I would most definitely write it out as inch & inches and even in. when necessary.

A simple Google search for intitle:48" will show you that Google ignores the inch mark on this search.

Another search of intitle:" shows no results.

Any search I can find using "inches" does not return a result with " in the title.A simple search for most keywords with synonyms or alternate versions shows the synonym or alt version in at least some pages. Inches does not.

(Dinner shows dinner, dining & diner. Autos shows results for cars. Inches does not show " and a search for 10" shows results for 10, not "10 inches")

So yes, I would use the full words in this case.

It depends on the setup of your site, to be honest.

If you have a Wordpress, Joomla, etc. with really easy access header sections that you can put the code in once and it's done forevermore no matter what pages are added, that's the simplest way.

If your dev can script it to add to each page through the sitemap, that's also a one & done way.

The only thing you really don't want to do is have to add a hreflang tag to every new page you add to the site. As long as you can avoid that, you should be right. We had a client add it to their sitemap but the sitemap wasn't auto-generating the tag so each time they updated they had to re-implement the tags. That was a frustrating time ... now we've got it automatically updating so it's much easier to maintain.

I assume you mean an "official" change of address in Search Console?  Yes, if this is an official, permanent move then you should do the official change of address in WMT.

Use the change of address tool

If you've moved your site to a new domain or subdomain, use the Change of address tool in Search Console. A change of address notification helps you manage the transition needed by Google to index your new URLs at the new address, while minimizing impact to your current ranking in Google Search results.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

Click through rate is an excellent line of thought as well. Nice one. You're 100% right, as well.

There really isn't a higher authority than "Google said so in WMT guidelines" when it comes to SEO for your site.

I know they're looking for case study or whatnot but all I can suggest is explain that Guidelines ARE the rules, Guidelines specifically and directly cover this question. So you should follow the Guidelines.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en says "Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site."

I looked for case studies on this but search is done in words not numbers so I assume it's because it's fairly obvious that it can only help. Good luck!

I'll do the best I can, which is take you directly to the source:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=en

"Consider organizing your content so that URLs are constructed logically and in a manner that is most intelligible to humans (when possible, readable words rather than long ID numbers)."

That's fairly clear and exactly what you're trying to get at. This article is a direct piece of the "Webmaster Guidelines" section - and should be followed where possible. This should be enough to get you across the line.

I also think most SEOs would agree that Google uses keywords in the URL to at least some extent. We know they use search with synonyms and related keywords. So if your URL contains /seo/ it's much more related to "seo" searches than /123/ is. So yes, it will help. It's hard (impossible) to quantify by how much though.

Ideally you will want to map each page to the most relevant page. Most relevant doesn't always mean identical or even "all that similar" but even the Matt Cutts video on the same topic says get as close as possible.

Sometimes a 301 is done as the brand is changing part of what they do. Again, all you can do if you don't offer a particular service is come close. Think about the user - if you were a wedding, portrait & commercial photographer and you stop doing weddings where would you direct these visitors? Well nothing on the site is going to be completely relevant so ... should you direct them to portraits? Maybe create a new page that says "we no longer shoot weddings but recommend these 4 photographers:" or should you just redirect to homepage?

If your goal is to keep as much of the SEO juice as possible, direct it to the closest page - this maybe homepage or portraits page in the above case. If you want to provide the best user experience, perhaps the "We don't shoot it" page - so it depends on your goals.

Most SEOs I know don't know this but yes, some sites are legally required to have alt text. However, they are government sites, those who accept federal dollars or anyone who's tied to the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, (“508 Standards”).

You can read more about these accessibility requirements here: http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/proposed-rule/ii-executive-summary

While alt text is not required for a standard commercial or informational business (as far as I know), it does help with long tail traffic, though not always the kind that converts. I would want alt text on a clothing store's images but not necessarily on a page about eye surgery. (People are unlikely to hire a doctor based on a nice photo.)

You will have to keep an eye on it. The more searches are done on the YP sites, the more these links build and over time they do work against you. I agree with everyone else that they shouldn't but the reality is, we've seen them in penalty notices. Google thinks 4000 links coming from yp.com.au, yp.net.au, yellowpages.com.au and yellowpages.net.au are spammy, nofollow or not.

Jason Mun had the same issue: http://jasonmun.com/links-yellowpages-unnatural-according-google/

It's interesting to note that he's also referring to the AU version of Yellow Pages even though we've seen it with the .coms as well.

Anyhoo - I would leave it for now. Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't become a bigger problem.

Edit to add: it does depend on your ad itself - don't use any links within the page. And be careful with how many you let this build to.

We're all students of the game. I hope I never stop learning about marketing.

I had read about the sitemap implementation but never tried it. Then I ran into an enterprise client who has over 40,000 indexed pages & 20 separate languages.

One of the languages didn't have a subfolder but all the rest did. Instead of coding it in, I figured my way through sitemaps & thought it was SO much easier in the end. I've used it a few times since and it's great.

No, you don't need to worry. If you've implemented hreflang into the sitemap properly, it will work and you don't have to worry about the Moz reading. Moz tries to cover off the main things that affect you and give you an indication of what Google may like & dislike on your site but by no means are the implementations of everything exactly the same. So yes, Google will understand your 'duplicate' page titles are not.

@Patrick - you can definitely implement hreflang in sitemap. I was surprised when I saw that the first time, too, but I've tried it for a few clients lately and it works well.