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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.

Perhaps its some SEO testing.

"Let's create a new page, use a robot txt file to block the bot, and then spam a 100k new links to page."

"That's crazy enough that it just might work."

well if you get dumped by Twitter then pick up on JCPenny!

It's pretty amazing that this page is ranking at all.

I am with you on that one.

Per James Zolman... "when it's robots txt'd out: http://jcp.is/ppWTXU - G assume title via external link anchor txt imo".

If I want to better target my audience so I would like to be able to address the exact query string coming from the search engine. I'd also like to add relevant sections to the site based in the geo area they live in.

• Can I customize a small portion of the page to fit my visitors search query and geo area per the IP address?
• How much can I change a web page to better fit a user and still be within the search engine's guidelines?

Bots can burn through script... I don't think an extra line is  really a speed bump.

.. but yes... always fun to test things.

the /keyword/ tells the search engine that you have a folder, the other does not. If your Keyword1 has a lot of sub/related keywords then creating a folder would be helpful. Google does search the index files of your folders... without being prompted to.

If you don't have a legit sub category then I would stick with the -.

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.

I think that's a great idea Heather. When can we expect that report?

Glad to hear it.

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'd like a Webinar on site speed and how to best reduce load times.

I got a SEO certificate a couple of years ago.. Very official looking paper and all!.. and then my kids got to it and colored on it. Looks much better!

We transferred from Bulwarkpest.com to Bulwarkpestcontrol.com to get the keyword match. But we were not really risking much as there was very little SEO effort put into bulwarkpest.com. Worked well for us, but you will most likely see a drop while the search engines test your new site to see if the new site is relevant. If you have an off season then you may want to test this then. If the redirect doesn't benefit you then you should be able to regain positions by simply going back to the original domain.

However, you may want to look more into 'brand building" Orkin ranks just fine for pest control without it being in their domain name.

Search engines understand footer links and therefore the total value of a footer link is greatly diminished. Per a Bing rep, if a footer link exists and is relevant then the value is 1 link from that site, not 10,000. So I don't believe you will get as big of a bump as you might believe.

However, I do believe that cross linking your domains is not a bad practice. We host our blog on a separate site and link back and forth. It only seems to help us and not hurt us.

But you do run a risk of looking manipulative and therefore being penalized. I would suggest testing one link in the footer. See if it gives you a bump or gets penalized. If you get a bump, keep it. If you get dinged. Get rid of it.

I have to agree with Ryan. Yes it's cloaking. ... And if you get caught, you could and most likely would be penalized.

I think directories were outdated, but it seems that directories are pushing a lot of local citations these days. I'd vote for this one.

How are you launching it? Do you have a wordpress plugin?

I would really NOT like this information spread about....