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Absolutely agree here. Do not 301 for the sake of redirecting. Google would much rather someone landed on a good 404 page rather than to a page that had nothing to do with the original request.
Google also won't penalise you for having 404's on the site - this is commonplace and fully expected.
Have a read what Google say about it here and look at using Google's own 404 widget here.
-Andy
You may find someone else who is happy to provide additional advice on how else this can be handled Francesco, but it is a little outside my comfort zone as it borders on grey-hat and I would hate to be responsible to causing you problems.
I'll drop you a quick PM over with something that may help with the re-writing though.
-Andy
On the same domain, yes, but what you are wanting to do may as well be a new domain as that is how Google treats subdomains.
What you need to remember is that canonicalization is used when run the risk of duplication on a site, or want to suggest to Google which page should be delivered to people searching - but it is just a suggestion.
Why would you not want to just SEO the shop site and keep it all on there? There is no reason not to have a site that has the product information and the shop in the same place. You can SEO that site and not have to worry about penalties and problems.
-Andy
I wouldn't advise using canonicalization from one site to another for this purpose. That is going to look odd to Google. In their eyes, why have you got two sites with the same content?
In fact, here is what Google say about doing this:
"Can rel="canonical" be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
There are situations where it's not easily possible to set up redirects. This could be the case when you need to migrate to a new domain name using a web server that cannot create server-side redirects. In this case, you can use the rel="canonical" link element to specify the exact URL of the domain preferred for indexing. While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible."
All working this end too.
In the past, extreme measures have had to be taken and I have re-written (well, copy and pasted) an entire post to a new post with an almost identical URL and then done a 301 to the new page. Always fixed it as a last resort 
-Andy
A lot depends on what they intend to do with the Javascript, but this is pretty much commonplace today and should pose no problems.
I use responsive single page themes for my sites, and they are rank well - plenty of funky stuff going on in those as they are parallax designs.
Have a read of this post as well. This goes back to 2011 when Matt Cutts confirmed Google can read and execute AJAX & Javascript. http://searchengineland.com/google-can-now-execute-ajax-javascript-for-indexing-99518
Just remember to test well before sending big changes live.
-Andy
This is a resounding yes. It will cause you untold headaches with the same content on both sites.
Presumably you are wanting both sites to rank for various phrases? If not, and you only wanted the marketing site to rank, you could completely close out the sales site from Google, but then it would only ever be a shop. You wouldn't be able to link to it or do any SEO work.
The only safe way to do this is to have separate content written for each site. You are sure not to annoy Google at any point then.
I forgot to mention, that this is one of the reasons that ecommerce / affiliate sites have had such a hard time recently.
Spend a bit of time and money and have someone re-write this for you. Depending on how much there is, it shouldn't have to cost the earth.
-Andy
You're very welcome Catherine
-Andy
All is fine then. Category pages are very often noindexed to reduce duplication issues, so really don't worry about this. It certainly doesn't sound like there are any penalties going on there.
That said, do a little social activity around your post as well and get it promoted.
-Andy
Have a look in the header of the category page and see if it says "noindex, follow".
A simple way to check if a page is indexed, is to type site:www.siteurl.com/category or whatever the URL to the category page is.
The 404 might just mean the page wasn't available when it was crawled, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. The main thing is the page with your content on is indexed.
-Andy
Yes, the common thing to do here is noindex the page but leave is set to Follow.
That said, you shouldn't get a 404 unless the page actually doesn't exist. Can you browse to the category on their website?
What was the error message you got back from Google, Brian?
It is possible for Google to only index parts of a site that are considered worthwhile, but are you sure they haven't just no-indexed the category pages on the site? This is quite common.
-Andy
No, it still wouldn't change anything for me, but remember, there are no rules around this, only etiquette.
Re-tweeting her Tweets is one of the points I mentioned above
I would keep it subtle and not rush to try and gain her attention. She isn't going to unfollow you because you didn't say welcome, but I would start to engage with her.
Andy
Hi,
There are no real rules around this and if you haven't said 'welcome' to others, I might be tempted to avoid doing so this time. People won't be following your Twitter account in order to have you welcome them; it is more about what you have to say and offer.
