Both Egol and Ricky have pointed out major some failings - duplicate content and lack of links.
But I ask other than cleansing links what else are you doing for them besides tracking them on MOZ?
Here are a few more things that shout to Google that this domain is a flash in the pan:

• domain expires in six months
• reference to a favicon that doesn't load
• social is weak - last G+ post 4/22/2013, only 4 have them in a circle. last tweet 4/22, only 23 FB likes, no post since 4/22
• is there a XML sitemap?
• only local listing I could find was on <cite>www.placesforward.com</cite>
• no schema.org markup for address and location
• unclaimed on Yelp.com - claim them and get reviews (and on Google places)
  Google maps returns 8,970 results for insurance near Las Vegas, NV - lots of competition here you need to get them to stand out
  First solid link I would procure for them would be one from the LV chamber of commerce. then Henderson, and Boulder City and other local CCs.
  Develop some good national link bait - a top ten list built around LV and insurance would be a good start - with some humor. Then top ten things that stay in Vegas that are insurable...
  Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work...

Got it. 301 to your server where it's parsed. The details are here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9896877/dns-redirect-domain-to-subdomain

So you want your cake and eat it too? Don't we all! I think getting a thousand links to the root domain would be satisfaction enough.

One way would be to have the entrance page for all vendors be the same page. Each vendor would have a section on an auto scrollable layer (but without user scrolling).

Each vendor would have a distinctive page section href anchor IBL

<a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </a<span>name="ABCstore">.ABC Store info and links <a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </a<span>name="XYZstore">.XYZ Store info and links
Each vendor would have a unique looking URL but all created urls would look the same to the bots, as they would ignore all to the right of the hashtag.
http://store.yourdomain.com/index.html#ABCstore, http://store.yourdomain.com/index.html#XYZstore, etc.

When the page loads the tagged vendor would display in the "open" area of the page for that layer so each vendor would appear to be unique.

The drawback would be the size of the page and number of links out.

James-

We are also considering using Zemanta - I've been quoted $2k a month minimum for related articles and $3K for In-text links. Did you just negotiate a lower minimum?

Also are you using In-text or related article and in your opinion which method is the more valuable link.

Thanks, Chas Blackford-LegalMatch

Thanks for the reply. As managing web production is one of my responsibilities reducing the number of 404s for a 600K site has priority (for me - hence the question). Our company has 40 plus active campaigns and countless ad groups - and therefore thousands of display URLs. My motivation in asking this question is to reduce 404s -  if I can convince our paid search staff that there is value (other than less work for me) to following a best practice, then I might expect a degree of buy-in on their part.

As Pashima alludes to below, from a conversion standpoint making your landing page relevant to your ad and search terms would seem the goal for a company like Google that professes to be all about the UX. not to mention your own internal ROI tracking.

THX for your feedback Pashima - we actually have seen a few cases of it (I would believe from users that remember a display URL for later use). But as a percentage of all visits it's infinitesimal.
I actually misstated the adscore question, as of course Google has no idea if the URL was manually entered. I should have asked "Does Google check to see if the display URL actually goes to a landing page and if not, is there an adscore penalty".

I feel it's a best practice (from a user experience POV) to create a 301redirect when using a fictitious display URL in your PPC ads. And according to the AdWords help page (http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175906&rd=2) Google doesn't have an issue using a redirect. "Redirects used for tracking purposes are fine as long as the final landing page has the same domain as the display URL."

I'm curious if there is ad score penalty if one does not ionclude a redirect - i.e. the user types in your display URL and gets a 404. Has anyone seen an evidence of this?

Jonathan-

I can appreciate you frustration - what point2propertymanager.com has is better (much better) overall domain authority and trust than your site - this outweighs your better on page SEO. Although your competitor's page links are internal, those links are passing strong link juice from the root domain. Examining their IBLs in Open Site Explorer shows domains with DA of 100 (e.g. adobe.com - and while those 100 DA links are nofollows, they still send a strong domain trust signal) - your site doesn't have a data available in OSE, but it would undoubtedly show your IBLs to both fewer and weaker.

