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As long as your redirect is working then it doesn't create a problem for the bots. They can read the 301 redirect.

.....Now if you want to confuse the bots a bit then use a 302. And then turn the site on and off at leisure. Kidding...

Go for it. I've seen 301s help. Direct it to the most appropriate page on your site. You may also want to match up some of the old content and redirect those specific pages to the main site as well. But overall, a simple 301 redirect to a relevant site works wonders.

You may also want to take note of rankings and keyword traffic that the site you are redirecting is currently getting. Monitor the success of the main site in keeping those rankings and the traffic on a keyword base. That will tell you how successful the redirect will be in the long run.

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

Are you beating the reseller sites for those products? If you are the established authority and are beating the resellers then you have little reason to change. If you are not beating the resellers then yes you should create unique product descriptions and images for your main site. You would also do well to get some customer reviews on your site and to use the schema.org mark up for the reviews.

Thanks Casey.

I don't see any real SEO value out of doing domain masking. I do see SEM value but I think you'd be better off re-creating some of the content for your vanity domains. That way you can rank both of them. Otherwise, using a rel=canonical will only get the main domain ranked.

I've never moved a large site, but our little pest control site didn't have any negative effects when we moved it. Same thing, we needed a little more growth flexibility. I think the search engines understand that sites need to move or add IPs.

I would start like this...

Match the domain as follows: www.EactMatchKeyword.com

• Page Title: Exact Match Keyword ....<add other=""></add>
• Page Description: Exact Match Keyword ... < and descripstion >
• Blog Title: Exact Match Keyword
• Blog Description: <get your="">Keyword Exact Match</get>
• H1- Exact Match Keyword
• Content begins with Exact Match Keyword... content
• Related Key Words in content

That should do it. Try it and see if it sticks.

Adding a contact us page, a site map, and a Terms of Service page are recommended.

If google says not to block it then don't block it. They may not index the RSS but they can still crawl the RSS.

If your URL string shows up in a search and they +1 the URL with the coding in it will the +1 transfer to the canonical page?

Example: site.com/locations/arizona/?utm_source=go gets a Google +1 from a user. The page itself has a canonical for site.com/locations/arizona/

Does google credit the canonical with the +1 or do they then have dup pages with separate +1 scores?

Awesome... And thus the reason EGOL is the Guru.

Ryan's advice is solid. The only reason I believe that double listings would legitimately appear is because your site has overlapping categories. Like "widgets" and "blue widgets". Your secondary category my pull enough rank to graduate to the first page. In your case, your home page and store front could overlap. Like "Widgets" and "Buy Widgets". If your content is unique enough then you should be fine.

Sorry. Didn't mean anything by that. Lesser quality didn't mean poor quality. YOUmoz has great content. The main blog has even better content. And there are exceptions to every rule.

Search engines mostly treat sub domains as if they were their own domain. From what I understand they pass zero to no value back and forth from sub domain to main domain without linking them. So redirecting a sub domain with zero links will bring you no value.

The only advantage I have heard rumor of is that a sub-domain will carry the age of the main domain... I have no experience or tests that would prove this or disprove it.

I would only add that you may want to try editing the site as a user prior to claiming it or deleting it. Sometimes a users edit get priority.... not sure why. But try editing it as a user instead of as the business owner.

And I can't agree more with delete it if it's s duplicate listing.

Provide equally valuable or more valuable content and you will retain your position. The search engines allow new content to be tested to see if it will cement.

Failure to stay up to date and relevant will give you competitor the advantage. If the railroads would have innovated and stayed relevant then you and I would be flying with Western Pacific

Great points.  Further using SEOmoz, they even have a section for their quality blog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog and their perhaps lesser quality blog: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc

I have found it beneficial to have a separate offsite blog. But that is how we built our sites original. Honestly, I think having an offsite blog allows you a little more flexibility. You can be a little more aggressive and shelter some of the risk. But you do give up some of your direct linking advantage by hosting a separate blog. In the past year we have opted to have an onsite blog and an offsite blog. We are hoping to target different audiences with the two blogs.

If you do opt to move to an offsite blog you could still capitalize on the inbound links you currently have to your blog but consolidating your posts and then providing outbound links to your new blog. I believe google penalizes most for bounce rates back to the search engine and much less for bounces forward.

It sounds like you understand the advantages of both... so I would say that you are the best qualified to make that decision for your business.

I don't see what added social value the general populous will get from google plus. I am sure it will have some really cool bells and whistle's but the effort it takes to move a social party to a new location is HUGE! The added value must be significant, and you have to have reason to leave the first party.

I don't want to be just another nay-sayer... but I just don't think they are going to get mass buy-in. Without the mass numbers the statistical sampling will be flawed. So the social and SEO impact will be skewed. The beef everyone has with SEO is that website owners are making back door deals to get links. The problem with Google +1 is that the crowd that is most concerned about it is the SEO crowd and those that want to spread their influence through the search engine. Funny how they say that they don't want people manipulating the searches and then roll out a program which seems to only ask for manipulation. "Plus 1 this so that you can influence what your friends see in the search."

I understand that Google+ is suppose to be different than Google +1, but what Google is searching for seems to be the same, social signals to better rank websites.

I don't believe local optimization will hurt your national rankings. I do a lot of local search and still rank fairly well for some of my keywords on a national level. I actually believe that additional listings will help your brand name. Which will most likely help your national ranking. And who doesn't want a few more links?

I would advise against over optimizing your current site with local keywords. Don't change what you currently have going. Just add to it. Add your physical address to your contact page and perhaps create an additional local optimized page.

P.S. Google already knows you have a location and they do check your domain registration.