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For the benefit of others, I'm going to walk through how I would investigate this situation...

1. Head over to OSE and pull a backlink report to see if the link shows up (it doesn't)
2. Check links on Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools

If the BBB link cannot be identified through those steps, move on to the following:

1. Verify the BBB page is indexed by searching the URL (it is indexed)
2. Verify the redirect is truly a 301 by visiting a header checking tool and entering URL. (yes, it is a 301 redirect)
3. Visit BBB and verify the following: a) the page is not being blocked from bots (it isn't) b) the link is followed (it is) c) the link can be crawled by bots (it can)
4. Visit the BBB robots.txt file to verify the page isn't blocked from bots (it isn't)

At this point, it's tough to determine exactly what is going on. I suppose I would consider building some links into said BBB page to 'assist' the bots in finding the page and capturing the link. Might be a good time to apply the ideas Pavel blogged about regarding SEO value from Q&A sites.

Best of luck!

No problem, Jessica! Glad you found the information helpful.

One last point. Depending on your site design, you may have an opportunity to pass some of your home page's ranking power to your most important landing pages by linking to them from the home page. For example, we have persistent links on our home page to our top 10 games, games that convert new visitors very well, and game genres. While part of this is user experience oriented, a lot of it is also to pass on the home page's ranking power to those pages we want to rank well on the SERPs.

The links on your home page shouldn't be random. Think strategically about what you link to from your home page.

From my perspective, whenever possible you want to make your JavaScript content degrade gracefully. Basically, if a visitor has JavaScript turned off, they still have access to the content they would see if JavaScript was turned on. This also eliminates the need to worry about whether searchbots can or cannot spider such content.

As an example, consider a JavaScript based image carousel. With JavaScript turned on, the user can cycle through the images in a (usually) user friendly way via the carousel controls. With JavaScript turned off, the user can still see the images, but may have to click on them to see them displayed in the browser window - not as slick, but not bad either.

One key aspect to this type of development is writing well organized markup / code / scripts that allows for your JavaScript to be seperated from your HTML.

A great resource for learning about this is DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith.

Thanks for the input, Barry. I like the idea of sharing exclusive content. We have considered that, but haven't ever moved on it.

My experience has taught me a few things about linkbaiting...

The link bait world is a competitive one. Rolling something out that is so-so just won't cut it. Link bait has to be stunning in some way. Maybe I'm telling you something that is obvious, but in my experience, it really isn't to a lot of people. Figure out what is going to make people want to link to your linkbait (design, content, proprietary research, humor, etc.) and do everything you can to make that aspect of it outstanding.

I think a lot of linkbait campaigns try to do too much and in the end deliver a broad, but mediocre campaign. Rather than try to hit a grand slam (especially when you are new to this), depending on your experience and skill level, I recommend you do several campaigns each of which focuses on one thing and tries to do an outstanding job with that one thing. Yes, there are some marketers that can do more, but they typically have a lot of experience and knowledge gained through trial and error. Over time you'll be able to expand into bigger and more complex linkbait projects.

Share your linkbait with as many parties as you can prior to rolling it out to see if what you think is amazing really is. If you know any skilled designers or UX specialists, get them to take a look at your linkbait and give you feedback on the presentation and usability.

If you have any connections at major blogs / news portals, call in a favor to get your linkbait campaign off the ground.

What kind of following do you have on Twitter / Facebook? Do everything you can to build that following leading up to the launch of your linkbait so you can leverage your social network to help get the work out.

Finally, read Justin Briggs' post on How to Build Links with Infographics. It offers a lot of good advice around how to roll out linkbait campaigns - regardless of whether they are infographics or not.

I'm anxious to hear what others have to say...

No, I don't know any sites you can use to get your infographic 'noticed'.

However, in situations such as this, you shouldn't feel confined to this single tactic. Justin Briggs made it a point to call out at least four other options in his post on How to Build Links with Infographics.

I highly recommend you read the post and pay close attention to the 'Getting Links' section toward the end of the post.

Best of luck!

Rather than trying to imagine what a good strategy is in this situation, why not look at someone in a similar situation. Unless I am misunderstanding your site structure, it sounds like you at least have a home page and a blog - much like SEOmoz. Let's take a look at how SEOmoz handles this situation.

