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You do not want to 301 a penalized domain to a new domain. The correct solution is to take and any all steps necessary to remove the penalty. At that point you can proceed as you wish.

If the site is penalized by Google and had it's PR reduced to 0, then a 301 will not pass any PR since your site does not have any to pass. The only thing the 301 can do is let Google know the old penalized domain is related to the new site which is generally not a good thing.

The only case where I would 301 a penalized domain to a non-penalized domain is where the following conditions where true:

1. The new domain complies with Google's standards

2. The old domain is being actively corrected so it will comply with Google's standards soon

3. The purpose of the redirect is primarily to move existing traffic and is not related to backlinks.

I can't offer a direct explanation for your recent ranking drop. I would not suspect a penalty. It is a common practice for articles to be published or PR announcements to occur, then for this content to be picked up and duplicated. I disagree with the idea of changing your latest release to adjust for a penalty that may not exist.

You shared you have been recently performing a lot of SEO work. The changes you made kick up a lot of dust with respect to Google. They index the web in chunks so it may take a bit of time for the dust to settle. If the changes you made were improvements I would expect your ranking to be restored without any further action. I hate to offer a "wait and see" response but often that is the best approach.

Whenever someone asks "why did my rankings drop" I look at their site and the first thing I ask myself is "does this site deserve to be on the first page of Google results for a competitive term?" It's a lion fight. If you want to be the best then all stops need to be pulled out and an intense focus is required on every last component of the site. This is my approach and others may disagree.

I noticed opportunities for improvement on your site. Below are a few I noticed immediately but there are probably others.

• your image names should be changed to include more accurate descriptions that perhaps include keywords. For example one image is named "Homepage42.jpg". It seems most images follow this naming convention.

• some images are missing alt text, such as the one mentioned above. The couple images I did see with alt text show "document management software". I would suggest caution here. Using that phrase in alt text once should be fine but make sure the alt tag describes the image and gently includes keywords otherwise it may appear as stuffing.

• The current page title is "Document Management Software for a Paperless Office | Docstar". Possibly consider shortening it to "Document Management Software | Docstar". This is a judgment call but it would give more weight to your primary keyword phrase and you can include additional details in your meta description.

• The site uses 7 H1 tags. For most sites I would say this is too many. Your site looks very nice and makes it work with the header images rotating. I would suggest changing the tags outside the header to H2 tags out of concern that Google may not like that many H1 tags. A side suggestion would be to slow down the header image rotation. It is so fast that a reader cannot possibly even read the header, not to mention the other text. I realize the rotation can be stopped by selecting the appropriate tab in the menu bar but users may not understand how that works.

• A couple non-SEO suggestions. Add a favicon. Your gold star would work well. Also remove the "Page optimized by WP Minify plugin" footer. These changes will slightly add to the professional appearance of your page in my opinion.

Buying an exact match domain and redirecting it to your site offers no SEO benefit. The only benefit would be if you felt the domain had any natural traffic.

**What I am asking is should I follow suit in a fine balanced mix or stay clear of paid links completely?  **

You should stay clear of paid links completely.

There are a few legitimate directory sites which require a fee to join. Some examples are Yahoo, Business.com, BOTW. There aren't too many others. The overwhelming major of directories violate Google's guidelines. In all likelihood, the links you are seeing to your competitor's site offer no value at all. If a site has too many inorganic links, the site can incur a manual penalty in which case it will disappear from SERPs.

Link building is often a premature focus for site owners. I recommend focusing 100% on the items within your immediate control: a solid website architecture and quality content. Only after you have nailed these two steps would you look at promoting your site and its content. Far too many site owners try to promote sites which are poorly designed and whose content is simply not good enough. For these reasons, their efforts to earn links fail.

Where I always write unique content  on experience for my content category pages the real chance of organic linking is slim.

This should be an indicator your content may not be good enough. What is the keyword your content is targeting? Perform a Google search and examine the top 5+ articles for the keyword involved. Take the good parts of those articles (images, videos, authoritative quotes, examples, etc) and work them in to your content. I am not suggesting you steal any content, but rather look to see what ideas are causing these articles to perform so well.

Either way, avoid anything related to paid links. I would also recommend not submitting your site to any free directories who's clear purpose is to manipulate search engine ranking. If the directory sincerely offers a legitimate value, go for it. Otherwise, avoid it.

