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It seems that the focus of your writing in this question and another that you posted this morning was all about "getting my links".  I am impressed with the amount of time that you are spending trying to understand the value of the links and the effort that you are willing to spend to acquire them - without knowing their value.

You certainlyi have no problem writing a lot of content - which is the big problem for most webmasters.  Maybe if you started writing for the purpose of spreading Your Message and forget about writing for links you will have greater success.  Think about it.

Just an opinion here...

If you optimize the URLs you might get a tiny tiny gain related to rankings... and if you do another redirect you will suffer a tiny tiny loss on the amount of link benefits that you receive.  So, why do anything when the results will cancel each other out?  Do you think that it might be possible that the loss might be greater than the gain?  I can't answer that and that is why I would sit on my butt and do nothing.

Not an answer to your question... but... I used to have several different websites with related themes and merged them all in to a single site.  That site then had lots more content, lots more traffic, a much stronger link profile and was a lot easier to run.  The results have been KickAss.... and I don't have to worry about managing multiple profiles.

What's wrong with having ten brass widgets in ten different colors and ten buy buttons all listed on a single page?

I do that I we see lots of people buying a brass widget in every color.  I think that this is great for getting more sales.  If I was a shopper it would be a real frustration to visit ten pages to get one of each color - or just visit all of those pages to see which color I like best.

Most important, Google might see that and say....  This page has brass widgets in EVERY FREEKING COLOR! and decide to show it to visitors who search for them.

Now, if you are compulsive about having one page per widget and having your writer create yada yada yada content for all of them, keep in mind that you are wasting a lot of money on near duplicate content, boring your writers and spreading your pagerank out over a lot of pages.

I use blog posts for temporary content and trivial content.

Anything that is valuable, evergreen and substantive gets placed on a dedicated page where I can shape   the appearance, title tag and image placements like finely-crafted arrows.

I then use a blog post to announce the article to my blog visitors and feed subscribers.  The article page is then built into the content structure and categories of the main website.

Lots of discussion about the rel="author" attribute, pro and con, here.

www.keyword-guidez.com

You will lose traffic to keywordguidez.com, keywordguides.com, and keyword-guides.com

Not a good idea.

I would try to buy keywordguides.com.  The price might be high and it might stretch my budget... but I would splurge on it.      And only retreat if the price was insane.

Shopify - hosted solution but hosting is in the US and we are in the UK and shop will be hosted on a subdomain as a result

This is really bad... I would not do this.

Is it worse for SEO to host your store in a different country or to host in your country but your store potentially run slower?

Door A and Door B are both bad choices in my opinion.  I would go to Door C - higher quality hosting.  Might cost more but Door A and Door B could be so bad that you lose a fortune in sales.

This is a great question and an even better discussion.

Special thanks to Alan for sharing all of the details. 

I used to work for a government agency and the media frequently called wanting information on one of our projects or a topic in the news.  To help them we always sent them pre-prepared information that they could publish verbatim.  If you do this they will love you and come back again when you have some thing else - but more important they will not write the story themselves and screw up your important message.

Include a couple of quotes from the director or CEO and then when they publish the article it will sound like they did an interview.

Congratulations on getting the linkbait out and an immediate interview.  Nice work!

Some of the best content on my site has been written by bloggers with advanced degrees in the niche.

Search google for your main keywords and filnd a blogger who is already writing kickass content for your topic.  Hire Her.

OK... for your question... maybe a little bit more if all links go to the same URL.  However, if the links go to different URLs you might get a lot more.

Market your product on the article page the same way that you would display any ad.

Don't underestimate the money-making ability of an info site.   

I agree with Dignan.    You will need to give up beingthere.com.au and replace it with videoconferencing.com.au.

Is there any other way of using these URLs to boost SERP for the 'video conferencing' keyword?

Not in any way that I think will work effectively.

Oh - and let's not forget that unless we have the exact same data set as any search engine, we move even further away from the mark of accepted scientific best practices methodology.

This is really important.  In the past SEOs could count all of the onpage factors and count their links and count their anchor text.  Now as Google starts using things like social data, analytics data from Google.com and other information that SEOs can not count or even see - that is when the ability to reverse engineer begins to disappear - and google becomes less likely to be manipulated.

The problem that a lot of people have is that their site grows in unexpected directions.  So the problem is not so much deciding upon the structure but more a problem of making the most of the expanding beast!

I think that it depends upon the size of your organization and the position where you sit.

If you are responsible for a lot of people then you better be planning a lot.... but if you are the widget guy then you don't need to plan as much, your job is to make widgets.