Keep up with the level of Twitter activity and if you wish to engage with them, watch out for their Tweets and start by commenting and re-tweeting what they say. It is a nice way to ease into making more contact with them.
Andy
Hi Karina,
It is unlikely that you are being penalised for having a hyphenated domain, but Google do say that hyphens, especially on a dot com, are something of a spam signal, so tend to be flagged, but that doesn't automatically mean it is going to happen, or has happened.
Moving forwards has a lot to do with your business objectives; do you want to build your company brand? What is the scope for moving forwards with the current domains in relation to this?
Unless you want to re-brand, I would suggest looking at the site first to see if there are any glaring errors, but I suspect it will be a lack of link / content / social activity that is starting to hold you back now.
There is also part of the Google algorithm that looks at exact match domains, but this shouldn't be a worry as long as the content matches the intent of the domain.
Have you done much in terms of link building to the site, and do you have authorship set up? There may even be opportunities to include some Schema / Micro Data to help enhance the site, but that depends more on the site and content.
Happy to answer any further questions.
Andy
Rel=canonical is only a recommendation to Google. If they wish, they can still ignore it, so there is no guarantee, but for the most part, this won't happen.
You can still use a unique title and description on the pages without any problem.
And you are more than welcome
Andy
I think I see now.
Having that page as the primary one for the rel=canonical to be added to will be no problem at all. It is good practice to use rel=canonical to help Google understand more about a site structure and which page is the primary one to deliver when there could be other choices.
Andy
If all that is changing is the CMS and all new pages and the structure / hierarchy is going to remain the same, you really shouldn't come across too many issues.
Is there a particular reason for the move to Joomla?
Although this is Joomla to Wordpress, you may find some helpful hints in there http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-move-your-site-from-joomla-to-wordpress/
Maybe something here that will help too:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Importing_Content
Andy
I'm trying to imagine the site setup before answering - so you move between 4 pages of text while staying on the same page? Is this then using frames? Do you have a link to the site so I can have a look?
Andy
If you have a chance to request a few deep links, then this is always a good thing. Just make it worthwhile for visitors and try not to have keyword rich anchor text pointing back.
Andy
Not if you are trying to promote the blog post, which is what is sounds like you are trying to do. Remember, you don't want to be taking content and duplicating it anywhere.
Literally, just copy the URL, add a short but unique snippet to the post, and then paste the URL in and hit submit.
Andy
Just the URL, not the entire content, yes. In Facebook for example, give a short description and then paste the URL in there
Am I right in thinking this is a single page site? But the single page is a horizontal rather than vertical scroller?
Andy
Hi Ethan,
No, you will receive no penalty forgetting your posts and pages onto Social Network sites. All you are doing is providing a link, not the actual content itself.
Get your content seeded to as many SM sites as you can.
Andy
Here is one reply I have received Catherine.
"On the defamatory site. Google will remove the site url BUT, they will also inform the site owners that a complaint has been received about the defam content. However, the best way to get a result is through a solicitor (ironic) but if the remarks are truly defamatory, i.e. untrue, then the site can be asked to remove the content by court order."
Andy
Ahh I see Steve.
So there is a partial penalty to the site? If this is not the culprit, I would search out those that are. Detoxing is certainly an eye opener and you will most definitely find work to do with that.
Andy
The only way I can imagine they may receive a report is through the notifications in Webmaster tools.
That said, I am not sure about this as I haven't had to go through this procedure, so have also Tweeted this out to my followers to see if anyone there knows.
When you say you want to make this a unique experience, do you mean you want the look and feel of this to be completely different to the current site? If so, I would suggest that this is something to avoid. If it is brand you are wanting to build, you need to keep everything similar.
People like to know that when they are on a site they trust, that they aren't shifted around from pillar to post. If you make it so totally different (navigation, colours, theme, etc), then this might be a little counterintuitive.
I personally can't see any problems with building an 'experience' into the current site structure, but I would ensure that people feel comfortable knowing they haven't been shifted off the main site and retain aspects such as a menu bar, colours, etc.
Andy
I think you will find your gut feel here is correct to get this removed. Matt Cutts has actually said that widget and footer links are not what they are looking for, but have you actually performed a full test on all back links to see what sort of a state everything else coming back to the site is in?