In short, if you want better SERPs, you'll need to get quality IBLs through serious, systematic link building.

Chas

Jonathan-

Your follow up reaffirms my suggestions where you need to take this to move up on your competitors. Link building is a difficult and multifaceted task, requiring dedications, perseverance (lots),  research and some charm (and persuasion). There have been numerous blog posts on SEOmoz (and elsewhere) regarding link building techniques; read them all - if your budget can handle it, there are some very savvy (and white hat) link builders out there that can help you but their services are not inexpensive.

Other methods include getting your users raving about how great your software is - offer free trials, killer customer service, urge your users to blog about you, get reviews, post those reviews on your site in a Google acceptable micro format.

best of luck along with your hard work

Jonathan -

Always a difficult task chasing (and obsessing over) a high a SERP. My search for your KW in Google found you at position 8. Perhaps your results are skewed by your search history and/or being logged into a Google account, which can personalize search results that give a higher weight to frequented searches and results (your own site).

Looking at you your competitors link profiles show much stronger domain authority and vastly greater number of links. You have only 1 externally followed link.Your on page SEO is better than some of them, but the strength of their link profiles trumps that.

Also check you loads times - I noticed your site was slow to come up, and I checked it in Google Page Speed where it time out, although a refresh did bring up an acceptable 83., so perhaps there is a third party item loading that is hanging up.

All things being equal, Google will put the most (or best) linked to site ahead. Quality links from trusted domains are the best way to insure a stronger, more consistent ranking.

Chas

I've been curious about this question myself and your post prompted me to do a little research. I'm not sure I've reached a ironclad conclusion yet but here's a little of what I found. First there are mixed opinions about the value. A SEO for WordPress presentation @ San Francisco in 2011 by Sujan Patel indicated that using tags weren't worth the potential broken link and duplicate content hassles (see slide 15 of his PPT).

In another opinion I came across, "attaching tags to each content asset, article or post does very little for the SEO (search engine optimization) of any singular article on a B2B blog or website. Used properly, however, content tagging makes your blog or website much better.

The author goes on to say "the SEO value of tags (as well as categories) is not in the association of keywords with a particular article or content asset (as many believe), but instead in the aggregated content that appears on the tag/category page that most CMS platforms generate automatically."

A third article flatly stated "Tags add specificity to your blog posts that help both search engines and visitors find relevant information on your webpage." My takeaway is tags are good for the user if used relevantly and not gratuitously (e.g. keyword stuffing). That seems to mesh with Google's mantra about writing for the user.

To throw in my 2 cents, the benefit in rewriting the URL (and making a 301) comes from Google's ability to then clearly recognize the keywords that you're using within it (assuming that you're synching your on page KWs). Google views hot_keyword_landing_page.html as hotkeywordlandingpage.html -  Matt Cutts on underscores vs. dashes in URLs. The downside is having to keep the 301 in place if the page has IBLs.

Your H1 is coded to render as an image (in Firefox, not so in Chrome ) but I don't know how well the bots read this kind of code - here's what I pull from your source code for your H1 tag::
<div class="uscontinue">

<div id="post-3126" class="post"><div class="ptitle"><h1><cufon class="cufon cufon-canvas" alt="Skyward " style="width: 125px; height: 38px;"><cufon class="cufon cufon-canvas" alt="Sword " style="width: 93px; height: 38px;"><cufon class="cufon cufon-canvas" alt="Walkthrough" style="width: 176px; height: 38px;"><canvas width="192" height="38" style="width: 192px; height: 38px; top: 1px; left: -1px;">canvas><cufontext>Walkthroughcufontext>cufon>h1>div>

here's what I would expect (and the bots as well!):

Skyward Sword Walkthrough

301 it to the most appropriate substitute. I think it'll be easier to manage your redirect list than to juggle so many pages. You should see the impact in analytics, especially if you are tracking eCom and/or goals. Bounce rates will probably come down and time on page go up. Good luck on this.

