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Hey fellow Mozzers,
I was performing a link audit for a client and came across a link linking to a deep page for our client with the link being anchored to a targeted keyword. It's a freelance article that is well written and deals with our client's industry but indirectly. The page has no PR but decent PA and DA. My question is, is there the possibility that Penguin would consider it spammy? The link is located in the author tagline at the bottom of the article. Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks!

We have an e-commerce site that, according to Moz, has too many on page links. The main navigation has top level links and about 45 sub-category links. Our question is -- Should we keep the main navigation and top level categories as do follow and change the sub-category navigation to no follow? Or, should we make the top level categories no follow and keep the sub-category navigation do follow?

For obvious reasons, we have submitted our clients to high authority directories such as Yahoo! Directory and Business.com. However, with all of the algorithm updates lately, we've tried to cut back on the paid directories that we submit our clients to. Having said that, my question is, is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic? Or are paid directories, with the exception of BBB.com, a bad SEO tactic?

For example, if blog.mountainmedia.com were to link a product picture directly to mountainmedia.com. Would this be considered a high quality backlink?

Hi everyone, Our company works extensively with ecommerce website, and we're beginning to wonder with all of the impending Google updates what our best bets for internal linking practices will be, in particular when it comes to menu options. We typically set up our navigation with top-level categories in the main menu, then drop downs to the sub-category level pages. Our question is, should the links in the drop-down menus be followed, and if so, should they be followed links across all pages of the website, or just on the homepage menu list, or not at all? We're trying to figure out what will pass the most internal linking power without being too much and overly "spammy," I guess. Thanks for your input!

Hello SEOmoz folks, I'm curious as to whether it will be more beneficial for a website to host a video on the site itself or to host it on YouTube and then embed the code on your site. The options so far, as it seems, are: 1.) Host the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever else, then embed the YouTube code into your own website's HTML. 2.) Host the video on your own website by itself. 3.) Host the video on your own website AND YouTube AND Vimeo. I'm wondering which option is best. And if hosting your video on your own website is a good way to go, whether to go that route solely or in addition to hosting on YouTube, what is the best way to go about that? Do I have to embed a player AND the video info into the HTML of my website? What player is best for this? Flash, or something else? And once I get the video on my site one way or the other, how do I write the code to make sure the video thumbnail shows up next to my search results in Google to maximize the SEO potential for the video clip? Sorry for the long question, but I've been searching everywhere for this and I'd love just a direct answer on it. Thanks for your help! Cheers, Dani

I have a client that is strong locally - and the majority of the (converting) traffic that she gets is through branded keywords. Her traffic is at about ~200 visits a month. She is ranking for some non-branded keywords, but is in a highly competitive niche - gift baskets - and isn't converting for non-branded keywords. The domain authority of the website is at 27, with the homepage authority at 39. Because she is already strong locally I don't necessarily see the need to build local citations for her. What strategies would you suggest to help increase the traffic and conversion of her website? It isn't a new website - the domain was purchased in 2002. I'm just at a loss here in terms of what we can do as an SEO company to help her build an audience - we have already been writing guest posts for publication for her, and she doesn't have the budget for high-cost directories that would really help her authority. We haven't really ventured into conversion rate optimization or multivariate testing - but I feel like what needs to happen right now is the boosting of her traffic overall. What say you all?

A client recently bought an older domain that is keyword-rich to an aspect of his company. The main website has both e-commerce and call-to-action elements. Our team is split on whether or not to create a micro-site on that domain focused on that aspect of the work that he does or to simply redirect the old domain to his main website. I have not had the opportunity to look at the link profile of the recently acquired domain nor do I have any idea of how many times it's changed hands (which would seem to now be a possible indicator of doorway pages). If any clarification would help, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer.