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Is the 9K difference the no-followed external links pointing to the site?

Since all the research has already been accomplished, why not re-write the old articles (not spun) with a fresh outlook/viewpoint/call-to-action and have the best of both worlds...lots of quickly created content that you are not afraid of indexing?

At first glance I did not see anything that would stop your site from being added to that directory.  Double check that you are following the rules here: http://www.dmoz.org/docs/en/add.html

If all looks good then the next step may be to become an Editor yourself like I mentioned above.  More info can be found here: http://www.dmoz.org/docs/en/help/become.html

I am assuming you followed the instructions (any deviation can get your site skipped) so why not volunteer to be a DMOZ Editor and try to get your site added that way?  You get the added benefit of helping others who may have been waiting for months/years too.

If you can reload the site via FTP to a state prior to loading the plugin that would be the way to go...assuming the plugin is the problem.

I have used both UBL and Getlisted with varied degrees of success.  If you can afford it, whitespark.ca would be my choice.

Thanks for the input Brian.  I am afraid of messing something up and being unable to correct it so will do nothing until/if I know what needs to be done (or pay someone to accomplish).

I do want my site to be faster but if this is only going to be a marginal improvement (if at all) I am not sure the increase outweighs the headache/cost.

I am still trying to wrap my brain around this techie "stuff"...way more of the elephant than I can chew at the moment.  

BTW...What I failed to mention above is my site is currently hosted at GoDaddy.  Not sure if that has any relevance or not.

I was working yesterday on making my WP site quicker (sellingwarnerrobins.com) and after updating the htaccess file to solve some "Leverage Browser Caching" issues I re-ran a scan on Pingdom Tools and am now getting a zero for "Parallelize downloads across hostnames" with a list of 34 items to fix.

I did some web searches and when the articles started talking about cnames, subdomains, and hostname distribution it went beyond my capabilities.

Are these Parallelize "issues" something a novice like myself can easily fix?  If so, how?

Have you tried running OpenSiteExplorer against the pages?  It would need to be done 1 page at a time but would show you the links going to that page.

If your site is Wordpress driven you can load the "Broken Link Checker" Plugin.  It will show you on your dashboard exactly where the broken link is at and give you the option to either fix it or delete the link.

Since all the research has already been accomplished, why not re-write the old articles (not spun) with a fresh outlook/viewpoint/call-to-action and have the best of both worlds...lots of quickly created content that you are not afraid of indexing?

This sort of thing happens all the time, and since I am in your niche, I might be interested.

Just be consistent and list the number you use most often.  For me that is my mobile number.

AuthorRank helps and the more G+ engagement you have, the better.  Here is an example: http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/07/how-google-author-rank-could-change-content-marketing-and-journalism/.   If nothing else, I would be more apt to click on a link if someone's photo was next to it.  Also, many are now getting their G+ post snippets to rank in the SERPs as well (Mark Traphagen comes to mind).

It looks like the dust is still settling from the "updates" Google was applying last week.  Some of my content has been dancing for the past few days as well.

Check out this resource for more information: http://www.seomoz.org/q/are-google-now-indexing-iframes

I am a fan of inbound.org because of its simplicity and often pop in at searchenginewatch.com because of the variety of content provided.

Experiencing similar issues from the latest refresh...just have to ride out the dance and see what transpires.

Have you tried running OpenSiteExplorer against the pages?  It would need to be done 1 page at a time but would show you the links going to that page.

Go with subdirectories over subdomains for the reasons already mentioned.  Also, a shorter URL is easier for consumers to remember so take that into consideration when coming up with your naming convention.