Are your rivals outpacing you in quality inbound links over time? It would appear that way as the #1 SERP http://www.zeldadungeon.ne has a PA of 70 ( root domains links) and while http://www.zeldainformer.com/16-skyward-sword/walkthrough.html has PA 39 ( 4 root domains 318 links) its DA is much higher than yours with 708 linking root domains vs, your 125.

Also compare your page's Page Speed score with your competitors and see if you can improve it's load time (you score an 82/100) https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/.

Also I think your title could be improved with some branding -
Skyward Sword Walkthrough | Legend Zelda Net
Also change out the images for H tags in the page headers

As SEOconsult noted, knowing a little more about the nature of your products would be helpful. I'll make an assumption that these products, while unique, have a relationship or similarity with other products you have. You could judiciously use 301 redirects (or possibly a 302 if you expect the non-existent item to eventually reappear). This is especially important if an item has acquired an external link. Eventual kill the 301 when the SEs have cleansed their index of it.

Situations like this are very common for eCom retailers - 2011 Fall Sweaters are no longer relevant (or available) - but for a good UX you'd want a searcher who found you (your sweaters) through a SERP to be redirected to a similar product (2012 Spring Sweaters).

Having a page of sold items may do you better service as a means of demonstrating credibility to potential customers as a trusted purveyor who has sold many items of XXXXXX. As for upsetting Google by removing indexed pages, quite the contrary - by removing pages and using redirects, you're telling Google come back frequently, this site is dynamic and changes often, therefore it is current and more relevant than a static, unchanging site.

Yes it's acceptable - the key is utilizing CSS and use a DOCTYPE with a DTD to present a different UX based on the device. Work with an experience coder who can structure the page template to put the content first, minimizing scripts, etc - you want to score high on the Google page speed test (https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/).

Then test across all devices you think 80% plus visitors will be using (check your Google Analytics to profile browsers, OS, devices and resolution)

BTW - Here's what Google has to say about SEOmoz (scoring an 83/100)
High priority. These suggestions represent the largest potential performance wins for the least development effort. You should address this item first:
Leverage browser caching
Medium priority. These suggestions may represent smaller wins or much more work to implement. You should address these items next:
Minimize redirects, Optimize images
Low priority. These suggestions represent the smallest wins. You should only be concerned with these items after you've handled the higher-priority ones:
Inline Small CSS, Enable compression, Defer parsing of JavaScript, Minify CSS, Specify a cache validator, Minify JavaScript, Minify HTML, Specify a character set, Optimize the order of styles and scripts, Remove query strings from static resources, Specify a Vary: Accept-Encoding header

Q1. Google won't index incoming tagged links from email, bookmarks, etc. (although Google Analytics will pick them - and you can configure Analytics to ignore tags - see screenshot - a necessity when understanding PPC traffic in GA). To be sure, try this query to see if you're getting any pages that have tagged incoming links like that indexed:
site:www.mysite.com html?
Q2. Xenu (or a bot) will only find what is put out to be crawled. If tagged URLs are published somewhere, all bets  are off (or bots on).
Why not tag with unique identifiers that only you have the key for? RB92102 = Rob Brown in San Diego?

removequerystring.png

F-

Google Places permits an upload of multiple business locations @ https://www.google.com/local/add/g?hl=en-US&gl=US#uploadfeed
you may want to review this help page:
Common issues that delay the bulk verification process:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=173669
This caveat may hinder a bulk upload:
Multiple listings at the same physical location are not permitted within one feed. Please consolidate multiple services or businesses under one title.

As for your example URL from an SEO perspective, underscores between words are a programming legacy from days when spaces could be misinterpreted between Unix and Windows servers and are not conducive to good SEO. With an underscore Google joins the two words and sees them that way so landing_page is seen as landingpage whereas landing-page is seen as landing page. See this Matt Cutts video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AQcSFsQyct8

Is there any other way to differentiate locations (branch ID) that convey more meaningful information (from an SEO perspective) and that would permit you to utilize Google Places? A suite number, even if it's superfluous?
C

Ferguson-

Hard to answer definitively without knowing your content/target. Numbers in your URL don't mean anything to SEs unless it's a keyword (like a ZIP, area code or model) - what does 0304 tell me or Google? You mention the possibility of multiple pages for a location, so if I assume the nature of the content for these pages is different I'd say you'd want to optimize the URLs to bolster your on page SEO. Let's say you have a site for dentists and the like, then your URLs might be:
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/orthodontists
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/dentists
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/oral-surgeons

If the differences are purely location within a ZIP code for nearly identical stores (think Starbucks) then I'd let Google Places do the SEO work for you.