Lots of SEOs advise changing the target of existing links to your new domain.

I have moved a couple of domains in the past year and we have put some effort into getting the new domain on existing links where we felt that it would not be an imposition on the webmaster.

Can you tell me the diminishing value of a sitewide link vs a single homepage link for example? And how is it you know the answer to this?

Nobody is going to tell you that a sitewide link is worth 2.76788756 times the value of a homepage link.

The answer isn't that simple.  Sites come in different sizes, they have different linkages, they have different navigation structures and they have different numbers of links hitting homepages and internal pages. Maybe it even matters if these links are in the footer, the top navigation or some other location.

There is a word that is used when people try to reverse engineer something that is really complex..... that is fuzzy logic.  I think that this term has huge application in SEO.

But my personal opinion is when we deal with questions of fuzzy logic, we make the most effective use of our time when we accept answers such as "a little bit more"..... "probably nothing".... and "maybe a little less".  Then we simply apply them, and move on rather than trying to get into proving theorems and attempting to calculate out to five decimal points.

Search engines such as Google don't reveal how they rank websites and they modify their methods continuously.  One of their most important goals is to avoid manipulation.

As a result nobody knows exactly how google ranks websites.  So SEOs must have a mind that is comfortable dealing with a changing uncertainty.

A few people do scientific studies on how rankings work but a lot of that information is kept secret to maintain a competitive advantage - but it has a limited value over time because search engines change their methods.

In my opinion there are four good sources of information....

1. Basic search optimization guides such as the Beginner's Guide to SEO

2. Surveys of web professionals such as the Search Engine Ranking Factors.

3. Forums such as this one where people ask questions and share ideas.

4. Personal records that SEOs keep about what changes they made to their website and the results that occur.

The bottom line is you will rarely know EXACTLY what to do.  But you must draw information from what you get from 1,2,3 and 4 to place your best bet.

The primary caution is.... don't be suckered into accepting the answer that you "want to hear" because usually the "most difficult to pull off" is the one that works best.

I agree with Alan, we have shut down trackbacks.  Spammers!

Here's the problem: the client's domain name sucks. It is short, but combines an acronym with one of the words in its long-version name. It uses the British spelling version of the long name fragment, even though most Canadians now use American spelling. And it is a .ca, rather than a dot.com

I would be using "colorful" language too!

But I would like some additional validation before proceeding.

More colorful language. 

- how much link juice might we lose? I've seen the figure of 10% bandied around. Is it accurate?

Nobody knows for sure.  Not an awful lot.

- might we see a temporary dip in results? If so, how long would it last?

You might have unstable SERPs for a few days to a couple of weeks.  It's possible that your rankings could drop a place or two. But most of the time there is very little damage if you do the switch properly.

- what questions did I forget to ask? What additional info do you need to offer informed advice

Your question seems to be... "Should I do this?"    If this was my site the answer would be yes.

In the past year we have done two domain moves.  One was positive results all around, great results.   The other was up everywhere except the trophy KW which we slipped from #1,2,3 to #2,3,4 but are working to get it back.  Sales are still very strong.

Let's say that you gain a tiny advantage by changing... and.... Let's say you give up a tiny advantage by redirecting (lots of people believe that the links into a redirected page to not pass all of their ranking benefit to the new URL).

Based upon that you cancelled out some of the benefit - maybe the loss was greater than the gain?

So, if it was my site I would stick with what I have and use hyphens for all future pages.

To anyone following this topic... A good thread at cre8asiteforums.com

I would be getting in touch with them right away.  At least before they see this thread.

They will probably want a mint for those domains but if you know what to do with them they could be really valuable.

Those would probably be a little easier to rank for exact match keywords.  However, the problem will be lots of people will forget about the .net and type .com.  That might not sound like a big deal, however, the more successful your business becomes the more traffic and money you will loose to the guy who owns the .com.

If you are serious about this business try to get the .com.  It might cost thousands but you will lose that much over time.  Or, attack with your current domain which sounds brandable.

What's twitter? 

Maybe for these jobs you eliminate the admin work.  Then strike a deal with the client.... he pays $250 up front and then another $250 after you have doubled his traffic.  Sweet deal for the client and he should be happy to pay $250 after your work makes a kickass impact.

Malware? Have you checked Google Webmaster Tools?

If you have analytics installed study them.  If you don't, get your log files and run them through a log analysis program.

Find out where the traffic was coming from before the problem started (websites, pages, search engines, keywords, etc.).... then see where traffic is coming from now.  That will give you an answer as to where the traffic loss happend.

