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1.  I check if any of my other pages or clients pages are already listed on that directory.  I look for referral traffic.  If the directory isn't free, and has only sent a small handful of referrals, I won't list with them again.

2. If we haven't listed with a directory, I will look at their Domain Rank.  If it's 60+, I'll do a free listing.  If it's 70+, I will consider doing a paid listing.

This looks like just another Local Search solution, like ExpressUpdate, Localeze, or Axiom.  I think it's fine.

The vast majority of the sites they're submitting to use redirected or nofollowed links.  Also, the vast majority of sites they're submitting to are free to go sign up for yourself, and place a link on.  The reason you're paying them is not for the listing or the link, its for them to sanitize your data, and go get the listing for you with that sanitized data.  It's a real time saver.

I could be wrong, but I wouldn't call Local Search products like this a Link Building product.

If it's anything like ExpressUpdate or Localeze, it's not actually happening over night.  It takes about 60 days for your data to get sanitized and pushed.

One of our account managers messaged me today.  Click here to see the conversation:  http://imgur.com/apZ9Z  Does anyone have any tips for dealing with really ignorant clients?

It is likely that your domain authority went down because the size of the index used by OSE shrank significantly.  Last month they indexed about 72 billion URLs, compared to 150 billion the month before.  This month they indexed even less, something like 68 billion URLs.

If some of your backlinks weren't indexed this time, you'll lose domain authority.  There's not a lot you can do about the index shrinking, unless you can provide a few million dollars worth of Hardware for SEOmoz to use.

It looks like a product similar to ExpressUpdate or Localeze or Axiom.

I actually suspect that this site is simply reselling one or more of these products, which is fine.  These products are all meant to be resold.

These products are all good, effective ways to manage your local search data.  They take your data, sanitize it, and make sure it's exactly the same across hundreds of websites, which is exactly what you need for decent local search rankings, and a Google Map icon.

Many of those listings do provide a link, but it's usually nofollowed or redirected somehow, so that it doesn't pass any juice.

They're still valuable listings to have for their citation value alone.  Local Search is critical for any business with a physical location.

I'd recommend using a Local Search product like Localeze, Axiom, ExpressUpdate, or UBL.  It's a lot less time consuming than going out there and manually updating all of your Local listings yourself.

That's going to be a tough one.  Beautiful people are popular on the internet.  It's just a fact.  There's probably quite a bit of anchor text links containing that last name, pointing at pictures of the glamour model.  There's probably also a large volume of searches looking for that glamour model, compared to a fairly small number of searches looking for your CEO.

My advice is to make it a joke, and become part of the joke.  Do your idea of a website with a URL containing the CEOs name, and optimize it for the CEOs name, etc.  On the site, post a pic of the glamour model.  Post some copy that says something like "Apparently, I share my last name with a glamour model.  I don't actually look like that.  If you were looking for the glamour model pictured on the right, and not a CEO with X years of experience in the X industry, click on the picture.  If you want to learn more about X CEO and my insights into the X industry, click here for my blog."

I don't want to seem harsh, but you should brush up on your Local Search knowledge.  It's not quite the same as SEO.  Local Search is almost entirely about having exactly the same NAP(Name, Address, Phone Number) across hundreds of websites.

Google crawls those hundreds of websites.  If your businesses' information is the same across all of them, Local Search data gets more accurate.

Google WANTS you to have uniform information across the web.  They WANT to have a high quality Local Search product(Google Maps).

Yes, it may seem more "natural" to have an invalid, year old, phone number, on some websites, but that doesn't make it a good thing, and Google doesn't want you to have that, either.

ExpressUpdate, Localeze, and Axiom simply take your data, sanitize it, and push it across the web.  In most cases, your business probably already has a listing with a nofollowed link on all of the websites they're pushing data to.  The point of Local Search products isn't to get the link.  The point is uniform data.

I don't know about the product that the OP posted, but it certainly sounds similar, although it looks like these guys will sell you other SEO services, too.

I'm going to make a leap and assume that your business & website isn't about art.  If this assumption is correct, then the answer to your question is that it doesn't matter.  Neither of those are money keywords.  Google thinks those keywords are about art.  See the images from Google Insights.

See also the image of a universal search for "new york painters".  Google Organic Search clearly believes that it's about art.  Google Local Search believes it's about painting companies.  This isn't a keyphrase you should be targeting organically.  You should be doing some Local SEO, though.

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I suggest installing a mod for your browser that will easily identify nofollowed links for you.  These extensions don't necessarily catch redirected links, so you'll need to hover your mouse to see exactly where that link is pointing.  If it doesn't simply say the website it's pointed at, it's probably redirected somehow.

Tools here

It's certainly controversial, but some studies have shown exactly what your agency is claiming.

Buying terms for your own brand is inexpensive.  ~ 10 cents per click or so.  You will see some cannibalization from this, because some users will click the ad instead of the organic link just beneath it.

Just make sure they're also doing negative targeting to avoid job searchers looking for jobs in your brand.  They should really be doing this regardless of whether or not they're buying branded terms.

Ah, I misunderstood.  In that case, the short answer is that "painter in new york" and "painter new york" are not exactly the same.  However, as far as targeting it with your on-page SEO and your anchor text links, it makes little difference.  "painter new york" and "painter in new york" hits the same 3 keywords either way.  One does look much more natural than the other inside copy & anchor text, though.