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1.  I check if any of my other pages or clients pages are already listed on that directory.  I look for referral traffic.  If the directory isn't free, and has only sent a small handful of referrals, I won't list with them again.

2. If we haven't listed with a directory, I will look at their Domain Rank.  If it's 60+, I'll do a free listing.  If it's 70+, I will consider doing a paid listing.

I'm going to make a leap and assume that your business & website isn't about art.  If this assumption is correct, then the answer to your question is that it doesn't matter.  Neither of those are money keywords.  Google thinks those keywords are about art.  See the images from Google Insights.

See also the image of a universal search for "new york painters".  Google Organic Search clearly believes that it's about art.  Google Local Search believes it's about painting companies.  This isn't a keyphrase you should be targeting organically.  You should be doing some Local SEO, though.

hHtV6

It is likely that your domain authority went down because the size of the index used by OSE shrank significantly.  Last month they indexed about 72 billion URLs, compared to 150 billion the month before.  This month they indexed even less, something like 68 billion URLs.

If some of your backlinks weren't indexed this time, you'll lose domain authority.  There's not a lot you can do about the index shrinking, unless you can provide a few million dollars worth of Hardware for SEOmoz to use.

One of our account managers messaged me today.  Click here to see the conversation:  http://imgur.com/apZ9Z  Does anyone have any tips for dealing with really ignorant clients?

That's going to be a tough one.  Beautiful people are popular on the internet.  It's just a fact.  There's probably quite a bit of anchor text links containing that last name, pointing at pictures of the glamour model.  There's probably also a large volume of searches looking for that glamour model, compared to a fairly small number of searches looking for your CEO.

My advice is to make it a joke, and become part of the joke.  Do your idea of a website with a URL containing the CEOs name, and optimize it for the CEOs name, etc.  On the site, post a pic of the glamour model.  Post some copy that says something like "Apparently, I share my last name with a glamour model.  I don't actually look like that.  If you were looking for the glamour model pictured on the right, and not a CEO with X years of experience in the X industry, click on the picture.  If you want to learn more about X CEO and my insights into the X industry, click here for my blog."

Ah, I misunderstood.  In that case, the short answer is that "painter in new york" and "painter new york" are not exactly the same.  However, as far as targeting it with your on-page SEO and your anchor text links, it makes little difference.  "painter new york" and "painter in new york" hits the same 3 keywords either way.  One does look much more natural than the other inside copy & anchor text, though.

Many of those listings do provide a link, but it's usually nofollowed or redirected somehow, so that it doesn't pass any juice.

They're still valuable listings to have for their citation value alone.  Local Search is critical for any business with a physical location.

I'd recommend using a Local Search product like Localeze, Axiom, ExpressUpdate, or UBL.  It's a lot less time consuming than going out there and manually updating all of your Local listings yourself.

I suggest installing a mod for your browser that will easily identify nofollowed links for you.  These extensions don't necessarily catch redirected links, so you'll need to hover your mouse to see exactly where that link is pointing.  If it doesn't simply say the website it's pointed at, it's probably redirected somehow.

Tools here