Noone here can answer that question.

Then you have the question... Why did the traffic drop?   Probably impossible to answer.

Have you checked google webmaster tools?

Ryan, you have been giving some really valuable answers.  Nice.  Keep up the great work!

I agree.  I don't use nofollow.

There are a few valid reasons to use it..   on paid ad links, on forums to discourage spammers, and linking to sites that you don't trust or want to support with pagerank flow.

1. Does Google factor in overall site traffic in rankings?  So for 2 sites, all other things being pretty much equal, the one with higher traffic will be listed higher?

I have not heard that google will give you higher positions for having higher traffic.  HOWEVER, with personalized search turned on, if a searcher has visited your site before it might receive a higher position in a SERP.

**2. Does this logically imply that sites with lower traffic overall face an uphill struggle to be ranked highly??? **

Holding the high ground is always valuable.  If you have a site with a LOT of traffic that is a LOT more people who might link to you, like you, tweet about you, etc.  The site with the high traffic has a huge advantage.  Some sites receive thousands of likes and tweets, etc every day!

3. As an extension to this, would it be true to say that by increasing site traffic, say with Google Adwords or other online or offiline or whatever advertising, that might help get higher SEO rankings???

I don't think that traffic flowing into your site through these other routes has a direct impact on your rankings.  However, as mentioned above it is a higher population of people who might link, like, tweet, etc.

You mention "offline"..... if those people type "yourdomain.com" into the google search box or toolbar then that will signal google that people are "asking for you by name".  I think that these domain queries have enormous value.  I've never heard anyone from google say that they are kickass or any SEOs saying that they tested, but I would bet that they count for a lot.

That's what happens when you type    s  l  o  w.

I have never read or heard anyone talk about Google counting the traffic that flows through a link.  I wonder how well they can count it?

I would not bet very much money that this is a factor in the algo.

If you can get a link that delivers valuable traffic that is great.  Very few backlinks deliver significant amounts of traffic.  However, if you can get a link in an article on the nytimes.com website, or Slashdot.com or Wired.com the traffic flow can be amazing.

Lots of people think... "I'll build fifty-five sites to kickass on my competitor because it will give me a shitload of backlinks."

Those backlinks are worth nothing.  You can't manufacture links.  Google is too smart for that.

They would be better off building a giant site that dominates the niche and THEN building satellite sites and powering them with links from the giant site.

Please call all of my competitors and sell them this service.

If you look at the wikipedia article for Philadelphia you will find something very similar to what we produce.  (but ours would look a lot better)

In Australia things are a little different, many potential clients gasp in shock at the prospect of paying just $500 a month...

I think that this is true in the USA also.  People think that you just tweak the code and the site goes up.

However, in the USA most SEO jobs are either a local job such as "Scranton Auto Glass" which doesn't usually cost a lot - a few hundred a month might do it, or a national campaign selling "brass widgets" that will probably need at least the $2500 budget to become competitive.

Perhaps most of the people advertising the $200 are doing SEO for a small company targeting a single city?

I know.  Finance and debt are really difficult areas to compete.

I would try to attack it with content that professors and university departments would be willing to link to.... but the problem with that is that they don't want to link to a site with an obvious commercial purpose.

Right, our goal is to beat their content and then use it as a weapon to beat their links.

If these sites have such spammy link profiles then they should be really easy to beat!

If the current company still has products and services related to the old sites then I would carefully redirect the PAGES of those sites to equivalent pages on the current company website.  This will have the power of uniting the clans.

As an example... now, instead of having five little sites with fifty links each they will have a much bigger site with 250 links.  That will compete much better for everything.

That is what I would do based upon the limited information that you have provided - but there could be business reasons beyond SEO to do something different.

On the other hand, if the current company is NOT into the same products and services as these older sites then the value of a redirect is a lot less.  If these old sites have good rankings in their product/service areas they could be used to market the products/services of others and still generate income or they could sell the sites to others who are currently in those businesses.

In a couple of months (two people working) we would produce perhaps six to eight articles, each with a few thousand words, many photos, data tables, references, graphs/art and more.

We are not going for "high quality".  We are going for "best-on-the-web" for their topic.  That is what you need to get the links to YOUR article.

According to the most recent word that I have read from Google, when you nofollow a link the pagerank that should have flowed into it dies.

So, if you want to preserve the pagerank of your site you should link to those three pages only where necessary and have links on those pages that will allow pagerank to flow back into other pages of your website.

Today the best way to conserve pagerank is to avoid linking to unimportant pages as much as possible - and when you link to them be sure that they link out to important pages.