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I really don't think it will make that much of a difference. I think the real tipping point in image optimization, other than content of the webpage, is the title and alt tags.  So your example should be

But if I had to guess... The images relevancy is probably most closely associated with the surrounding text. So I would error on the side of putting it after the H1.

In order:

Secret #1 - Work + Time = Awesome SEO

Secret #2 - Core Group of SEOs to work and share with.

Secret #3 - Keeping secrets secret.  ... Sorry had to add that one.

Actually I should probably add that I don't believe there are many true secrets to SEO. Time and work will get you the best long term results.

If the penalties carry over and it's an algorithmic penalty then simply undoing it would undo the penalty. From what I hear the penalties don't carry through a 301 redirect. If you are worried about penalties then it would be best to make the 301 redirects and not notify google through webmaster tools of the site move.

Logically, if 301 redirects could carry penalties over then we would have a whole new set of nasty tricks happening. Could you imagine being able to simply redirect a few websites to take down a competitor?

If webmaster tools likes the old one then I wouldn't rock the boat. I don't think you are going to have any problems with having 2 site maps. But I've never toyed with this one.

I have never tried to measure this. But following traditional SEO rules, you have to name your images properly if you want them to rank. Therefore, having keywords in the file name could potentially help. It certainly isn't going to hurt. But the benefit for you place rank, if any,is going to be miniscule.

Never measured it because I stick to the same patterns when something works. I name my images uniquely.

Yes.

As I understand it, the .XXX TLDs are pushing for exclusive adult use. Therefore if your site has no adult content then you may be in violation of the terms for that TLD.

As Ryan stated, the search engines have no real prefrence to the TLDs, except for in the fact that the users trust them more. Therefore, your CTRs will be higher, which in turn would effect your rankings. When possible .com is the best for most websites.

The .co's have a benefit of being shorter, but they have a huge downside for being too similiar to the .com and that they are not yet widely recognized. Put a .co on the side of service truck and the majority of people are bound to think that you simply forgot the 'm' for the .com.

At first glance it looks great! But really hard to say without knowing your history further. Overall you have a very balanced traffic set with a 1/3rd split between all your traffic sources. it looks like you are climbing so I would continue to monitor positive or negative effects of link building. Direct traffic at a 3rd of traffic is very impressive and could denote a good following and good branding.

But really this is hard to diagnose without further info. How long does your search traffic stay on the site? What is the bounce rate of your referral sites?

I look at site authority. I look at the number of comments other articles get on the site. I look at distribution of articles (tweets, digg, facebook). But more than anything, "how relative is the site my subject?". A link from a high authority video game site really isn't going to pass much juice to a pest control site.

Guilty!... and it takes one to know one.

You may have little chance of redeeming those sites. 301 redirects seem to wipe the crap clean. So you get the traffic and some of the link juice.

Or...

Pass the website on. Give it to someone else... Change the registration.

..... As an added note, I once heard Matt Cutts say, "Why would you want to buy one of these (burned) sites? Why wouldn't you start over with a new site? Then at least you are at ground zero instead of in a hole."

How long has the rewrite been up?  You can try this page: http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-check/

If it makes sense for sites to link back and forth then I don't see a problem.

I'm a local pest control company. I can create a page for other local businesses I would recommend. They can do the same.

But as with anything, don't go crazy with it. If the links are given solely to get reciprocal links then you are in trouble.

If it doesn't pass copyscape.com then it won't get past the search engines. It's best to hire a content writer, or have the businesses write their own content. Either way, checking copyscape is always a good idea.

Perhaps its superstition, but most site owners that I know prefer to host sites in the region of their TLD. It seems that this could be a trust factor from Google.

I don't believe adding a blog to a website would generally cause a drop in authority. But here are a few scenarios where I feel it could drop your authority.

• It could be negative if the content added to that blog section is duplicate content.
• It could be negative if the content is too thin in that blog section.
• It could be negative if the bounce back rate is too high in the blog section.
• It could be negative if the blog is overly syndicated to other low quality blogs.

So unless you fall into one of those, then I don't think your drop in authority is likely related to you adding a blog. Now if you lost rank, then perhaps google is trying to determine between pages that are too similar which one should rank.

To your 2nd question, internal links to your homepage will most likely not hurt you especially if they are part of the navigation structure. It is natural for a page to link back to the home page in the navigation. But links to your home page within the blog content that are keyword stuffed could hurt you, these links are not natural.

Have you lost a significant amount of traffic? What exactly do you consider a loss of authority?

Matt says that Google can read some javascript...

Danny Sullivan speculates that they will be able to see those links:

http://searchengineland.com/google-can-now-execute-ajax-javascript-for-indexing-99518

But in my opinion, if you want your links to be seen without a doubt, don't put them in java.

Wow... so many options. It is really hard to give a good answer without knowing what the domains are and the differences in the domain names themselves, but here are a few thoughts.

If the domains provide some distinct differences, whether that be target audience (grandmaroadbikes.com) or branding (ZippzRoadBikes.com) then I would start with the cross domain canonical tags. There are many sites that stand on their own while using cross-domain canonicals and maintaining their own brand.

How similar are the domain names? If the domains are too similar, and unique branding can not really be achieved, then I would consider the consolidation. My gut reaction as an advertiser is to stick with the easiest to say and type. I assume the domain being marketed offline wins that prize. I would focus on promoting that domain. Further, many people will loose a bit of trust if they type in www.AdvertisedDomain.com and get www.DomainUnAdvertised.com. Plus you don't want to cause brand confusion.

The re-ordering of content on a page could give the page different emphasis. You would have to take a look at the page as a Google bot, to determine if the responsive theme displays the content differently. This could even go as far as throwing up links that should be navigational as content. What does or doesn't fall between a

and

makes a difference.

For the most part, I wouldn't expect a properly designed responsive site to change your SEO.

I ran my site with an incomplete site map for years and didn't seem to have a negative effect. I feel that any site map is better than no sitemap. Sitemaps are such a small part of the SEO equation. What they are most useful for is telling Google what to crawl. Beyond that, I don't believe they have much relevance in passing authority.

In my opinion, linking from sister sites can be done if the links are useful. Seomoz.org links to Mozcast.com. I link from my offsite blog to my main site. I believe that when the link is relevant then you can link it over. If the links are footer or done by a program that links all "key-word" mentions to the other site then it looks bad. The best place for links is in the content and where it is relevant. Diversify the anchor text. Make it more natural. Your hosting on these sites could also be affecting your linking. Are all the links from the same IP address? Are all of links coming form within your 3 sites?

There are many other reasons your rank could be dropping. Duplicate content, thin content, bad links.. For most product websites it seems that the product description is either too thin, or duplicate from all the other product descriptions for that item online. How unique is your product content?

When ever I approach a poor performing website, I try to evaluate all the onsite elements first. After I've fixed all of the onsite elements then I will look at linking problems.