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The majority of these tactics are outdated link building methods that will only get your site penalized or do nothing while wasting your money. After Panda, article marketing sites are dead. Blog and forum comments are typically nofollow so they will do little for your rankings. PR (I'm assuming your talking about press releases) can be done easy enough on your own through sites like PR Web, but they are not always that effective in gaining links unless you have a catchy release that others will want to write about. Directories are useful if you choose the right ones. I rarely use more than a few high quality/respected directories. So to answer your questions here I go:

1) Of the other methods (other thank custom link acquisition), how would you rank their effectiveness?
Outreach (I can't endorse paid links though) and quality directories would be the best methods mentioned. Like I said, there are only a handful of directories I would recommend and you'll probably get the complete opposite with a company promoting this option (meaning you'll be added to hundreds of spam directories that may penalize your site).

2) The other methods seem kinda gimmicky, is it worth the time/money? Most of the options you mentioned are gimmicky and a waste of money. You should instead focus on guest posting, outreach, and other methods that take hard work but produce more results.

3) Have you seen sites rank well for competitve keywords using articles/bookmarking/blog comments/directories etc?
I have seen sites rank well that have these, but there are typically a number of other factors earning them those ranks.

4) How do you know i a company is going to them manually as they claim? as opposed to using some automated software. This would have to be judged on a case by case basis from talking with the company. See if they'll share some of their other work, testimonials, results, etc.

Google Sandbox is a debated topic from 2004 and 2005 that has never been confirmed. You shouldn't concern yourself with it too much. Also, the concept of Sandbox would only temporarily penalize new domains for the first few months. If you are worried about being penalized either temporarily or permanantely, there are a couple things you can always do:

1. Create great content
2. Used aged domains

If you concern yourself with making the best site possible and don't worry about making a quick buck, you shouldn't have a problem.

n my opinion, your page was more of resource page that you needed to rank highly then I would say it would be smart to put nofollows on the page. But, I don't typically subscribe to this. My feeling is that if you feel a site is worth linking to, then the right thing to do is give them the credit they deserve. But, with pages like yours where they are basically just links with no content, you'll not be ranking anyways for them -- these pages seem to be more for returning visitors who are interested in what you consistently have to say. I'd give follow links on your pages, especially since they seem to be to high quality sites like ESPN.

There is really no one size fits all method to this. It varies from site to site. If you are working with an exact match domain (EMD), which I'm assuming you're not, you would be able to do it more often. But, with a case like this I would suggest doing a backlink analysis to see what percentage of your links are using the "Chicago Movers" anchor text. If it's the majority, then I would try and balance it out with other keywords. If it's only a small portion then you can go ahead and start building more of them. The key is to make it look natural and not over optimize for one keyword. Also, links with partial keywords and long anchor links like "...find yourself a cheap chicago mover" are a great way to vary your links and make them look natural.

Don't forget Google only allows three ads per page. It looks as if you may have more than that.

Bolding keywords is an outdated SEO technique that only makes it looks as if you're trying to over-optimize your content. Don't spend time worrying about things like bolded or italicized keywords, instead use that time towards creating great content that people will want to link to.

Here is a list of some SEO hosting providers that offer different IP address options:

aseohosting.comseowebhosting.netbiggest-hosting.comseohosting.com

I took a look at the Loopnet.com community profile pages, and more specifically, at their blog pages. It looks as if it just pulls in the title and a a short excerpt from the feed and links out to the original site page where the content originated. So to answer your questions, no you should have no problems with duplicate content. Also, it may be helpful for your client's site because the links appear to not be nofollow and should pass link juice.

An htaccess file is one way to do it as a previous response suggested, but there are some easier options. If you're already using an SEO plugin on your Wordpress site, check to see if it has a 301 redirect field and then go enter the new url you'd like it redirected to on the post or page. If you don't have an SEO plugin or one with that option you can easily install a new redirect plugin. I've used "Quick Page/Post Redirect DEV" and I'd recommend it. This also allows you to copy and paste the new url in a field on the post or page and choose the type of redirect you'd like. Make sure to do a 301 if this is a permanent change.