that. As far as evening the field, you will want to get ahead of them, not just get on their level. I wouldn't go through the redirect process unless it was my last option or hope. Just because the other domain has been registered for the same amount of time, doesn't give it the same value of the domain you are using. There has been no traffic to that domain, nor has it been crawled in that time, unless you have two operating sites. The domain that has been registered and in use is the more valuable domain. Is it worth building up your domain authority from scratch? The URL structure is not doubt important, but the focus should be on what follows the .com. Some other factors you should consider before you decide to 301 or disavow is general site structure and user generated content. Do you have a responsive design? How about any uniquely valuable content like customer reviews or comments? These are the easiest things to work on in order to build your domain authority and your trust signals. By no means do I want to discredit your theory, however, I would encourage you to seek further research to really understand the cons of all of the disavow files and starting with a new domain.

Could this be a part of an A/B test to see the impact of Rich Snippets on the SERP ?

Hi Aaron, Glad you sorted out a fix for now - I couldn't find a bot name either (and people who are simply thieving aren't likely to obey robots.txt either). Let us know if we can help more. Cheers, Jane

I am trying to put together a set of rules to help decide which links directory is harmful & warrants a removal. directory has xxx & gambling listing Directory is no longer in google database (site:domain.com shows no results). I take this as google penalty. Directory's home page & page where my link exists has low Mozrank, PR My link is site wide on the directory Suggestion & recommendations welcome.