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I checked Rugs USA.  They are using Canonical Tags to point to a general page for like products.  They are also using the Schema Product tags that Irving suggested.  I do not believe they are taking a hit - they took the time to set it all up.

A criminal Justice Attorney can represent the State OR the accused.  They are simply an attorney trained in criminal law.  Yes - that category is correct although a bit broad.

...check the alt text.  It could be alt text to a common image.

Creating a meta description tag does not ensure that this is what Google will show.  If 'Google' believes there is a more relevant snippet to the query somewhere - anywhere - on your page, it will show that instead.

So - my question is this: Does the description that is being shown exist anywhere on the page, or is it some arbitrary snippet?

I am not huge on directories but here are some you should go for - I am sure there are more:

http://www.thebluebook.com/
http://www.homeadvisor.com/
http://www.nahb.org/
http://www.epa.gov/radon/rrnc/directory.html
http://www.builderdirectory.com/

I am guessing the algorithmic penalty.  Don't change your plans, just jump on them.  Content and good, relevant links.  I would also break up that interlinking if actually working on the other websites isn't something you are being paid to do.  Separate from them, rewrite the content on the website that is your main focus and start working on links (clients, material vendors - anything relevant you can get quickly).

Question - when you took them over did you get all three websites?

paragonbuildinggroup.com/, paragonroofinggroup.com and paragonpaintinggroup.com

There is some pretty bad duplicate content between the building group site and the roofing group site and with the sites interlinking as they do, I would say Google noticed pretty quick.

I know you are limited as to what can be done but I would say explain to your client that each website needs to have content relevant only to what that particular website is offering - no duplicate content.  If the building website wants to touch on roofing then link to the other website - that is fine.  Honestly, I would personally rather see all of this put together on one website with different sections for the different services - then the other domain names could just 301 to the relevant sections of the mother website.  Also - links.  the building group website needs them badly.  As far as what happened - there is no way to be 100% sure but I am guessing an algorithmic penalty - the way the three websites (that I found, there could be more) are set up could certainly look like an attempt to manipulate search results to the algorithms.  Honestly... it probably was an attempt to manipulate search results, an attempt by the last vendor.  Not a penalty for the duplicate content, mind you - but the duplicate content and interlinking etc... were probably signals that all added up to "hey, these websites are not following guide lines"  this was just a quick look though - I could be wrong.

Good job covering Windows as well as Linux.  

I agree with you completely.  When you get more information please post it.  I am curious.

I agree.  You don't even have to put 'reviews' or 'complaints' in your query and they rank.  My guess is that you can pay to have the bad reviews removed... so by working hard to rank page one for the company's name.... BOOM, revenue.

Just curious - it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that it is secure would it?  I have never used Moz tools on a secure website before... so this made me wonder.

We have tested sub-folders vs. sub-domains with international clients in the same region of the same country - each received very similar SEO (on-page, links etc...) and found that neither appeared to work better than the other as far as ranking went.  However I am not clear on what they mean by 'mapped to the TLD'.  Are they saying that each language variant  has its own TLD and that the sub-folder from the main TLD will redirect to it?

Wouldn't it be logical then that if Google is doing it.... you don't have to?

When I run that domain through OSE I am getting much different stats than you have listed.  I am showing 309 total links from 14 root domains.

Agreed.  IMO the domain should be the Brand.  Sub-domains or directories for different locations makes perfect sense and flows well just be careful with duplicate content.  Don't just copy all of your content over and change the city or state.

Figured it out... I was using your name rather than your user.  You've got mail.

Andy - do you except private messages?  Tried to send one but it didn't appear to go through.

Missed that post as well!  I must be getting slow, LOL

Thanks for that - I missed that post.

I first noticed it the day before yesterday.  It looks like how Google has looked on my Nook HD for a while.  I am not saying it only happened two days ago - that is just when I noticed.  I am watching trends closely but I want Week over Week and Month over Month data before I can say if there have been notable drops or increases.  As it stands any changes have been negligible.