No.

Don't pay for directory links. Doing such is considered "black-hat" SEO.

Search engines are multi-billion dollar companies. They are pretty smart. If they are already aware this directory sells links then they will discount the links so they do not have value. If they are not aware, then at whatever time they learn about this particular site, they will take that action and possible further action against your site.

Paid directory links add minimal value to your site. Do any users really actually visit the directory, see the link and say to themselves "that sounds like a good site, let me go check it out!" That happens rarely or never.

Build links as if search engines didn't exist. Build links that users will find and want to use.

Daniel,

I highly advise against any such method of link building. The proper link building technique is to earn links. If the links are given away free to anyone, you did not earn them. Google often views free directory links as manipulative and "inorganic".

You need to closely examine each directory. Is it a quality directory? Can anyone get in or are there authentic standards which cause a percentage of websites to be rejected? Does the directory comply with Google's Guidelines?

I have worked with multiple clients who have been penalized as a direct result of similar links to what you are describing. The result is the clients had to contact each linking site and request the links be removed. This process is very time consuming and expensive. It costs many times more to remove the links then to get them in the first place. Once again, I strongly advise against ever using any directory submission site. Even if you do not earn a penalty, the links simply offer no value.

Some directories offer a clear deal: pay us and we will list you. That deal is a violation of Google's terms. Google offers a site so users can report any violations: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?hl=en

Some directories offer a less-clear deal: pay us to review your site. If we approve your site you are listed, and if we don't approve your site then your money is refunded. Google clearly understands this deal was primarily designed to bypass their policy and views these directories as paid links. Use of these sites can lead to penalties.

There are a few high-quality directories which have legitimate standards and charge a fee for a site review. If you pass, you are listed and if you do not pass, you are not listed. The fee is gone either way as it was for a review of your site, not a listing. Sites such as Yahoo Directory and BOTW are the two most prominent directories of this nature that come to mind. There are many niche directories that offer a similar process.

In short, paying for directory links is a bad idea. If a client has funds and is starting a site then I can see the value of listings in Yahoo and BOTW initially. Niche directories can offer value. Otherwise, the only way I would suggest paying money to be in a directory is if you felt the actual traffic you would receive from the link was worthwhile. If your client sells wines and you were gaining a listing in a wine directory that was actually used by people interested in purchasing wines, then that listing could pay for itself.

Another point would be certain groups such as the BBB may offer a value for being a member. The BBB badge on a site is a trust symbol which has been proven effective to increase conversions.

That method is likely to cause more trouble then it solves.

Many site owners and SEOs seem to be confusing the Penguin mechanism with the message. The message Google is sending is very clear: stop building links and start earning them.

You are proposing to build links to manipulate the Google algorithm into not detecting the other "over-optimized" anchor text links. I have seen this advice and frankly, it is horrible. Most site owners have far too many manipulative links to "balance out" with legitimate links. Therefore you are building manipulative links without using anchor text to bypass the current Penguin detection system. I would bet a lot the next Penguin will not only continue detecting the original manipulative links (even if you change the anchor text) but also the new ones. Even if I am wrong, then the Penguin update after will. I expect Penguin to be just like Panda. It will keep improving over time.

Remove the bad links. Stop "building" links and start earning them. Site owners who follow the advice to change anchor text or bury the "over optimized" links are going to be hurting really bad, really soon.

The amount of link juice you will receive is the same in any of those examples. Your question is similar to "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead".

A link's value is determined primarily by the linking page's DA/PA/ or PR (however you measure link value) and the number of links on the page.

There are other factors such as a link in the content area of a page offer more value then links in footer areas for example. Based on your question it seems the link will appear in the content area of your page.

We know Google associates anchor text to a link's value, but I am not aware of that text influencing the amount of value that is passed.

There are few definites in SEO but, in my experience, there is absolutely no question on this topic. Google is exceptionally clear and I agree with their reasonings. It comes down to the basic definition of a link.

A link is supposed to be an independent vote for the target web page / site. When the link text is forced, it is a clear violation of Google's Guidelines and a manipulative link.

I personally don't see the problem with producing a great widget and putting a link on the bottom saying, "Provided by example.com", but then again it's sort of a self made link.  On the other hand it's not completely self made because a webmaster has to like the widget enough to embed it.