All Pages

• Persistent site search allowing users to find any SEOmoz content at any point in time during a visit

Home Page

• Clearly calls out latest posts to SEO Blog and YOUmoz Blog

SEO Blog & YOUmoz Blog Home Pages

• Shows latest posts and lets user view by 5, 10, 15, 25, or 50 posts
• View most popular posts
• View posts by author
• View posts by category
• Pagination at bottom of page lets visitors move easily to older blog posts

Post Pages

• View most popular posts
• View posts by author
• View posts by category
• View related Q&A

The only difference is from the user perspective. Search engines treat both versions the same.

What you want to be careful about is maintaining consistency within your site. This is especially true at larger organizations with multiple publishing points. If everyone isn't made aware (and reminded from time to time) of this branding decision, inconsistencies will begin to pop up.

Furthermore, you should be sure to redirect all versions of pages to the option you choose. This is true for both the home page and all other pages. For example, if you choose http://example123.com...

• http://www.example123.com should be 301 redirected to http://example123.com
• http://www.example123.com/whatever should also be 301 redirected to http://example123.com/example123

Finally, be sure to share your choice with all parties that communicate externally. This includes PR, Social Media, Marketing, etc. for inclusion in their posts, your company boilerplate, emails, etc.

I really wonder about this assumption that Google will ding a blog for duplicate content based on category and tag pages. As Jared pointed out typically those pages only show snippets. I don't know one way or the other, but I'm inclined to think Google is smart enough not to respond with a penalty. TKIG and Dan, I'm not disagreeing with you because I have no data to support one opinion or the other, but I'm very curious what you are basing your opinions on. FYI, this approach is nearly identical to the strategy Compendium uses to generate long tail search landing pages and they claim to have no duplicate content issues.

To expand on what Petra said, have you considered using your .htaccess file to permanently redirect all version of your home page to www.example.com (and other pages as well)? This can be done in conjunction with rel="canonical".

SEOmoz offers a Redirection Best Practices doc that can help you out.

Often brands are seperated from the title message via one of the following characters:   |   -   >

It should be noted that the maximum number of characters that will be displayed on search results pages is capped at 70 (and in some cases resolves to less than that) so pay attention to how much info you are stuffing in those title tags. This doesn't mean you cannot go past 70 characters, but the title tag will be truncated in the search results. This can be unavoidable once in a while, but we always try to stay below 70 characters.

From a marketing / branding perspective, I'm also a big fan of title tags that 'read' properly. The example you provided doesn't really 'read' well. Of course, there is a trade off here. Are you writing your title tags for users or for search engines? Ideally, you want to walk the line between the two. For example, have you considered the following alternatives?

Alternative 1

Use the | to seperate the title tag into two short statements followed by your branding.

Wyoming Guest Ranch & Dude Ranch | Jackson Hole Activities | RANCH NAME

Alternative 2

Rather than attempt to target 'Guest Ranch, Dude Ranch, and Jackson Hole Activities' all on the same page, why not create a second page as follows?

Guest Ranch & Dude Ranch in Wyoming | RANCH NAME (or Wyoming Guest Ranch & Dude Ranch | RANCH NAME)

Jackson Hole Activities | RANCH NAME

One final note, be sure you are targeting the correct keywords here. For example, do you have data that shows which of the following is the best choice (there are probably even more options, but this gets the point across)?

Wyoming Guest Ranch

Wyoming Dude Ranch

Guest Ranch in Wyoming

Dude Ranch in Wyoming

Jackson Hole Dude Ranch

Jackson Hole Guest Ranch

Guest Ranch in Jackson Hole

Dude Ranch in Jackson Hole

There may or may not be a lot of data available for these searches, but I would at least take a moment to check Google Trends and Google Keyword Tool. Furthermore, as you have a Pro account, you can use SEOmoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool.

One thing to keep in mind here is the amount of work required to manage a Twitter channel well. To keep a single channel fresh takes a lot of time. Trying to keep seven channels fresh (the six characters + the channel for the series) is going to be a ton of work. The last thing you want is for your social media channels to reflect poorly on the series. Social media channels that go dormant due to lack of resources never reflect well on a brand.

That being said, would it make more sense to roll all the characters under the nakedinfishbowl account?

If you choose to move forward with Twitter accounts for every character, I think I would opt for [CHARACTER NAME]_Fishbowl or [CHARACTER NAME]Fishbowl (Bonnie_Fishbowl or BonnieFishbowl, for example). Here is my reasoning:

1. NIAF is already owned and somewhat branded. You probably don't want people appending @NIAF to posts about your series.
2. [CHARACTER NAME]_Fishbowl or [CHARACTER NAME]Fishbowl is easy to remember.

