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I think Moz Local is still on a weekly update schedule at this time.

Hi Tamir. Don't forget to check the recommended companies here: http://moz.com/article/recommended  Cheers!

It'll be either verified by postcard or phone call. The post card option takes 1 to 2 weeks, while the phone call is same day. See: https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778  There Google lays out the entire verification process. Cheers!

Hi Rhonda. Google has a nice article on this very subject here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html The main point is that it's a best practice to choose one or the other format for your locations.  From the article:

You can do a quick check on your site to see if the URLs:
http://<your-domain-here>/<some-directory-here>/
(with trailing slash)
http://<your-domain-here>/ <some-directory-here>(no trailing slash)
don’t both return a 200 response code, but that one version redirects to the other.</some-directory-here></your-domain-here></some-directory-here></your-domain-here>

If only one version can be returned (i.e., the other redirects to it), that’s great! This behavior is beneficial because it reduces duplicate content. In the particular case of redirects to trailing slash URLs, our search results will likely show the version of the URL with the 200 response code (most often the trailing slash URL) -- regardless of whether the redirect was a 301 or 302.

A 301 redirect is best as it should be the permanent structure of your site moving forward.  Cheers!

That appears pretty buggy to me. Instead of using whichever plugin or feature of Wordpress that is creating these blog posts per image I'd use an FTP program and upload the images directly to the server into an /image/ folder. That way you'll have more options with your media and they'll be easier to deal with in bulk.

Depending on your situation you could also consider offloading the imagery via a CDN and attempt to speed up your site in that way as well. Cheers!

Agree with EGOL. They're also higher targets for being blocked based on how they're implemented or via adblocking software in general.

Right. Moz Local uses the matching verifired Google + and Facebook listings to verify those locations. So what you have there is what gets applied to the myriad of others. See: https://moz.com/local/how and:

Moz Local takes the time and hassle out of managing your listings across multiple sites and directories. When you submit a listing on Moz Local, it must match an existing Google Places or Facebook listing across all of the following attributes: Business Name, Address, Phone Number, and Website. Because you've already gone through the phone or postcard verification process with Google and/or Facebook, your Moz Local listings will be validated if they exactly match Google or Facebook.

Some of our partners—such as Infogroup and Best of the Web—may call or email to confirm your listing information is accurate, but no postcard or PIN entry is required.

There are several ways to do this, but it sounds like you want the files served from /devs/ to appear as root on www.domainname.com.

1. Rename current root in FTP to /WHATEVER-old/ and copy the contents of the /devs/ folder into the root.
2. Point the domain root to /devs/ instead of it's current root.
3. 301 redirect any old page that won't have a matching url on the new site, preferably to the most relevant page content.
4. Modify the .htaccess file to point to the /devs/ folder.

Like Ray already said, it is dependent on your hosting setup, CMS or website software, and so on, but setting a root folder is fairly standard. Here's one example from Bluehost.com: http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?9844-Change-Root-Folder. Your own host should have specific technical documentation.

Hi Vicky. Having them in a subfolder would be better for search. See: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Rand did a great Whiteboard Friday on this very question which should help you out quite a bit.  Feel free to show it to your boss as well.  Cheers!

It'd be a good idea to contact the customer and ask for their permission first, and if everything is a go it's fine to promote the positive review. It could also make a nice addition to a page where you collect them, if you have something up and running like that. Cheers!

Google's Geo Sitemaps were retired in 2012, in XML format, but there's still KML support in Google Maps: https://developers.google.com/kml/documentation/mapsSupport

Here's a post discussing that as well: http://www.searchoptions.com.au/how-to-submit-kml-files-in-location-sitemap-for-your-local-business/

You'd want to get the redirect to go to the most applicable place as possible so if it's OLDSITE.com/apple it'd be best to send it to NEWSITE.com/category/apple if you have that level of information from old to new.  Otherwise, domain to category would be second best. Third, domain to domain.

Hmm. That's tough, per http://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors you want to be, "hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or single object)" so having these different sections would be a little odd. Maybe you should centralize around "Houston Real Estate" as the H1 and Homes / Commercial as H2s.

I would look at generalized searches such as "tattoo shops (city name)" and see what kinds of sites rank well aside from the actual businesses. Several sites do make the first page for things like this, such as Yelp, Best ## shops in City Name pages, best artists, and so on. Pick some markets that are way more competitive than yours and see what kind of backlink profile they have, level of social interaction, freshness of content, and so on.  That should give you plenty to consider and help you decide whether or not to pursue it.  Cheers!

Hi Shawn. Are the sites that you're considering disavowing spammy? It should be fairly clear by looking at their site directly.

Not having a cached page in Google isn't a solid indicator, for example, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail site (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/) doesn't have their page cached in Google.  You really need to go by the quality of the site sending the link.  Cheers!

H2s are valuable, but in the context of organizing information on a page. Let's stick with the "Wheelchair Accessible Houses for sale in Houston" example. That phrase could be the H1.  A great H2 would be, "Single Level Homes" Another, "Houses with Wheelchair Elevators" "Homes with Power Stair Lifts" and so on. Even though the main theme / keyword is the H1 example, all of those H2s are going to contribute to it and help the user navigate to the types of homes they're most interested in. you could also link to those sections of the page with on-page anchor links (#) to make navigation simpler (or dynamically rendered). So what I'm saying is they don't need to have the exact phrase you're targeting in each one as you used in your example above.

As a crawl issue it should be fine as long as you're using a sitemap well and have a more static link structure one the more localized pages. You could also internally cross promote from time to time so that you have a neighborhood page being talked about on the home page as a great example of X, then you could have a neighborhood page from a different state/city talked about as a related Y on some of the deeper pages, if applicable.  Think of it as similar to how Amazon promotes other products as, "...people also bought" or LinkedIn with, "...people also viewed."  Cheers!

Since those types of links are created automatically and aren't some form of paid linking, I tend to ignore them.  Trying to disavow each and every one would be like whack-a-mole. Hit one, another pops up.

In addition to using rel=canonical for the lowercase version of your URLs you should also consider implementing redirection from uppercase to lowercase.  A regex expert should be able to write the redirect script you'll need to add to your .htaccess file in order to change upper to lowercase. Cheers!

Oh! That makes WAY more sense (as to why he'd be mad). The way you phrased your question earlier made it sound like the store owner was your client and that you had interactions with all of the parties involved.

It sounds like the store manager is asking you to try and do things that could run contrary to what the store owner wants. The best situation for you would be to work directly with the owner, not this manager.  If that's not possible, you might have to just let this client go.