I know that the number of 301-redirects can sometimes raise concerns about site speed. However, 1,000 is really not that many. Large e-commerce sites can have 10,000 301s, or even more. Depending on how the 301 files is handled even this large number can be handled in ways that have very little impact on site speed or page load times.

I think the number in your vase is nothing to worry about.

I do think that deleting and 301 redirects is the best way to go for anything that's remotely relevant. For those that aren't, create a custom 404 page and let them 404. Eventually they will drop out of the index. If they don't, you could still file a remove URL request in Google Webmaster Tools.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Search volume can be incredibly volatile from one region to another. I would imagine that "outage notification" as a term could be incredibly volatile, because it's really pretty vague. If there was a major earthquake, I would think that colume for that term would soar...or any natural disaster really. On the  other hand, if things had been relatively quiet and  there hand't been any major seismic or weather events, then that might mean something else.  but that all depends on where you are, and where you are trying to sell.

If search volume in a remote area of Pakistan increases by 5,000 percent, and it's only temporary because of a weird event.....is that something you can build a business on here in the States? Of course not

There are many factors to consider. Search volume is one tiny piece of the puzzle.

You're welcome Dan! I just noticed there is also a post in YouMoz on the subject:

http://moz.com/ugc/the-new-adwords-keyword-planner-your-keyword-research-process

Yes. I believe there is an advantage in choosing your second option, for exactly the reason you state. In other words it's better for you and your own organization of your content. It will also make it much easier when and if you implement URL rewrites to give you SEO friendly URLs because if you use any relative URLs on your pages, they will be much easier to identify correctly and update if they are constructed "/state/michigan."

I don't believe there is going to be an advantage or disadvantage to your campaigns or SEO if you choose one versus another. That's my personal opinion. I certainly don't pretend to know what Google favors or doesn't favor at any given point in time.

I certainly hope this helps!

You came to the right place for the validity you seek I frequently vet things here in the forum and it has proven very helpful in convincing other members of my team to go one way or the other. Also, I completely agree with George's suggestion to use the "alt" attribute if it is indeed an image we are talking about, but it appears we are really talking about a bonafide

tag for text with keywords in it.

That being the case. Stick to your guns and insist on it being visible. If you really feel that it disrupts the design...it would be better to leave it out than to make it invisible.

Good luck!

Dana

Google did some user testing on this topic, to find out if users preferred longer pages or paginated pages. According to their research, users preferred longer pages because there is always latency when moving from one page to the next. Here's the video where a Googler cites that research: http://youtu.be/njn8uXTWiGg  If you want to have it both ways, you could always break your content into pages, but put a "View All" option at the top. Personally, I am one of those folks who doesn't mind scrolling down through comments. If given the choice to continue on to a second page of comments, I probably wouldn't.

From an SEO standpoint, provided the pagination is handled properly, I don't think there's an advantage one way or the other, unless you take into consideration that your bounce rate could potentially go up with paginated pages. Even if it did though, I doubt that would significantly hurt you from an overall SEO viewpoint.