1. Google understands simple JS that is inline with your HTML. So Google understands that
is a link to domain.com. You can obfuscate this further and Google might not understand it. I've not seen Google try to parse or execute JS but that doesn't mean they can't or won't in the future.

2. I don't think Alan is right in that this is cloaking. Google doesn't understand the same thing users do. It's been an acceptable practice, for instance, to take content found in Flash and copy it to where Google can spider it. The spider pages are for Google but there's no way it would be indexed otherwise and the users can get the same exact content from the frontend experience. Cloaking is where you show two distinctly different pages with the intent of tricking the bots. As long as what Google is indexing is what end users will see, there's no problem.

3. Google is very unlikely to spider AJAX. Many AJAX pages don't return any user readable content (most of mine return things like JSON, which is not for end user consumption) and , as such, are beyond the scope of indexation. Again, as in #2, you might want this content to be shown elsewhere if you want it indexed. https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/

Well, how many .ws sites or .pw sites are out there that you know of? For that matter, how many .net sites are well known?

But here's the kicker: what would Google gain by favoring .com over any other TLD? We're entering a bold new era in TLDs, where you can now created your own TLD extension. So if you want to create the .seo TLD you can do it (just gotta be able to pay the steep ICANN fees and have a way to manage it). So .com is going to have a lot more competition.

Again, .com is very popular with people. It's generally easier to remember a .com just because people naturally put .com at the end. nobody has ever presented a case that I know of where a site lost purely because they didn't have a .com

In terms of SEO, there is no difference between the various top level domains(TLD). The only exception to this are the various ccTLDs (like .co.uk or .fr) because they're localized.

No engine cares if you have .com, .ws or .pw. Now, people might have a harder time remembering a .pw vs a .com but that's just because of the popularity of .com. With all the extensions coming out now I can't see .com staying that way forever.

Like Chris said, don't buy an exact match domain just for SEO. There used to be some benefit to it but not anymore. I could make www.nothing.pw rank for any keyword you please with enough work.

Let me ask this:

You opened with the statement "But so far I haven't seen the advantages for SEO purposes..."

What are your expectations here? In terms of a SEO-friendly software, I find all have their ins and outs but from an SEO perspective, most perform about the same. It's a bit like saying "I want to drive a car from LA to NY. So what is the best car to drive?" The car is less important than the route and the driver.

Most CMS will do the basics well. You need SEO friendly URLs and that's the largest issue I've seen (and URLs are a minor thing in terms of SEO). Maybe a meta description too. You will be providing the rest of the SEO via content (i.e. H1 tags, etc) and most everything does that well.

Wordpress is not a CMS per se, it's really a blogging software that made a shift to reach a wider audience. I've seen some very impressive sites that use it... and don't use it all that well. Modx looks like a pure CMS.

If your site is already up, I would NOT change. Changing software typically means changing URLs and that means you're gonna take a short term hit (not to mention the fun with 301s). Unless you have some burning need, I always tell people to think twice about changing URLs.

You could... but it would skew your GA. They would all appear to be from one user. You would have no meaningful metrics either.

The way to add them would be to code a page that generates the sales codes for GA then call it. That would transmit the data to Google.

I would select a modified option #3 (modified in that I used all dashes)

example.com/product-name-111

I've seen this work. VBSEO (a vBulletin forum plugin that rewrites URLs) uses this format, where the ID is at the end of the URL. I've not seen any ill effects and this plugin has used this format for years.

Don't get too hung up on the URL structure. It's like worrying about what color to paint your walls when your house has structural issues. URLs are window dressing. They help SEO, but only slightly.

Not quite. Canonical (per Matt Cutts) is considered a hint as to what the real page is. It doesn't stop the duplicate page from being crawled or indexed (a page that isn't indexed will not show up anywhere in Google for any query), it prevents the duplicate page from winning the duplicate race (i.e. if you don't pick a winner, Google will pick one for you).

Newegg.com uses this because they have affiliates, searches and numerous other things that affect their query strings.

Remember that ANY change to the query string is seen as a new page. So

domain.com?page=a&link=1
domain.com?page=a&link=2

are considered separate pages, even if they return the same content.

Canonical is used to determine which duplicate page "wins" the index race. All other versions are considered duplicate and, thus, devalued.