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I have been using MaxCDN (now part of stackpath) for some time now, Initially we utilised it to help serve images quicker and in parralel with our sites files, then to server https files also. The speed increase has been the main help from an SEO perspective, which has in turn offered a slight ranking boost. Our CDN also server via HTTP2 which also provides another boost of speed. It is not only better for seo but also conversions and user experience, as both mobile and desktop users are no longer hanging waiting for load bloating elements.

For anyone stumbling across this we were able to identify the issue. We had a WordPress installation that had a hidden database full of SPAM and bad links/images etc. The Database could not be located in MySQL which was interesting, so we had the client agree to allow us to delete ALL content and start from scratch. (They had previously been hacked with another vendor but owned their WordPress website). We were migrating the database because they had hundreds of blog posts. We all agreed since they weren't doing any good we would start from scratch. Deleted entire website off of server, reinstalled WordPress and we've seen a 745% improvement in keyword rankings. We have over 20 keywords now ranking on page 1. Woot!

Yes. Disavow needed for each site (http/https).

In my opinion Google will look at domains as we humans do. If it looks spammy to us i'd tend to think Google may have the same opinion (or at least be a ranking signal) however, (a big caveat) the site may well host the best content in the world and have some uber immense backlinks and be an authoritative site in which case it should have no trouble in ranking. A domain name in itself wouldn't stop Google letting it in the index - it's the structure of the site (make sure you're not blocking crawlers in robots.txt etc) and the quality of information hosted on it. So in short answer to your question - NO!

Look at all these tips! Thanks for taking so much time to very clearly outline a plan of attack. Some items have been completed above like local listings and Facebook we updated weekly, but your other points are great. Like you said, time to roll up the sleeves! This is an ultra-competitive market. Thanks so much!

Hi, I would change the Wordpress settings and setup a 301 redirect from non-www to www using htaccess (if you're using Apache, see e.g. http://enarion.net/web/htaccess/redirect-www-and-no-www/ for instructions how to do this). Updating the sitemaps file and resubmitting it to Google Webmasters, and manually fetching the www-version of the website with the Google crawler in the webmaster tools would be my next steps. Google and the other bots will use this signals to update their databases. Best regards, Tobias

Thank you for the responses. Thought that might have been the issue, but with your responses, I will move forward to try to get the links to appear more natural. Again, really appreciate everyone's input!