The webmaster may have liked the widget enough to embed it, but they did not choose to place the link or the text. Consider the following example:

You would like to have a widget on your travel site which allows a visitor to enter in a location and then you provide the currency exchange rate, weather, time, news, etc. for that location. You find the best widget on the internet and place it on your site. The widget has a link at the bottom "provided by badcompany.com". You do not know that company. You are not endorsing that company. You have not necessarily made a purchase from that company nor are aware of their products or services. All you know is you like the widget, period.

Even if there was a text box option for the widget to place a link back to the company page, it would STILL be a definite violation of Google's Guidelines. The text must be naturally provided by the linking site.

When we talk about search engine's internal policies, it is important to understand two important points:

1. Search engines do not disclose their algorithms used to compute rankings. We are making guesses. Those guesses are educated based on experience and shared knowledge, but these are not absolute truths.

2. Each search engine can operate differently with respect to any specific criteria.

With the above in mind, I am not aware of any direct means by which traffic alone affects search ranking. A page's traffic can indirectly affect the ranking in many ways:

• a user may visit your site once via PPC, then perform a search to find your site in the future and select your site from SERPs. This information can influence ranking.

• a user may visit your site then mention it in social bookmarking, email or other means which can influence rankings

• a landing page is often highly optimized to receive traffic for a given keyword or phrase. It makes sense it would perform well in SERPs for the given keyword. In a perfect world, you can offer an optimized landing page for each keyword. If you offered a site selling Ford Mustangs and you chose to run a PPC campaign targeting "Camaro" and "Camaros", the landing page would likely be a page comparing Camaros vs Mustangs. If the page offered good content, it would likely perform well in SERPs.

Does the traffic from PPC actually have any effect on SEO rankings?

Google has clearly stated PPC does not have any direct effect on rankings. There are numerous potential indirect means by which PPC can have a positive effect on SEO

If we were to create a page that was to act solely as an SEO landing page, would google take note if there was no traffic?

If by "take note" you mean would the page get indexed, the answer is yes. The page can even perform very well in SERPs for a long tail phrase.

Would simply linking from our main site to the landing page be enough to give it a bit of authority, in which we can build upon?

Yes. Links to a page add to the page's authority. Your phrasing of "link from our main site" causes me to believe the landing page is not on your main site. If your landing page is a micro site, generally the idea is to build traffic for your main site, therefore I would recommend linking from the microsite to the main site, not the other way around.

Also, if the main site and microsite are hosted with the same company, or use a common design, the value of any links between them are minimized.

**Is this EMD issue?? **

No. You do not have a EMD.

Clearly you have an issue with unnatural links. Those links should be located and removed. The process involves three main steps:

1. Compile a comprehensive list of ALL known links to your site. That does not mean simply downloading the links Google shows as that often represents about 50% of the links to your site. It also does not mean using Google + OSE as that still is not enough. I generate a report using Google + Bing + OSE + Majestic + AHREFs. This report consistently finds enough links to remove a manual penalty or relieve a Penguin issue.

2. Visit every linking site and properly identify each link as organic or manipulative. This task sounds much easier then it is. It requires training and experience. A large percentage of SEOs are simply not calibrated to look at a link the same way Google does. In other words, they cannot properly identify a manipulative vs organic link.

If you identify manipulative links as organic, then Google is unlikely to honor your Reconsideration Request. If you identify organic links as manipulative, you are damaging your site.

3. A comprehensive Webmaster Outreach program needs to be implemented to contact every site providing a manipulative link and requesting the removal of the link(s). This involves sending emails to the site's WHOIS email address, the email address found on the site, and using the Contact Form on the site. At times you need to call sites, use regular mail or chase site owners down via social networks. You need to take any and all reasonable actions to remove the link.

For each of the above steps, you need to thoroughly document your actions if you are dealing with a manual penalty. You need to prove the above steps were taken. For example, when you send an email to the WHOIS email address, a copy of that email needs to be saved as a pdf or text file, uploaded to a file server and then a link to that message should be placed in a spreadsheet. This example is simply one of many.

The process takes a massive amount of time by properly trained personnel. I have examined numerous software tools designed to automate the link identification process, and they all fail quite badly in my experience. That is why the forums are full of angry site owners sharing stories of how they submitted 10 Reconsideration Requests and all 10 have been denied.

