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The backstory: My site has a fantasy sportsbook where users can place "bets" on pretty much anything.  Each game has a unique matchup page, where the odds are displayed and any conversation about the game takes place. Example here.

About 95% of the games are automatically graded, but I have to manually grade the rest.  Therefore, as soon as every game starts I check to see if any users have made a pick on it, and if not I delete it because it reduces my workload.

The problem: About 15% of my search-driven traffic is queries for games that no longer exist, which makes sense because nobody bets on the super obscure games and these games are very easy to rank for.  I am currently redirecting them to my 404 page but I'm worried that all of these hits are hurting my reputation with the big G.

Would it be better to noindex all of these pages at first and take the noindex away as soon as I'm positive that the game will stay?

I use to have a footer like you mentioned, but took it away to reduce the total number of links on the page.  I only left the links that weren't already in the header.

Is my strategy bad?  I guess that question answer's itself if SEOmoz does it.

That's the tricky part.  Like I said, my site provides 5 basic services, each with their own page, so I want those 5 pages to rank well.  My home page doesn't provide a service (except gaining user interest) but I still have to put something in the title.

I wouldn't care if my home page were nowhere to be found in the SEs if the other pages all ranked well, but I also recognize that it will be far easier to get my home page to rank, and I don't want to just throw that away.

Edit: My preference for the inner page ranking ahead of the home page is only a small preference.  I'm okay with the home page ranking first if it happens.

Wow, I had no idea about the link priority subject.  Thanks for the article.   I toned down the keywords a bit, but will have to look at that aspect separately.

You are right, I was being overaggressive.  I was focusing on just about every combination of words that I'd like to rank for rather than the 2-3 most important.  I will revisit my strategy.

Thanks!

Thanks!

4: I'd prefer ranking for "sports monitor" but as I've only recently started thinking about SEO, I unfortunately didn't know that when I built the site.  Is it worth 301ing to "line.com/sports-monitor"?

I only discovered SEOmoz about a week ago and my knowledge in this area has grown 500% in that time, but I'm still a newbie.

I'm looking for whether I have the right general idea or not with my home page in regards to SEO.  The page is located at Line.com.

The top section with the images is 100% for humans.  The next section is where the SEO comes into play.  I have 5 different services [sports monitor, free sports betting, sports betting forum, sports handicapper websites, gambling affiliate program] that I offer on 5 different inner pages.  What I'm trying to do is have my home page rank decently for my desired terms and then pass link juice to the respective pages.  My goal is to eventually have my inner pages rank higher than my home page for my desired search terms.

Do I have the right general idea or am I way off?  Is this too much for the search engines with all of the links and bold text?

Design criticisms are also welcome, and anybody who wants to critique the inner pages would be forever thanked.  Feel free to be as harsh as you want as long as it's constructive.

Thanks!

My site uses php.  FranchiseSolutions.com is not my site.