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Likes, not so much. However there does seem to be a correlation between FB Shares and rankings.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to-influence-search-rankings

My sample size is small (I am currently maintaining just four sites) but all of them include a large banner on top, which leaves 95% of text content below the fold. None of them have been penalized for this so far, and all of them rank well.

As for the original question, such ratio does not seem to affect standings of the sites I've worked on. However, keep in mind that such heavily skewed page interface tends to look bad, affecting your customers' UX. I would try to keep your footer at most as large as the body of your smallest page.

You can have A+ on all of your pages, and still rank low. On-site optimization is just a small percentage of your SEO work. Begin to build backlinks to your site in order to improve your rankings.

Check out the SEOmoz Beginner's Guide for more information - http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

A fellow SEO consultant and I have been arguing the importance of listing on established well-known directories (Yahoo, DMOZ, etc) these days. He is convinced that the $299 listing on Yahoo is a worthy investment, while I think that advertising on high-ranking niche websites (in the form of purchased listing) are far more useful.

When looking at Y!Directory, a lot of the links are placed on pages that have PA of 0 (these are very deep URLs, almost a dozen levels in). Does Yahoo Directory's DA of 100 help offset this low PA score? What if you could get a listing from a highly relevant niche site with a DA of 70+ and PA of 30+ for the same price?

Obviously there are other likely benefits to links from relevant sites (such as real customer acquisition) but I would like to know from a pure SEO point of view - are links from directories like Yahoo's still worth the link?

I launched a website for a client in mid-March. The site is already indexed, I have built quite a few links to it (links are also indexed), and ranks well for some targeted keywords.

However, when I try to check backlinks to the site with Open Site Explorer, it comes back with "No Data Available For This URL". Is this something I should be worried about or merely a case of 'recency' of page creation'? I know it says that it can take 45-60 days for a site to be included in Linkscape but I'm approaching the 60 days mark and still nothing.

High PR alone does not mean much, so don't waste your time. Evidence for this is the fact that you can buy expired high-PR domains, and they will give no juice.

mozMetrics (PA & DA) are far more telling. To build up your credibility, it all boils down to 1) original content and 2) how well you are able to distribute this content on the net.

That was rather helpful.. I hate to see it go.

I've spoken with several people who fell prey to the 'specials' on that forum. At best, you may see marginal results if you're targeting keywords with ultra-low competition. At worst, your site will get penalized heavily (rankings-wise) for a high number of spammy links popping up over a short period of time.

To echo what EGOL said, Google is an intelligent search engine, and it will sniff out your tactic.

Concentrate on the basics - write quality content and promote it aggressively. This will be far more cost and time effective than sitting there and developing manufactured links.

It depends. Directories are not all bad. Think about it beyond the SEO perspective - any business should list itself in directories that would bring customers. One thing you should never do is pay for a directory listing - that's a paid link and we all know how Google feels about those.

Regarding your competitors, there are so many other factors that could be contributing to their rankings (domain age, keywords in URL, site architecture, unique linking domains, quality of on-site content, social media sharing) that I would not consider the directories as a major source of juice.

To echo what EGOL said, Google is an intelligent search engine, and it will sniff out your tactic.

Concentrate on the basics - write quality content and promote it aggressively. This will be far more cost and time effective than sitting there and developing manufactured links.