Google will index them all if they are correctly built to prevailing SEO standards, with optimal nav navigation, good hierarchy, perfect on page optimization, etc. Each of your domains is targeting a slightly different segment of the same market, so "retail leather sofas" and wholesale leather sofas" target their specific niches; you'll be competing against yourself for "leather sofas' (and a whole lot of other sites) but if your content is good (and differs across properties) you shouldn't have an issue getting indexed.

Our sites has 12 sub-domains covering specific sub-categories of the same general topic - with over 600K pages - 95% are indexed, and frequently pages from two or more sub-domains appear for the same search query, even though the page layouts and templates are virtually identical and have the same IP address. It's the content that differentiates them, yet at the same time makes them relevant for the same KW phrase.

Minor differences such as a suite make no difference - company description, city, and ZIP should be consistent across all local listings - Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, Trip Adviser, etc.

Here's some good links for details / suggestions for consistency:
The Basics of Local SEO - Whiteboard Friday
Dissecting Local SEO Via Competitive Analysis

Local Search Data Providers @ get listed.org

Links to Local Search Universe

Search Engine Land Locals Only:
http://searchengineland.com/what-not-to-do-on-local-business-websites-81650

I disagree. One might infer that using Google's site search product on your site might be a ticket in that just doesn't seem to be the case as the site I work for utilized Google's first search appliance back in 2004 and now uses Google's site search. As a "go figure" example, here's two large online cycling retailers - one earns search, the other doesn't (Performance Bike, Bike Nashbar). neither is using Google site search.

A terse response on the GWT help forum answers that same question with "There is nothing you can do. Google will add it automatically if the algorithm deems the site worthy." Just as with sitelinks being a product of search volume and clear navigation choices, it would seem Google would be looking for similar qualities here. It's not necessarily site traffic volume, as neither Macys or Target earn this feature. This is an ask Matt Cutts question at the next SES or SMX.

Having too many links is the least of your worries on these pages. Looking at the view source there's a lot of code (508 lines of it) clogging up the bots path to any content, let alone the links. Your menu structure is over complex from a code point of view, the pages are rendered in tables, there's a lot of on page JavaScript that could be minified and/or accessed thru a separate file,  I don't see an

tag here's the link to one of your stylesheets

Your example About Us page scores a very low 57/100 on Google's page speed tester - that alone could be a reason the pages aren't being indexed well.

Looks like programmers we're driving the bus when the site was built.

We have successfully rolled out 5 sub-domains using very industry specific KWs as the sub, e.g. familylawyers. We're rolling our an employment focused sub.and ideally would use employmentlawyers.XXX.com.

However I'm tempted to use a long established (5+ years) sub-domain with a topic related KW that now hosts a non-active blog with PR3 -  employment-law.XXXX.com. It has 49 indexed pages, some with PR2. So there's potential for getting a kickstart on traffic and trust with some redirects. Should I go for instant gratification or build for the long haul with the slightly more beneficial URL KWing?

I should add that this sub-domain will have thousands of pages that are geo and sub-category focused - a typical URL would be. sub-domain.XXX.com/TX/Austin/wrongful-termination-lawyers.html

THX for any opinions.

I have used the mechanical turk in a reputation management scenario to help move a negative search suggest down, down, down by having other searches conducted by turks, such as "brandname coupons", "brandname reviews". (The term was "brandname scam". ) Only a set number a week were tasked and always a different combo of terms. The actual mechanical turk task contracted for was at face value legit - to search for the particular set of terms and note where in the top 10 search results the "brandname" domain fell.