In normal paginated results it makes sense to have the page number first for pages 2+ as page one has the highest SEO value - you want to show Google that that is the most important page for the topic term. Adding the page number at the start of the title tag for pages 2+ gives an indication to the search engines that they're not quite as important as the first page. I imagine this will more often than not be the case for forum postings too, though there's always a chance the best content will be posted pages along the thread.

Oh, and the trailing slash of course - thanks for the reminder!

If you think it's a software error you might be best contacting support directly. Have you checked for similar errors in Google and/or Bing Webmaster Tools?

Last year Google said bad links to 404 pages wouldn't hurt your site. Could that still be the case in light of recent Google updates to try and combat spammy links and negative SEO?

Can links to 404 pages benefit a website and pass link juice? I'd assume at the very least that any link juice will pass through links FROM the 404 page?

Many websites have great 404 pages that get linked to: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fretardzone.com%2F404 - that was the first of four I checked from the "60 Really Cool...404 Pages" that actually returned the 404 HTTP Status! So apologies if you find the word 'retard' offensive. According to Open Site Explorer it has a decent Page Authority and number of backlinks - but it doesn't show in Google's SERPs.

I'd never do it, but if you have a particularly well-linked to 404 page, is there an argument for giving it 200 OK Status?

Finally, what are the best practices regarding 404s and address bar links?

For example, if
www.examplesite.com/3rwdfs returns a 404 error, should I make that redirect to
www.examplesite.com/404 or leave it as is?

Redirecting to www.examplesite.com/404 might not be user-friendly as people won't be able to correct the URL in the address bar. But if I have a great  404 page that people link to, I don't want links going to loads of random pages do I? Is either way considered best practice?

If I did a 301 redirect I guess it would send the wrong signal to the crawlers? Should I use a 302 redirect, or even a 304 Not Modified redirect?

I wouldn't worry about whether a link is dofollow or nofollow*.

I'd look at the blogs who might be reviewing your product to see if they're likely to send paying customers to your website. Do people engage with the blog, for example? Do they leave comments and share the content? Has anyone mentioned buying a product on the blogger's recommedation? Does the blogger have many Twitter followers who interact with them? In other words, Is the blogger influential?

I wouldn't miss out the smaller blogs though - if you see a great-looking/well-written new blog, the blogger will probably be overjoyed with a free sample and appreciate your support. Who knows where that could lead one day?

*A caveat or two - just don't do anything to excess. It might look unnatural if 99% of your links are from blog product reviews. So try to keep a varied link profile. And don't ask for anchor text - these days it's best for anchor text to be the URL itself or company name.

Hi Carlos,

If the blogger is giving the links because it's their own editorial choice then it shouldn't be a problem, but by saying "I have been actively pursuing bloggers for my site in order to build page rank." isn't that a violation of Google's terms on link schemes?

"Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines."

These two videos are related and might be worth a watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGieiNe6RL4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSEqypgIJME

In 2011 Matt Cutts said there isn't a limit. 500-600 sounds A LOT. If I was in this situation I'd just 301 the domains that have the most traffic and best links.

Are you redirecting each page on the other websites to the matching page on the chief website?

Adam - remember that PageRank was only updated every few months (these days, even less) - can you be sure if those earlier links were already taken into account before the Wikipedia link was added? Also, maybe followed links came from websites that scrape or otherwise use Wikipedia's content?

I agree that Wikipedia links can be valuable though. It's an edited resource, and it's likely your content will be linked from a page that's relevant to your content, which helps. I've seen decent levels of engaged traffic from Wikipedia links.

If all you do on Wikipedia is add your own links though - you could end up getting banned from it. Rather than just adding links you should be adding value to the page content as a whole - pieces of your research could be really helpful to readers of the Wikipedia page and lead to more traffic to your website. It will also look less suspicious if you add other trusted links and make good contributions to edits on a number of pages. Wikipedia doesn't like biased content either.