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In general we have found that if a local site has a significantly higher PA or DA  and no Local places account it will rank above the Maps.

We have found doing it in house is more cost effective, and can be very productive.

Gareth,  Let me know if you see the same things we do?

We do a lot of Local seo, and have found that Google is just not showing the citations this year that they did last. We also have researched enough of the citations to see that they are not showing up as links either.  Our thought is Google has stopped indexing many of these pages.

Last year we could count on 8-10 local citations on Places using the normal mix.  Since February of this year, only ONE of those directory listings has shown up as a citation or link.

We now use completely different strategies on citations.  We work on getting on local blogs, as well as other small business sites in the city.  The other clear trend we see, is if you want to have a well ranked site in Places the direct causation (after having a places account of course)  is PA of the sites home page.  We looked at ten local categories and the rankings on Google (Places and first page). Simple,  in the VAST majority of cases the rankings fall right in line with PA ranking.

The days of Local rankings being a significantly different system than organic SEO seem to be gone.

The best way to make a press release effective is to have a media or blogger read it, and call you. I would work on establishing relationships with those people via twitter and blogs, and then sending a link to the press release.  One good link on a radio, TV or high level blog is far more valuable than what you are suggesting.

I think the days of using many, many type web tactics to build links are fading.  we need to think like PR people.

I know, this isn't much help.  To answer your question directly, assuming your release has some merit besides links, I would use the sites the pro's use like www.marketwire.com/

None here.  Can you give us a type of site you are seeing problems with?  We had some odd bouncing last week,  but all is calm this week.

Simple answer, Yes.

We all feel your pain. Looking at the local landscape of SEO firms in our market you see a lot of this. Ryan and Dignan99  have it right I think.  Five or six great links will overcome all the spammy stuff.

Look at great content ideas.  Do a day of out of the box thinking about on site content that will draw a crowd. Use the standard content ideas to start  ( Tips, Forums, Contests, Opinion, events).  You need real sites to notice you and real traffic to overcome the less imaginative but prolific 4000 links to a url crowd.

In my experience it takes components of at least three for this type strategy, meaning not just the content, but the distribution of it, and the  promotion of it. All three areas have to be good.  Where throwing together a bunch of low quality sites is a component of one thinking.  Low quality linking and SEO (Like most things I suppose) are symptoms of taking the easy road, and the course of least resistance.

So,  not only can you write some great content ( or have a professional do it)  that will draw some attention, but you can also promote that content through ad words for a short period, and face book ads, with a very targeted campaign to the bloggers and movers and shakers in the Industry.

It's the old my blender can blend an i pad thought process.  I bet if you really find something interesting and unique to demonstrate on the site, promote it well, and distribute the information in a thoughtful targeted manner, you can and will out rank the dark forces.

I would suggest you give  a little more information about the web site and business.  Some SEO's are very strong in certain verticals, while not as much in the others.

Look for a SEO who has proven and verifiable background in your type business. Also look for one that matched your company's culture, There are a lot of highly competent SEO firms on SEOmoz,  so I am sure you will find several that match your requirements.

We have several clients that we took over from other SEO firms in the last 6 months. We are seeing an odd trend.  Links are disappearing from the reports. Not just the SEOmoz reports, but all the back link reports we use.

Also... sites that pre Panda would show up as a citation or link, have not been showing up. Many are these are not Indexed, and are on large common Y.P or other type sites.

Any one think Google is removing pages from the Index on sites based on Panda.

Yours in all curiosity.

PS ( we are not large enough to produce quantity data on this.)

Link wheels in the past have been very effective.  We see them all the time in the link profiles of small SEO firms (or I should say local SEO firms).  Some have built much of their rankings on them.

I am not going to preach here,  we all have strayed no and then into the less "white hat" areas of SEO ( Except us, if Google is reading this ;))

Marcus makes a valid point.  If you are going to be an SEO you have to decide what type of SEO you are going to be. Link wheels are considered cheap and amateur tactics, that have a short self life.  In our research it appears it's like a drug addiction. Once you start, you can not stop or the rankings start to fall.  So you get stuck in the endless cycle of building cheap links to cheap web sites, and then one day you will wake up and Google and Bing will have completely discounted all your work.

Why not look for and express great ideas.  Great content is the starting point. A calculator, a contest, a tips, a cartoon, any thing that will make the clients site more attractive to be bookmarked.

I feel your pain. We have all been there. But do at least consider the more experienced voices on here.

Mine too!

Very common Tactic.  I would say use your resources building great content on your main site, and you will see a better return.  The question you are asking really comes down to a point of view, and then math.

A bunch of sites, with little or no juice, will help a little.  A bunch of links back from Blogs. Sites, and social media will pay off big time if you can create the interesting content. Interesting is:

"something that concerns, involves, draws the attention of, or arouses the curiosity of a person"

So I would ask this question.  What is it you can do with the current web site that will create Interest.

Above my pay grade I think.

I think Google has an almost impossible task, that being to determine the quality of over a trillion web pages (and of course growing) using technology to do it, which is the only possible tactic they could use.

Looking at their recent moves, I think they are trying to get the user communities to help determine the quality of sites through the 1 + button, and the move to recognize social media signals ( and the Chrome browser changes).

I think that Google would like to reflect a non capitalistic, democratic  ranking system, with safe guards for the new and smaller pages.  Like our government was set up to do. And I think they are moving that direction.

The problems with this goes to the human condition.  There are many who will always try and take advantage of a system (because we are capitalists at heart and that brings out the best and the worst in entities) and that Google is trying to find the balance between a capitalistic approach and a democratic approach. I don't think they can.

Ultimately the rankings are, in general today, controlled by money. Those entities that have money to spend on SEO and Internet Marketing are rewarded based on how wisely they spend that money.  The results are not all that different than the old world Yellow page model. Big money, big advertisement,. first page. Limited budget,and you better find other ways to promote your service/product.

Even with the new changes, the 1+ and all that, lots of smart people will still be looking for ways to take advantage of them, and will undoubtedly find a few ways.

So all we can do, is decide what we are individually, and what tactics we will use to

to represent the side of the fence we choose to stand on.

( Bring in theme music here)

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

Google WMT is a summary of your links, and not all inclusive.  Searching your domain name, Google does not serve up all the results they have indexed.

I would suggest you use multiple back link tools to identify what you have indexed, The tools here are great, and we spot check using Rank Ckecker ( a firefox add on you get at SEObook) ,  back link watch, and Yahoo site explorer.

Hope this helps.

Matt Cutts has referred to "keyword" domain names being an issue they are looking at. ( Missing citation here of exact quotes)

We used city names for a long time, but have moved away from them, as we now have the same results without them. I should note that Bing seems to be highly sensitive to keywords in the domain, and I think the city in the domain is exactly that.

Our research is limited, so take this as my 2 cents only.

Wouldn't life be great if Google Places just had a customer service department?  I think we would all be willing to pay a service fee, just to get someone on the line.

That said.  I agree with Aaron. Before you do, we are seeing problems with residential addresses,  when the places account www is the same as the others.  (Like a franchise main site).  So you may want to look at-

Make sure the address and phone is unique.

Make sure every locations address and phone number is on the URL used in places, and clearly marked.  Home page and contact page are important. You may want to have individual unique pages for each location if you don't.

Add the location city or ID into the name.  Example.  Paul's Shoe Box Aurora

Extreme measures may include developing a individual site for the locations with a unique URL.

Good luck!