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Like many web dev companies, we put an anchor text credit (varying the anchor text) in the footer of clients' sites. As it's a footer link, it's site wide. This strategy's been troubling me for a while and I've been anticipating a drop in our rankings ... especially in light of Penguin. But it hasn't happened. Any other developers our there taken a hit by having site wide links? anyone have any views on this? Anyone want to comment on the spurious and unlikely scenario that Google may recognise that web dev companies have always used site wide credits and may therefore be overlooking / not penalising them?

What are the latest link building strategies that people are using? Is everyone sticking to the tradional link request and if so- how? or are people focusing on guest blogging?

I'm about to start experimenting with bookmarking software. My first step is trying Ping.com (because it's free), but I am also keen to try Onlywire.com (which comes at a cost- darn). My questions are: when I create an article for a client and post to all these social sites will this make a difference? Or will it only make a difference if people share the article? Has anyone been experimenting with  social bookmarking software that can tell me what results they have had and how they got there? Thanks a mil!

I received a mail yesterday from a Joseph Middleswart from Google welcoming me to the beta trial for real time analytics. But my enjoyment at finally being able to see what's happening with real time data on my site was tempered by the 100+ spam mails I received immediatly after from some of the 200 odd people he'd included in the bulk mailing. Coming less than a week after Google tells us it's withholding keyword data from GA in order to protect the privacy of logged in users, I'm absolutely dumfounded at their incompetence. How can they show such a flagrant disregard for my privacy in introducing a new service while dressing up a restriction on another service as a security / privacy matter? Did anyone else fall victim to this incompetence?