As others have said, it really depends on the topic. Personally, I find that pages with 700 to 1,000 words seem to perform best for me.

If you message or email the owner and ask for permission, you can avoid stepping into that fuzzy gray area.

Actually, a 301 redirect can be avoided here, provided you maintain the same page/URL structure. You can use this WordPress plugin to generate the custom .cfm page extension and retain your URL structure to avoid hurting your rankings:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-page-extensions/

It would be best to avoid a 301 redirect if possible.

Just to add to the other answers, you can also remove the URLs (or entire directory if necessary) via the URL removal tool in Webmaster Tools, although Google prefers you to use it for emergencies of sorts (I've had no problems with it).

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734

Yes, true. But let's not forget Google's changes do not all come from algorithm updates. For example, the company contracts a couple of companies with thousands of independent contractors who manually review search results. And generally speaking, a lot of the lower quality sites were also riddled with poor writing, as it tends to go hand in hand with other quality issues.

I don't think he's referring to site links but instead Google's penchant for showing a number of pages from the same site. It's a domain diversity issue. Nothing you can really do about it -- it's out of your hands. Can't really think of any negative implications for folks searching for your business.

Nice, man. You rock.

A link from one page will not hurt you. A wide dismemberment of sitewide links like this could hurt you. I seem to remember Google addressing this with WordPress theme footer links recently.

A link from one page will not hurt you. A wide dismemberment of sitewide links like this could hurt you. I seem to remember Google addressing this with WordPress theme footer links recently.

I don't think he's referring to site links but instead Google's penchant for showing a number of pages from the same site. It's a domain diversity issue. Nothing you can really do about it -- it's out of your hands. Can't really think of any negative implications for folks searching for your business.

Actually, a 301 redirect can be avoided here, provided you maintain the same page/URL structure. You can use this WordPress plugin to generate the custom .cfm page extension and retain your URL structure to avoid hurting your rankings:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-page-extensions/

It would be best to avoid a 301 redirect if possible.

Just to add to the other answers, you can also remove the URLs (or entire directory if necessary) via the URL removal tool in Webmaster Tools, although Google prefers you to use it for emergencies of sorts (I've had no problems with it).

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734