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I usually add the largest portion of content to the home page, around 1200 words, and then make the inner pages around 300-600 words, but it really depends on what the page is about. If I have a page with a good topic I will add more text as long as it is relevant to the keywords.

I agree with what others are saying. While there is no direct SEO benefit, there are lots of indirect benefits. As noted already it shows social proof, helps with branding, can bring you second-hand links, etc. Search and social are definitely melding, but social still needs to be social.

In short, yes. You're much more likely to get penalised by Google (particularly Penguin) as the natural links you'll gain will link with your keywords in the anchor text. You'd have to produce lots of varied content that would naturally attract a wide variety of anchor texts to over come this. Also exact match domains are only good at targeting a handful of keywords. Sites that gain the most from SEO get traffic from a huge variation of keywords.

Francisco raises some excellent points.  In evaluating the risk of the link being bad -- I'd avoid sites that are filled primarily with  "guest posts" or have much (perhaps no more than 10 %) "off topic" posts and also consider how close (or far) the topics are "off topic" on the blog you're considering contributing too.   Many websites feature almost entirely guest blogged stuff but remain consistently close in the topic.   Most that accept lots of guest contributions seem to be no better than the old BMR sites (i.e., lots of off topic stuff).   I expect the day is not very far away when only the strongest sites which consist primarily of guest posts pass along much juice.   My $. 02

I would go ahead and remove them as you come across them. The disavow tool seems like it might have a lot of implications and Google is probably thinking about the best way to go about this before implementing. In my opinion it will cause a spike in spamming when people know they can simply disavow links if they get caught.

Sounds like you know the answer in the question. I quote Google: "When using review markup, the main topic of the page needs to be about a specific product or service. For example, using review markup on a page containing multiple products is not supported." You risk running afoul of their guidelines.

I know this is a little late, but I figured I'd comment on this because I just actually stumbled upon your question in a SERPs for something like 'multiple rich snippets in SERPs'. I just posted in a Google+ community on something that I found where you've got the review markup, a recipe pic and this little mini author pic that all show up together. I had never seen this before... Check it out... https://plus.google.com/u/0/101946888512778592728/posts/9f2Xh8jnCzA

I have it added to every page and I do think it helps with CTR. One concern some have had, however, is that if you ever want to sell your site, then it is branded to you.

Thanks! It turned out that it just needed to be indexed or cached and showed up after about a week.

Logos are usually Trademarked and do require permission to use. Most sites, won't mind you posting their logo (free advertisement) but they will likely check your site / validity. Recently, I had to ask Sony Online Entertainment to use their logo, they said no problem. That said, I have seen hundreds of sites post logos for all sorts off stuff they are no way affiliated to or with. Depending on your market it you may have also noticed this. I say that to say, personally a logo means nothing to me when I evaluate whether or not I want to trust said site. I have nothing to add about the Panda question, but I hope that helps with the first question.

Hey there It depends on a couple of factors, I'd say. Is this a forum where users have made the content, or is it a discussion/post that has covered a similar topic? I get the feeling it's a variation of the latter, and if that's the case, I don't think you need to redirect it at all, namely for a couple of reasons: It's site content, and a variation of a similar topic, which can be seen as "related" to the theme of your other discussion (assuming that's how your site works). If the traffic isn't there in the first place, and hasn't taken off for some time - which includes no inbound links, external discussions and so on - then it's not going to be in the way of your other content. I'd use the 301 if this is a duplicate issue, and you're worried that people won't find the real target of your campaign. When you consider the themes for most sites, a lot of content is going to overlap and be very similar to other pieces. The Moz is a good example of that: so many blog posts with very similar themes; just variations of one another. Hope this helps

I think it is normal to have some strong sites in other niches link to you  and it would help to have such guest posts on quality sites- just make sure the content of the piece is niche related somehow (dont look at just domain authority you want a strong quality site) as long as most your links are from your niche and you don't abuse that practice it should help you.

Right, but the question is more about the ethics of paid placement than the quality of the link, isn't it?  Obviously manipulative = bad because it's more likely to be caught.  Discretely placed links = better because they're harder to detect and seemingly add value.  That all skirts the fundamental ethical issue, though. Would the link exist without payment? Is there an effort to manipulate search rankings with the link? Google would say that if you really cared about the context of the link and wanted the traffic it would send, you'd have no problem nofollowing it.  In that case, paid placement should be fine.  If you're letting it pass authority, it shouldn't be paid.  There's really not any wiggle room in the TOS. It all comes down to a risk / reward calculation.  If your link is legitimately contextually relevant, the content you supply is good, the site it's published on is high quality, and the site being linked to is likewise a quality site, there's minimal risk.

For me, that would be easier, because of my topics, but each one would need to be tailored for the host. If you can tailor your guest post for the site offering space, then it would be good -assuming always that they are not a bad neighborhood. As always, you have to do research and make a decision. Nothing is easy.

Redirect the old URLs to similar themed pages or home page to preserve some of the link equity. Think about a user's experience also if they clicked one of the links from those sources.. better to serve them something if it's in your control to keep them happy

I say flocking to low-quality guest blogging is a bad solution to Penguin update. Penguin was not primarily about banning blog networks. It was about banning over-optimized links and link schemes. So Google will use the same tactics here: too much anchor text, too easy to identify!

Here is a blog post and a presentation I did on building links into product pages. Hopefully there will be enough tips between these two and Rand's Whiteboard Friday post (Devin linked to below) to move you forward: SMX West 2012 Presentation: http://www.seoverflow.com/link-building/seoverflow-er-everett-sizemore-speaks-at-search-marketing-expo-smx/  SEOMoz Blog Post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-deep-links-into-ecommerce-pages

I don't think it'll hurt if you only do one. You'll get one more domain linking to you. Post one and move one. What I would probably do is write some kick ass content on my own blog.

If you message or email the owner and ask for permission, you can avoid stepping into that fuzzy gray area.