Good luck! This is a tricky one...

A very common issue to encounter!

#1: Absolutely not! People click on images.

#2: Too much effort and possibly risky in Google's eyes.

#3: This isn't really a trick. Just update the template that generates the page and move the linked text ahead of the image. Any developer could handle this for you.

Hidden option #4: Have the link enclose both the image and the product name. It may invalidate your markup, but if #3 isn't an option, consider this.

Boy, this is a tough question because it varies from site to site, page to page, and keyword to keyword. We publish new content every day and much of it is exclusive to our site. Beyond that I focus primarily on creating content to capture long-tail traffic.

To begin with, I would ask myself the following questions (which you may have already done)...

1. What keywords are really driving your business? Have you pinpointed which keywords are most likely to lead to conversions? Make sure you are building links for the keywords that lead to revenues...not just visits.
2. Of the keywords pinpointed in #1, what does the competitive landscape look like for each? Be sure to prioritize which keywords/pages you are working on based on a combination of potential return and level of competition.
3. What links do your competitors have? Is there an opportunity to catch up by getting the same links?

Second, there is always an opportunity to combine content generation and link building. Try to identify content other sites need or are lacking. Create that content and then reach out to let the site owner know so they can point visitors to the page.

Finally, to avoid the huge time suck (or to manage it), consider scheduling link building time and content generation time throughout the week to help yourself be focused and efficient. Jot down content ideas and/or potential linking partners whenever they come up. Then on during your scheduled times, work through your list of ideas / sites.

All that being said, there is no 'right' answer. Link building and content creation are both difficult tasks that take time. Which reminds me...have you considered hiring an intern to be your content writer? Just another idea...

I'm pretty sure this doesn't answer your question, but I hope it helps.

The pages that need links are the pages that drive (or should drive) value for your business.

Take a look at the keywords your are building content for. Hopefully you can rank those keywords based on the revenue potential. Next, look at where the best pages for each keyword are currently ranking. Finally, ascertain the overall competitive landscape for those keywords.

What you are looking for is high revenue potential + low rankings + reasonable competitive landscape. Build links into those pages.

Furthermore, is it possible your other pages aren't ranking well because they are not properly optimized for the keywords you want them to rank for? Have you surveyed the content on the page, the URL structure, the title tag, etc.?

Thanks for the reply. Are you able to weigh in on actual tactics you've employed (or heard about) that have been successful internationally? What I'm getting at is...are there link building methods that are specific to the international market that differ from the domestic market? The answer here might be "no" and that would be fine (in fact, I think that might be what you are saying with "Apart from that it's not much different to normal link building.").

Yes, we do have a great setup - thanks for mentioning it! We've been dedicated to the international market for years and we invest heavily in it. Every game we publish on our international sites has been localized by hand by someone who speaks the language as a first language and knows the culture well. Much of this work happens in our office in Cork, Ireland.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Sites put up and take down pages all the time. Broken links are of no consequence to the overall site quality.

This is a different discussion altogether, but broken URL situations actually offer an opportunity for a 404 page that offers users alternate content.

There are two things I would look closely at in such a situation...

Traffic: First, you want to know if these pages are generating any traffic. If they are, you should keep them. If they aren't (which it sounds like they aren't), move on to checking links...

Links: Before you scrap pages generating little inbound traffic, you should check to see if said pages have any inbound links. If they do, you would want to evaluate the quality of those links and determine if that is greater or lessor than the cost of keeping the pages and setting up redirects. If you determine these pages have valuable links, definitely 301 redirect them to a good substitute page.

When I speak of the cost associted with setting up the redirects I'm talking about the time taken to set up the redirects (likely your time or ITs time).

We use Open Site Explorer to help us audit inbound links to pages.

David's response is accurate. However, you can always rewrite the .aspx URL on the server and serve .html (or whatever). The server will see .aspx, but the visitor will see .html.

Working with ASP

I work strictly with PHP on Linux servers so I'm going to point you to a site that offers a tutorial I can't really vouch for. Head here for a tutorial detailing how to set up .asp to .html rewrites.

Working with PHP

On a Linux box, you can insert the following code into your .htaccess file to set up URL rewriting. I know the question wasn't about PHP and Linux. I'm just including this for others who might find it useful.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [L]

If you're interested in further information, here is a resource to help you learn more about working with .htaccess files.