For now, try not to focus on what this other site are ranking for - there is a reason Google have given them this placement. You need to disavow / have these dodgy links removed. They are really focusing heavily on links right now, so it is important to remain whiter-than-white in this aspect.
Andy
The first thing to remember is to point all old pages to the new ones using 301's. Am I right in thinking that the basic content for each page will stay the same? If so, that is quite straight forward.
If you are removing pages altogether, then try to find the best matches for a redirect. Doing this should minimize any loss.
As to what Google will think, that is a little awkward to second guess. Sometimes there are no issues and the site will just carry on, other times you may see a drop or rise in the SERP's. No easy way to determine this.
Andy
You're welcome John. Glad I could help.
If you want to keep an eye on these, I don't mind setting you a login up and you can track the phrases from my system? Let me know if you do and I will drop this over on e-mail to you.
Andy
OK, so the results are in
A lot of the time, search results are messed up when trying to search from your own machine as there can be cache, location, IP and all other kinds of issues.
I hope this has helped.
Andy
Dropped you a reply over John. I will get this setup as soon as I hear back from you.
The first problem is going to be mass duplications of content. This can cause a major headache.
Have a read of what Google say on this matter here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en
There is a bit right at the bottom which talks about this exact problem.
Andy
No problem at all John. Drop me your URL, search phrases and Google search engines to track to info@inetseo.co.uk
Please also include any of your competitors and we can see where they rank in comparison
Andy
There are so many reasons why this could be. So when you say your competitors are ranked consistently over all geographical version of Google, are they all ranked highly? How are you testing this? Are you sure this is not your location skewing the results?
I would be happy to do a little testing for you if you wish. I will place these into my SERP tracking and set different Google countries to see where everyone appears.
Andy
If everything is in place Megan, then you should have no problems. Google will be able to work the links out without penalty. As JCurrier said, expect a little movement when you make changes, but it doesn't sound like anything much and should right itself. If it doesn't, then there may be something else going on as well.
There aren't too many ways to achieve this without it looking a little odd to Google. The use of Images is probably the only real world way, but do remember that Google can view images well, and I have always advised anyone wanting to do this, to avoid it.
I haven't tried this myself, but can see it working by using iframes and then Disallowing them in Robots.txt
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15685205/noindex-tag-for-google
Andy
Hi Megan,
You shouldn't really have two live versions of your site. Apart from anything else, this causes duplication issues. What I would do is correct this by having someone create a redirect in the .htaccess file so that when anyone does hit the non-www version, they will automatically be forwarded to the www version.
That being said, you could always look at page caching to speed the load times up. Perhaps even look to have large images fed from an alternative source such as Flickr?
Andy
How old is the site? Is this something that you were ranking higher for initially and have no dropped? If so, is there work that you have completed recently?
Andy
I do find this a little clunky compared to other available tools sadly. I have had it for 12 months and never really use it.
I hadn't seen SpuFu before and that also sounds interesting!
I have a lot to look at and try here - thanks for the responses folks and keep 'em coming if there are others!
Andy
The Keyword Snatcher looks pretty amazing Tom! Thanks for sharing that... Think I will be grabbing a sub there
Andy
Hey folks,
I just wanted to find out what everyone is using for keyword research now that the Google Keyword Tool has been retired. I know there is a form of it in Adwords, but something a little more usable than this.
Cheers,
Andy
I tend to look at the number of links on a page and not only look at it from what Google might think, but how does it work from a usability point of view?
Are visitors easily able to navigate around the pages and site? Are links clear and concise? Do they all make sense?
If I come up with the answer "no", then I would be wanting to do something about it.
1000 links on a page is a lot and I would honestly be trying to trim this right down - are 1000 links all necessary? Perhaps looking at a new navigation structure would help.
Andy
Well, unless there is a reason to believe the site to be spammy or have caused you problems, I wouldn't worry about it. You might be disavowing a site with no real cause to.
The general rule of thumb is only disavow if you have had a warning from Google or if you know the links to be dodgy. In this case, would you not be able to get in touch with the site in question and ask them to change the links?
Andy