Will the NoFollow link in this article help my rankings in Google?

A nofollow link will definitely not directly offer any ranking benefit in Google. If such a link offered even the slightest benefit, you would see spam on the internet increase 1000%.

The link could indirectly offer benefits which can translate into a ranking benefit. A few examples:

• readers could follow the link to your site which generates traffic. The reader can use social sharing to talk about your site and the social sharing activity can improve your ranking.

• readers could follow the link to your site and then bookmark, e-mail a site link, or create a link to your site and these activities can directly benefit your site's ranking.

• a reader could visit your site by using the link and then later use a search to locate your site and visit your site via the search result. The metrics from that search result can benefit your site.

In these ways nofollow links help sites with great content where visitors desire to talk about your pages or visit them in the future.

The "revisit-after" tag has absolutely no value in HTML nor SEO. At no point of time did this tag ever have any value. There was a single search engine which was never of any significance which created this tag, but it was never adopted by Google nor anyone else.

If anyone disagrees, then I would suggest they add the following meta tag to their page:

It is no more effective then the "revisit-after" tag but at least it's original!

http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html

Google has clearly and explicitly stated numerous times to disregard PR.

The last time toolbar PR update was in June. The site you are referencing is for sale. The site could have been part of a network of linking sites 3 months ago, and since the domain is no longer used and the site is for sale the links could have been removed or altered.

If you are focusing on PR of unused domains, you are thinking about black hat SEO. If you spent your time and energy trying to improve your content, the user experience and to earn backlinks and social mentions, your site will perform better in the long term. Even if you managed to acquire a site with a high PR and 301 the links to your current site, it is entirely possible Google will have wiped all the site's value before you add the 301. Even if you get away with it at first, in all likelihood it will be a very short-term gain.

Some analysis for this site:

• any site will receive a significant boost for the exact domain name match phrase. This site owner is using a South African ccTLD, org.za for his domain name. He added "lifeinsurance" as the domain name which will earn him a boost in rankings for that term.

• His home page is 100% targeted to the "life insurance" phrase. His page title, H1 tag, H2 tag, and alt text all use the term.

• the content uses the term enough to be very relevant for the phrase.

• the site has 45 internal followed links, 0 external links. The links are highly efficient. While it is true the site does not offer any navigation in the header, it forces users to scroll to the bottom of the page where 100% of the links are located, in the footer. As long as users are ok with this method, there is nothing wrong with it. The footer seems quite spammy to me, and I would expect Panda to hurt this site a lot, but I don't think Panda has reached South Africa yet. If anyone can confirm the Panda status in SA, that would be helpful

• the best backlinks are from other sites which he owns such as www.lifeinsurance.org.za which has the identical look and feel. There are also sites he works with such as www.fastcompany.com where the link appears on the profile page of the "Chairperson" of the company.

• many other links are from blogs which don't add the "nofollow" tag to comments. First, these sites are not related to life insurance, so the linking value is minimized. The first such site I noticed is destructoid.com which is a gaming site. There are tons of others trying the same method so the links are highly diluted with over 500 links on the page. I have to believe that Google has some awareness to this type of issue and catches many of these links and wipes out their value. They could algorithmically investigate the site receiving these types of links and remove other links as well.

So in the end, what does your competitor offer? An exact match domain name with very solid on-page SEO. That is enough to earn good rankings. Combine it with a smaller market (South Africa) and the backlinks from his other sites which have solid PA/DA and he has earned his ranking.

You can collect as many FACTS as possible and share them with Google. Share the information about his network of sites demonstrating they clearly use the identical web template. Demonstrate the spam blog links. Report the site and hope some action is taken.

With the exception of the blog spam and duplicate sites, I would suggest copying some of his other tactics as there is nothing black hat about them.

The reasonable possibilities are as follows:

• the 20k inbound links triggered an algorithmic penalty

• the other inbound links you mentioned triggered a penalty

• there was another change related to your site which caused the ranking drop

• the information you are providing is incomplete or inaccurate

We are all proceeding under the assumption the information you are providing is accurate so the first three possibilities are the only options I can think of. As Sha suggested, you should file a reconsideration request to confirm you have not been manually penalized. If that is not the case, then a review of your site to determine the potential source of any algorithmic penalties would be in order.

