I recommend robots text noindex, nofollow.

That way people can still see the pages they just aren't indexed in Google yet.

As we developed some new pages on one of our sites we did this and we could still view pages and send folks there that we wanted to see the content for feedback - but no one else knew they were there.

Hey Strathcom - That is strange as they did stop with texts and phone calls because of folks gaming the system.  The only way to do it was through a postcard.

But if you have the phone option do it to a direct line or your cellphone just for the verification process.  I did this previously and it didn't pull the phone number through to the listing.

Just did a little more research - Apparently one reason they do offer phone verification is if it was already listed and needs to verified only or you previously verified by phone.

Great question I was thinking the same thing after hearing about the excellent info I keep hearing about.  I will watch this thread to see who gives the best answer!

I have been able to get YouTube vid's to have a thumbnail appear in the SERP's on the first page for extremely high competitive search terms.  Obviously this drives traffic.

The methods I used were:

Keyword in Title - in a natural (non-stuffed) manner

Keyword and link to the site in the Description

Keyword in the tags

Strong video views and embeds on other sites - I don't think I have it embedded anywhere on a high PR site.

Here is the video and keyword it ranks for so you can see what I did - Google search phrase - best lsat prep. The video thumbnail is in the 7th spot & receives several hundred views per month. Also #3 for the search term best lsat preparation on Google