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I need a referee on an issue.

I have hired a company that does a decent job of creating a social presence for our company and its web presence.   But the main feature I hired them for was to create and cast articlesinto the social sphere  with back links to our main site. This was based on a premise that backlinks still matter.

Instead the articles and posts they create are 1) posted on a separate url blog page maintained by them (but branded similar to our brand term) and 2)  casts out to other social sites with back links to their 'blog-type' site, not our main site.  In essence its a blog off the main url with articles/posts touting our product but linking back to the off site blog.

I have requested that all the articles created monthly by them and cast out into the social sphere containe anchor text appropriate hyperlinks to our main site, not the blog type site, and they are resisting.  I am willing to make a switch if the premise of creating links to my main site still holds in the SEO world.  Their assertion is that it doesn't.

They are getting the blog site to rank for certain key words that we also are trying to rank for and the blog site does  have links to our site on their site such as an "our website" button.  And they do create a lot of social activity buzz with twitter, youtube etc for our brand name.  In all i like what they do except in two months they have created 305 back links to the blog and our main site has only 8.  When they report they show me all the words the blog site ranks for, as if the main site doesn't exist.

But wouldn't best practice still be for them to create the backlinks to our main site, not the blog and worry more about how the main site is ranking, not the cast site?

Or has the SEO world changed so much that it doesn't matter.  I want to be fair but I am drwaing a line in the sand on this.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I am not an seo. I just try to keep up with the topics a little bit so as,owner, I can make sure we are maximizing search spending. My question is when the new site goes up, what happens to the old pages that the google bots have indexed and made assessments regarding ranking. So based on links etc to those old pages there is a certain ranking for words that we are making to the 1st page and that I don't want to move down 40 or 50 slots because it is a new page. So, is there any thing I need to make sure that the design agency does regarding the old pages to make sure that any rankinking juice or whatever transfers to the new corresponding redesigned page. I don't want google sending people to the old pages but the new while i want those new pages to step into our 1st page slot. Does that make sense. Should we use redirects? Or is that not necessary?

Agency designed website and not sure what platform was used. Are now working minor redesign of site but wants to do so in word press. I don't have any problem with word press but don't want to start over ranking for key phrases. I don't want to change URL from mysite.com for the home page. What is the right way to make sure this is done correctly. I could not find a resource on the site. I don't mind researching this but am not sure what to search for to find info. Thanks