From a SEO perspective your site requires numerous changes. My suggestion would be to start with the Beginner's Guide to SEO and apply what you read to your site. The guide is short and easy to read. If you decide you would prefer someone else to do the work, reach out to others in your industry and locate someone who loves their SEO provider, the same way you might want someone to find a good realtor. You don't want someone who designs sites and does SEO on the side, nor do you want someone who does an "ok" job. Whatever standards you use in your business should apply to those who directly support your business.

A few examples of items which should be addressed:

• your logo has a link to your home page URL as http://edenprairieexperts.com/index.php. Each time someone uses that link they are redirected to your actual home page link, http://edenprairieexperts.com/. The logo link should match your actual URL and not require a redirect.

• your footer links also have an issue where they are redirected. For example your anchor text "Eden Prarie Foreclusures" link is to http://edenprairieexperts.com/?page_id=122, but it is redirected to another URL http://edenprairieexperts.com/eden-prairie-foreclosures. Any time a redirect occurs there is a loss of PR within your site. All internal links should be direct links.

• your site lacks trust symbols. I imagine there are realtor organizations you belong to, certifications you have earned, etc. which provide a value to your clients. Advertise them! The only trust symbol you display is "Certified Community Expert". I have no idea what that means. The badge in your footer is not a link but simply an image which says those words. A trust badge should be a link which confirms the badge is authentic, and explains what it means.

• every image on your site should use an ALT tag description to explain to search engines and visually impaired visitors what the image represents.

• there are other issues such as you lack a meta description tag on your home page, and your title is targeting three phrases.

With respect to the question you asked about your site's appearance in search engines, your site is well indexed by Google. Bing/Yahoo both are using the same crawler and they are much more selective about indexing web pages. The only page I see from your site indexed by Bing is your home page. If I search for "Eden Prarie Experts" your home page shows as the 4th result in Bing.com.

If you wish more of your pages indexed with Bing and Yahoo, create a Bing Webmaster Tools account. You can submit up to 10 pages per day, 50 pages per month, to Bing manually. A better method would be to improve the quality of your site and earn authentic links to where they will naturally index your site and rank your pages better.

I wrote a nice detailed reply which was somehow lost so I will summarize simply by saying:

Don't look at PR. Ignore it. If you are examining PR, you are looking at the wrong metric. First,  it is one of over 200 factors which contribute to a web page's ranking. Secondly, the true PR which is used by Google is updated daily. The only PR figure which you can access is Toolbar PR which is only updated once every few months.

There is so much generic misunderstandings in your question it is hard to properly reply. For example, PR is applied to web pages, not web sites. If you are asking about PR in such detail, you would probably gain equal value to ensuring your meta keywords tag is properly optimized for your web page. In case you don't get the joke, meta keywords is given zero weight or consideration by Google. Nevertheless, because once-upon-a-time it was a factor, you still see brand new sites being created which use the meta keywords tag.

Best place to start learning about SEO is the SEOmoz beginner's guide to SEO.

May I ask the reasoning you do not want the term displayed on your site?

Some questions:

• Can it be displayed on another page on your site and then use anchor text?

• Can it be used in your page title? The title would not be visible on your site.

• Can it be used in ALT text?

• Can it not be used by you are the page's author, but then perhaps by users in comments or testimonials?

I understand there are situations where a site owner does not want to refer to their product or service by a specific term which may have a negative view. For example an "Assisted living center" may not wish to be referred to as an "nursing home". The site owner may not like the negative view some seniors have towards the term.

In those cases a site owner can offer a page on "Assisted Living" and use testimonials to help associate the page with the preferred keywords. "I never wanted to live in a nursing home. ABC Communities lives up to it's reputation as an Assisted Living Center by helping me with the things I require assistance with, and otherwise letting me live my life freely". User generated comments can also be used in this regard.

If the sole reference to the term is anchor text from an external site, then as Alan suggests your page may be deemed relevant to the term but it is unlikely you will rank well for it if the term is at all competitive. I checked and the first page of results already has the site hypnoband.com listed a couple times, multiple listings from YouTube, other sites with hypnoband in the name, etc. You wont be realistically able to make the 1st page of results without using the term on your site.