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Sorry to disappoint, Travis. Nothing too complicated, looks like it was just a botched www cleanup. A good old:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^legacytravel.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.legacytravel.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Will do the trick.

Escaping characters isn't a big deal with newer version of Apache. No need for all those slashes, unless it's something more complex. From what I've seen, at least.

Alright... just give me a day or two since you don't have me on retainer

I'm determined to master htaccess and regex... feel free to pm me the file

It looks like the rule is attempting to rewrite www.legacytravel.com and legacytravel.com to legacytravel.com/carrollton-travel-agent, but it's not working. This is likely due to the piece on line 3 before the final URL (unless the person was attempting something else I'm not familiar with). Others issues could be the rewrite engine not being turned on, the .htaccess file being in the wrong place, or some other issue, like server settings.

Subdomains are seen as completely different websites. This means you would be diluting your authority. Using duplicate content on these subdomains would also definitely be an issue.

You're best bet would be to have different pages for each location, and make sure each of those page have unique content. This way it's all on the same website, fresh content on each page, and you still accomplish what you were looking to.

You could also go one step further and link each of the location pages to individual G+ pages and take advantage there as well.

I'd listen to EGOL and Kemp. Sounds like they know the rural places better than I, and these rural people don't know how to search good yet

Wait... the town and county have the same name? Then there's no issue.

People don't search by county and rarely put in the state when searching a city geo. Your money term is variations of, "cleaning services in Winona". Even though this phrase and others like it don't have a high search volume, experience and years of data tell me this would be the way to go. Unless you wanted to focus on carpet cleaning, which is a different ball game.

To sedate your client, maybe discuss a local SEO play with G+. Then you can define the exact area you'd like to cover, which would include both no problem.

Yes, your meta description should focus 100% on getting the users to click on your result, because it convinces them it's what they're searching for.

Google doesn't use meta description as a ranking factor, so there's no worry there. Just make sure to stay within the allotted character amount of around 156.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd go with option #2 if you're looking to transfer your rankings from the old site to the new. Once Google reindexes everything, you should have most of your ranks back.

If you're keeping the same content on the new site and the old, then option #1 isn't really an option, unless you canonicalize the old pages, which will have the same effect on ranks as the 301s.

So then it comes down to what's better for users? Do you think they would rather clickthrough the old site and its calls to action, or would they prefer to be automatically redirected to the new property?

I would think that you would want the new website to rank instead of the old, since having the old site continue to rank would just create an extra step for users.

Do you use your brand in your title? Is copying your brand too? If so, he's shooting himself in the foot. If not, there isn't much you can do to address the title specifically, but there are some other things you can do to make your result more desirable to click. .

Don't change your title if you believe it's the best title for your business. If you aren't using your brand in the title, this could help users with confusion. Also, if he's copying your title, make sure to beat him out in the meta description to siphon off more click-throughs. Also look into the kinds of rich snippets you might be able to put in there to make your result stand out while you work on over taking him.

This title won't have negative repercussions for you from an SEO standpoint. I usually just smile when I see something like this happen. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

I also do this. The meta description is supposed to have a nice sentence or so that is relevant to the page and makes people click. If the content on your page can't do that, you have a bigger problem than meta descriptions.

I've never tried it, but I don't think that would avoid the temporary dip.

It's usually a few weeks, but there are factors that can make that longer or shorter.

Yes. Unless you've noticed that a couple of those domains have gained traction. Then you can redirect a couple, but not all 500.

This is not a good approach. Instead of 500 different domains, it sounds like those domains should probably just be pages or paragraphs on a single domain. You're effectively splitting your link juice 500 ways by trying to get ranked for 500 different domains.

It's impossible for you to take the time and effort on each domain, so the entire campaign will suffer. Instead focus on a single domain, and build that up to cover the areas you want to.

Google knows all about people who try to game the system by buying a bunch of domains. Not only is this a bad approach, it can leads to Google being very unhappy with your brand.

This would be like any other site transfer. Do page-level redirects, expect a dip in traffic after you make the switch, and then monitor to see how well you recover and then determine what other action you need to take based on that information.

Here's an in-depth post that can help you out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos

The directory appears to be in good standing with Google. Decent PR, lots of indexed pages, etc. You're safe creating a profile here, and if you're noticing competitors use it who are performing better than you in this space, it seems like it's something that's worth spending some time on.

I use page-level redirects whenever possible. Better for Google and better for users. Besides that, sounds like you have a pretty sound strategy there.

You can try, but it'll probably be more a hassle than it's worth. Even if you're in the right, imagine syncing up all citations with your G+ account, then then Google decides to change your business name on their own, or they unverify you until you change the name. Sure, you might be able to talk a Google rep into reverfiying... until the next guy sees it and does the same thing.

Even if you're in the right. This might be an uphill battle not worth fighting.