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I agree. In general, I would say that your branded links should always be greater than any single keyword. Sounds like you are doing it right.

I would opt for the opposite strategy. I would prefer  powerful sites using branded keywords, and lower PR using targeted keywords. The Wall Street Journal is more likely going to link to Nike using the term Nike over "running shoes". Looks more natural. However, if you can score both a branded link and a "running shoes" deep link then go for it.

Ditto that.

Domain Alias = Domain Masking.

htaccess is a 301 redirect. You probably want to just use a site 301 redirect, also called site forwarding. But 301 is the correct forward as it is considered permanent.

That is more often than not an organizational preference. However, there is a benefit to having your keywords in the URL. So in your example, if "gifts" is a keyword then there is a benefit.  But if you wrote the first as mysite,com/gifts-widget.html then the point would go back to preference.If you want your site to be heavily associated with a category, like /gifts/ then I would opt for the category.And to add to that, the Google Bot does try to think on it's own now, so it may test your /category/ page for it's own content, which could put a slight advantage on the category. But that is pure skepticism.

So your choice, but I would lean toward creating keyword categories.

It shouldn't negatively effect his site. It will most likely positively effect his site. If the newly acquired domains don't have any links or rankings then the effect will be minimal to none.

As Steve said, use 301 redirects. Don't use domain masking. If the redirected site was built out and had some very strong pages, then you can do individual page redirects from the htaccess file.

My advice is find the higher converting less competitive terms. Individuals that are search for "Denver Highlands Neighborhood Homes for Sale" are further along in their buying decision than "Denver Homes for Sale". The shorter phrases are more often window shopping. The more detailed the phrase, the more likely they will enter the store and make a purchase. Plus, if you do it right, it is much harder to get knocked knock out by a competitor when you are the first to capitalize on a unique search. If you find some gold in "Denver Lofts for Sale" then try dominating that term.

Large rivers are made up from very small streams.

Thanks. That's is a good reason to use the tweet button. Checking out the article now.

I had this issue with my main site. Pest control was our big target phrase. Yet we had optimized an internal page for pest control as well, /pest-control.php They were somewhat competing for the same term. So how do I proceed? Well the search engine made that decision easy.

Our main page was ranking for "pest control" so I let that one carry the load for our pest control efforts. This meant internal links were directed back to the home page for that keyword and external links also took this into consideration.

The solution I used for the internal, /pest-control.php, page was to alter this page to "pest control service". So I didn't loose out on any previous efforts for that page. Just modified it a bit. Hope that helps.

In my opinion, your homepage will almost always be your strongest page, so put your core term there.

So I am curious as to what benefits to each of these plugins would outweigh one or the other.

I began using the Tweetmeme plugin for our main blog because it offered the option to use our own bit.ly pro short code. +1 for branding. Plus I think there is some value in having your site and link on tweetmeme, but  I overheard that Twitter's own Tweet Button for blogs offers better SEO than the Tweetmeme for blogs.

I am out of my area of expertise. Any thoughts?

I find that a lot of quality sites will actually determine what my mobile platform is and then ask if I'd like the mobile version of the website. I prefer this to automatically taking me to a mobile version.

In my opinion, mobile sites are going to become less relevant as users move to better phones and better phones move to better browsers.

You are probably right... Just don't want to get tripped up because I am looking at my feet instead of the road in front of me.

Thanks for the reply.

So it will be a mute point because the weight will be spread across so many factors.

So you think they will re-adjust the link factor to keep it from getting a bump?

Per Matt Cutts video "We will be turning that keyword in domain down."

http://youtu.be/rAWFv43qubI

So what will they be turning up?

Figured it wasn't weather based... just sticking with the theme.

How's that saying go... "The good thing about the internet is that you can always test it, the bad thing is that you are always testing."

Excellent point. The more unique the content the higher the value.

If you are running this on a single site then I would say per your example that you have enough unique variables that it wouldn't be considered duplicate content on your website. Giving each City, State, Weather, on a page should solve your problem. As long as the titles and headers of the pages are not all the same. But the only real way to know would be to test it. Validate it with webmaster tools, it will tell you if your pages are too similar.And if you do pull this off let me know. I am always interested in GEO specific content for our pest control service areas.

The problem I see you running into is creating enough unique content so that it's not duplicate content from other weather sites. Maybe run it against a copyscape.com query. That should let you know if the weather info is unique enough. I would test this on a small scale prior to launching the entire project. Just hand create 10 pages and run it against copyscape.

Now if you are trying to create a content generator for mulitple websites based on this same data set then you may run into duplicate content issues. ...But there may still be some value in this.

I agree. Being able to track links you've aquired and monitor links you may be working on is a big plus to Raven's tool belt.

Thanks. I didn't realize he had said this.

I am pretty sure that certain directories still carry authority. Directories are defined by who they let in and who they keep out. So directories with very little barrier to entrance and no quality control that are easy to submit to and/or free will have very little value. "You get what you pay for."

But don't throw out the article submission all together. Just be more selective in where and what you post.

On a side note... Here is a list that SEOmoz keeps of traditional directories that you could use to supplement your articles: http://www.seomoz.org/directories