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I would add, at best case scenario its a PR7 page divided by 600+ links, so the actual page authority passed would be very small.  Then consider your link would be at the bottom of that list so you would getting even less, if any.

I agree with Tim, Moz's PA/DA is based purely on links  and does not consider spam pages, google's PR (that is shows to the public) is very unreliable.

Google may have missed those links , or maybe have simply devalued them, we just don't know.  But what we do know its the type of practice that google is tying to stop, so someday they might do a big penguin update an start penalizing sites with back links like that.  My own rule would be if is easy for humans to spot then it either easy for the algo to spot or some day the algo will spot it.

Yahoo is directory is different as you pay to be considered to get on their list, so its not a direct pay for a link.  But I think because yahoo is a trusted site they get away with it, I don't think a no name directory would get away with the same trick.  Also I would question how good a yahoo directly really is  (some people this its worth the money, others think its not)

On every result on the first 6 pages the domain name is in either the meta title or meta description  ( Bar the very first result which is the homepage).  The landing pages do not have the domain name in them,  So Matt's point that "site:domain.com" is really "site:domain.com domain.com"  makes a lot of sense.

Also a good few of my landing pages are ranking, while 95% of the search pages ( that are on the first 6 pages) are not ranking ( 5% that do rank were once link to from the main site , which has been removed, but google is still stubbornly ranking them over the proper landing pages even though they don't have any back links anymore)

what Matt-Antonino  said in the other thread makes more sense, as I said above, the domain is in the meta description of the search pages ( and not in the landing pages).  once I put a keyword into the site: search then my landing pages are ranking first

Ok that makes sense, the  internal  search results pages have the domain name in the meta description, so that is why its showing them first.  When I do site:example.com keyword  then my landing pages come first, then the search pages ( thank god)

Now I just have to work out why its picking up the search pages in the first place

Does google rank in order of page authority with   "site:www.example.com"  or is it random?

As most of the results of the first 6 pages for our site  are internal search results pages ( eg www.example.com/search/product-results)
The fact that search results are index at all is frustrating, they are not linked to internally or externally.  The open site explorer does not have any back links for any of the search pages, and I checked the submitted site map and no search urls are submitted, so I don't know how google are finding the search urls.  Also tested some of the search urls with aherf and no back links.

But since its ranking the search pages ahead of the category(landing) pages with "site:" has me worried that not only are they indexing the urls, but they giving them higher page authority

you don't need to transfer the site, just the domain (which you should own).  Before you move  go though you old site noting all the pages (urls) you want to redirect (and where you want to redirect to on the new site).  Then setup your .htaccess file.  They only thing you need hosted on the old domains it the htaccess file (assuming that the new cheap host is an Apache server)

can't you just move the old domains to some super cheap hosting and set-up a .htaccess file with all the redirecting?

Remember its the old domains that are doing the redirecting, not the new one  (just make sure you do it right, there are loads of good guides online, I think MOZ has one from when they moved domain)

I tried a reverse lookup on that IP, but no luck

http://mxtoolbox.com/ReverseLookup.aspx

I also tried pinging the IP, no response

Maybe its a mistake, or what ever it was it gone now

You don't have to submit urls to the main search engines anymore (in the US and Europe anyway). All you need is to get google to craw it either by a backlink or submitting at sitemap in webmaster tools. To answer your question, it does not matter if it google.com, .co.uk or even .ie

If you google search "site:abc.co.uk"  you can see all the pages that have been indexed by google

If your site it not ranking in co.uk its because you have not given the right signals to google to rank it in UK.  Have you setup webmaster tools and get the target county to UK? (note this might drop rankings in .com(usa))

I found this article on huffingtonpost.co.uk

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/top-5-most-influential-ma_b_3682369.html

In the 2nd paragraph it has the words "mannequin retail displays", linked to a site that sells mannequins.  The link has nothing to do with the story and it seem ( to me a least) its been paid for.

Looking at other old posts by the same author its does not seem to be a one off:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/celebrity-honeymoons_b_3962560.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/cruise-holidays_b_3898661.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/five-of-the-worlds-most-important-rivers_b_3761599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/the-top-4-manliest-jobs-in-the-world_b_3694431.html

I'm just surprised that a site as big as the huffington post selling back links in this way

Interesting article and I understand your frustration, but my understanding is that DA and PA are just a guide line, mimicking google's algo on a much smaller scale and will therefore will miss a lot of the smaller back links.

Also you should not compare DA from month to past months as its value is constantly recalculated, and should on be really used to compare to other website from the same time frame.

But its a good point if a dodgy "SEO Service" used DA as proof of progress to clients they could manipulate the DA to look more impressive.

I was thinking along the same lines as you guys, just wanted to see what the general conciseness was.

Thanks for your replies

I found this post from Rand from 2008

http://moz.com/blog/headsmacking-tip-1-link-requests-in-order-confirmation-emails

5 years later I'm wondering in a "no-follow" for all unnatural links in the google world we currently live in, is it still a good idea?

Also does is really work? or does it annoy the customer?  would it be better to use that space to up sell to your customer?

As you said this has come up many times and my answer is always the same, NEVER use No-follow on internal links... ever.  No-follow just throws page authority out the window. I haven't seen a good argument for using no-follow on internal links (bar on pages like "create account" that you don't want to index, but I think no-index on the pages themselves is a better option)

So another month passes and it is eventually fixed.  Our account merchant account was suspended for about a month due to an issue with the feed (about 8 months ago),  but that was fixed and the account was unsuspended 7 months ago.  Google support said that this was causing the seller reviews not to show (even though the guide lines say you don't need a merchant account to have seller reviews).

My advice to anyone that finds themselves with the same problem is to contact google asap and keep chasing them until its fixed

Not sure about MaxMind, but yes you do have to be carefull with GeoIP targeted content, A simalr question has come up about it before, hopfully that will help you.

http://moz.com/community/q/showing-different-content-according-to-different-geo-locations-on-same-url

Got a response from google adwords help team  (first contacted them 2 weeks ago):

"I have heard back from the technical team and there seems to be an issue in your merchant center account. I am checking with the team about the next steps and will get back to you as soon as I receive the same."

I'm surprised the issue is with merchant centre because in the guide lines : http://goo.gl/ZaAN7N
"You don't need to have a Google Merchant Center account for your ads to be eligible for seller ratings."

That was over a week ago, so I chased them up:

"I have reached out to my technical team and we are trying to figure out why the seller ratings are not showing.We have established that the settings are perfect from the AdWords front end, and it meets the criteria also."

So guess I have to wait until google fix it

if there are no links from the main site (or root domain) to the development site, then there is no way to find the sub domain.

Even if it was on the main domain in a sub-folder, but had no internal links to it, the Moz bot could not find it

Its not a "redirecting to itself", its just tell the user and bots "this is the master/true url"  and my understanding is there would be not problem doing that ( I seen a good few systems doing that with no problem)