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I'd say start with Linda's suggestion of getting the videos transcribed and the added to the page. Also consider adding expanded information about the video content, places to find/learn/read more about whatever was in the video, and maybe image stills from the video (if reasonable).
Yup, you're right. For some reason I was thinking I was hitting a 503 but in reconstructing the error just now it sends me to an Improper Redirect error page. Hopefully now that I've logged out and back in I should be fine. Thanks Keri!
Best way I've found to handle this is setting up your site so that all versions of a page with parameters features a rel="canonical" tag pointing at the version of itself without parameters.
Edit: As necessary, depending on the nature of the parameter and how heavily the parameter affects the contents of the page on your site.
Similar to what BJS1976 and Takeshi stated, the way we handled the bulk of duplicate content issues from a similar circumstance for our ecommerce site was handling the different varieties of the same product through parameters and then canonicalizing the parameters to the version of the URL sans parameter.
For example, due to database reasons /product1.php?color=42 and /product1.php?color=30 are the same product but one is red and one is blue, the pages are exactly the same & have radials/buttons/dropdowns to choose any available color, /product1.php would default to one specific variation we chose (usually the best selling color) and then /product1.php?color=42 and /product1.php?color=30 had a rel=canonical tag added pointing at /product1.php
For any remaining products flagged as duplicates that couldn't be fixed that way, we set those aside to have myself and another copywriter work on creating further content that would set them apart enough as to not be duplicates.
Looks like you have more problems than just that one guy's directories. As for what Google does about this, Nothing. If you paid for links and got hit by an algorithmic penalty then Google has already done what they're going to do... i.e. Devalue you until you fix everything wrong with your site and wait for a refresh to pick up that you've fixed everything.
As for getting the links removed from this specific person's sites, if there really is a legal case there then you can always try it but honestly I'd say that wouldn't be the smartest move. If there's content which falls under the guidelines to request a DMCA takedown then there is that route. Lastly, there is the Disavow Tool but I have not had a need to use it and don't know if that is really the best course of action for you.
Like Irving said, $20 per Link is a complete scam... but offering $30 to remove all of them just opens the doors for all the other link farms out there to attempt extorting people further.
I figured as much, which is fine. I can wait until the day I get the box. It would just be great to walk in and put down that Roger figurine and get my boss all jealous.
I agree with Everett from a standpoint of User Experience. It could potentially be better for users if they appeared on a product page where they could then choose color, size, etc. variables for their product instead of having to click through multiple pages to find the right one or scroll through a huge list of variations.
The reduction in pages should also help consolidate link equity and keep pages from cannibalizing each other in the SERPs.
As for Takeshi's suggestion on Canonicals, I'm a fan of the rel=canonical tag but the potential problem with using them in this instance is twofold. 1) As Takeshi mentioned: "as far as Google is concerned you only have 1 page with the content on it" and 2) Canonicals are suggestions not directives so the search engines may choose not to recognize it if not used properly.
Are you certain this link is causing a problem? If so, considering they aren't being cooperative have you looked into using the Disavow Links tool?
Normally the reports will let you know what page the error was encountered on and/or originated from. If there's an error listed there then odds are either the crawl found a broken link within your site that returned a 404 Not Found or you have something that was blocked returning a 403 Forbidden. Have you run any other crawls of the site (such as with Screaming Frog) or checked Google Search Console to see if there are any crawl errors listed on the site?
Google penalizes duplicate content which is deceptive, spammy, thin content, etc. If it's necessary duplicate content (like T&C legalese) then at worst they probably won't pass any equity to it. Here's an article on a Matt Cutt's video about Duplicate Content from July of last year http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2284635/Does-Duplicate-Content-From-Terms-Conditions-Affect-Google-Rankings
I ran a crawl on screaming frog as well. I don't see a problem with the 301s. They mostly seem to be pointing the non-www page to the www version... assuming you want the WWW version ranking over the non, then everything is fine. As long as everything is pointing to the correct version of the page then you shouldn't have any issues.
Thanks guys! My coder is going to look over all of the best possible ways we could implement this and then we're going to see about doing a little testing on one of our galleries. Thanks again.
Sitewide footer links are bad. I'd go with relevant text links in copy and/or put the important links on the blog's homepage in a sidebar. Categories and tags are a good thing if done correctly. They only help in SEO in the sense that they show a relationship and relevancy between multiple posts. When done well, this can help with user experience, increase visitor time on site, and reduce bounces. Categories and Tags are almost always marked NoIndex because of the duplicate content they create. A couple relevant tags per post is a good thing. One (maybe two) relevant category per post.
You can easily restrict portions with robots.txt depending on how exactly your site is set up. So for instance, something like:
Desktop site: http://www.domain.com/robots.txt
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Disallow: /Mobile site:http://m.domain.com/robots.txt
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Allow: /
Or
User-agent: *
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /mobile/
Allow: /
User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /mobile/
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Disallow: /
Allow: /mobile/
User-agent: bingbot-mobile
Disallow: /
It's usually suggested that Tag archives and Category archives be set to NoIndex which will help in alleviating this issue.
If you haven't received an Unnatural Links warning then I wouldn't start disavowing random links you think might be harming you... as that could just hurt you more. It is possible given all the recent flux from Penguin that this is just some more shuffling. It could also be cause by the regular shuffling within the SERPs caused by your competitors making updates and tweaks to their sites that caused them to move up.
I'd suggest an small audit of your site... see if any pages could use tweaking, if there are any thin pages then look into adding fresh content, work on gaining some relevant & natural links to your site, etc. etc.
You could technically add them to the sitemap.xml in the hopes that this will get them noticed faster but the sitemap is commonly used for the things you want Google to crawl and index. Plus, placing them in the sitemap does not guarantee Google is going to get around to crawling your change or those specific pages. Technically speaking, doing nothing and jut waiting is equally as valid. Google will recrawl your site at some point. Sitemap.xml only helps if Google is crawling you to see it. Fetch As makes Google see your page as it is now which is like forcing part of a crawl. So technically Fetch As will be the more reliable, quicker choice though it will be more labor-intensive. If you don't have the man-hours to do a project like that at the moment, then waiting or using the Sitemap could work for you. Google even suggests using Fetch As for urls you want them to see that you have blocked with meta tags: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en&ref_topic=4598466
If the "Subscribe" box is for RSS notifications, why not just have an RSS icon leading them to the feedburner page where they can subscribe? Personally I think that would be better than having a generic subscribe box just about the flashy newsletter signup. I'd figure a lot of people wouldn't understand what the difference was when first looking at your page and either mistakenly subscribe when they meant to get the Newsletter or overlook the subscribe box completely.
If you have 50 internal links on a page and NoFollow 25 of them, the link equity is still divided by 50 before being passed... but the NoFollow means those 25 get nothing and the followed 25 only get 1/50th. Here's a few older articles & posts on pagerank sculpting and its death.
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2064458/6-Ways-to-Sculpt-Your-Sites-Link-Equity
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
https://profiles.google.com/109412257237874861202/buzz/be2STxf7ZLp