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You could be experiencing what is known as the "Google dance".  I've noticed many sites will drop several ranks or even pages, only the next day to see they jumped forward 5-15+ ranks from where they started.

You actually want to noindex, nofollow your login page.  So as mentioned, you can ignore it, but I would go one step further and block it from the search results.

Nearly the exact same thing happened here in the last 48 hours.  PR4 personal blog that was ranking #1 for 20-30 Wordpress related search terms.  Now I'm page 3-10+.... Right as my blog was getting picked up and I got a small (~50) influx of +1's, my site dropped 10 pages in results!

I made a few .gov sites in the passed, and USED to have ~200,000 .gov backlinks.  My domain authority was 20+ points higher than it currently is.

My best bet on what to make out of all of this is that Google is cracking down on .gov/.edu "authority" links.

You always want 100% unique content if you can get it. End of story.

You have to do your own testing / look back at your old rankings.

It took me X amount of time to achieve 35% difficulty

It took me X amount of time to achieve 45% difficulty

It took me X amount of time to achieve 55% difficulty

It took me X amount of time to achieve 65% difficulty

Above 75% difficulty you will need to be working with an aged authority domain or be a true ninja.

Yes.  Since the files will be the same, you're just swapping the domain.

Heyas,

So I got great news for you.  Since Step 2 results in identical file structures, you shouldn't need crazy 301's.

In fact, all you need to do is setup a wildcard redirect. In IIS, edit web.config file, modify or add
the following section to its rewrite section

 <rewrite><rules><rule name="old to new" enabled="true"><match url="(.*)"><conditions><add input="{HTTP_HOST}" negate="true" pattern="^www\.([.a-zA-Z0-9]+)$"></add></conditions> 
         <action type="Redirect" url="<a href=" http:="" www.newdomain.com="" {r:0"="">http://www.NEWDOMAIN.com/{R:0}" appendQueryString="true" redirectType="Permanent" /></action></match></rule></rules></rewrite> 

Additionally, you can use the web install manager to install the
RewriteModule. Coming from *, I actually will give praise to M$
 on the GUI / ease of use.

I've ranked position #1 for a national search term with a keyword difficulty of .46 and 86,000,000 competing results. Also ranked for a few .60+ difficulty keywords. Speaking from experience....

Your website, on-site, is presumably the only thing that you have absolute control of on the internet.  Any 3rd party blogs, links, wikis, portals, Q&A, etc are controlled by someone else who can turn you off at will.

By this logic, in Google's eyes, your on-site optimization including content is the only thing you own. You can change the content to the Nth degree, same with the code.

I like to use the analogy of a bucket (your website) with a bunch of holes in it (ranking factors). The more of the on-site factors you satisfied, the more water (linkjuice) you will retain.

Another analogy is building motors. You can slap a turbo onto any motor and see an increase. (Motor = website, turbo = links) However, the V8 is going to kick out more power than the wimpy little Honda fart-cannon.

Focus on optimizing your onsite stuff, and the rest becomes MUCH easier.

In Google Webmaster tools, you can set your geo location.

Why don't you try?

My gut is saying yes, seeing how you can use IFRAMEs.

If I am hearing you correctly, you're basically purchasing a typo domain name? Or one that could potentially infringe on another's digital assets?

Seems like a whole lot of work to me.

I concur with the following advice given.

Nothing short of the cloud beats having 100/mbs download speeds.

On a side note, VPS cloud nodes have become the new rage.  While cheaper than a dedicated server, here has been but one experience:

I went from a 8.4ghz 5.14gb cloud setup (14 nodes at VPS.net) to a local (to Seattle) dedicated quad proc with only 6gb ram.  The second server is well over 40% faster than the VPS cloud.

For canonical URLS, all that matters is that everything is redirected to the same place.

Example:
TLD.com
www.TLD.com
TLD.com/
www.TLD.com/
TLD.com/index.html
www.TLD.com/index.html
TLD.com/index.html/
www.TLD.com/index.html/

All those need to point to the same place.  In your scenario, I would go with the TLD.com (no www).

In physics, Average Velocity = (change in position) / (elapsed time)

Link Velocity: Change in # of links indexed / time

So let's say week 1 you build and index 100 links, then the next week you build 200 links.

Your velocity would then be +100 links/week, or a rate of change of 1. (200-100 / 100 = 1 .... (week 2 - week1) / week 1 = change)

Let's say then on week 3 you build another 200 links.  Your link velocity, compared to the prior week, is ZERO. ( 200 - 200 / 200 )  This is because you're not accelerating. Zero is not a bad thing. Zero means you're treading water

Then on week 4, you only build 100 links. Compared to week 3, your link velocity would be -0.5 (100 - 200 / 200). This indicates your links aren't coming in as fast / slowing down. DUH

So what does this all mean?

Google uses link velocity to measure trends and hot topics.  Websites that with positive link velocity are considered to be trending upwards; that is, becoming more popular.

Agh.. response got deleted (my fault).

Option a) force the non-www canonical URL. Moving forward, build all links to non-www TLD

Option b) rebuild / update all your links to the www format

Also, I would really question the merits of your fire and forget link building. Link velocity is an important metric (also shows you're not "gaming" the system).

SEO by yoast, as mentioned, has all the features of many paid plugins from 2010, plus more.

Also, use W3 Total Cache, and be sure to minimize your CSS/JS. This will significantly reduce page load + headspace.

Be sure to WWW canonical fix as well, which can be done via htaccess or a plugin if you're code adverse.

Directory submissions are fine, but they are low value. In-context links and video should be your primary focus.

My best bet is that you're using an old, out-dated version of osCommerce.  At any rate, I would venture that you're code is horrendous.

Remove all nested tables, inline css, inline js, combine and minify all external files etc.

Make life easier on yourself, spend some coin in a solid multivariate testing framework.

Free tools rarely offer the firepower of a commercial product.

This one seems decent: http://monetate.com/features/power-features-list/

Neverblue. Best one, hands down.

Yes, absolutely -- unique, relevant, and engaging content is always going to be king.

Just so you're warned, you're creating a spaghetti soup for yourself.

For example, what happens when a given domain falls short of first page... or worse yet, is twenty pages back.

"Link building," you say.

Ok that's great -- but what if all five sites fail to reach their target? You've now created a mini-net for yourself, which is undoubtedly more work than a single domain.

I'm sure you've already thought of this, but be warned!

I've had this debate several times. Google has developed a reasonably intelligent bot, and as such, NO you are not going to get penalized, and NO do not block the search engines.

TBH, the whole mobile search index is absurd to me. Google's whole position is to "end your search".  Why would the quality of results or the "answer" change just because you're on a mobile device. smackhead

It's partially about your feed file. Make sure that it is filled out completely and accurately.

It's also about the user's shopping experience -- reviews, timeliness, complaints, etc.

Unrelated, but on Amazon you don't want to create a massive feed and submit it all at once. I would additionally look at this and relate it to "link velocity" -- "product velocity" if you will -- and be sure to always have a positive slope.

Yes.  Every press release I put out get's syndicated to 5,000+ websites.  Same content... thousands of different TLDs, yet massive backlinks and near instant increase in rankings.

From experience, only the first few dozen sites that quote the source will be put in the primary index.  Everyone else will end up in the supplementary index.

Too early to tell.  Google is rolling out to many massive changes for any reliable unit testing, IMHO.

These are often dubbed "Google Sniper Sites". I would NEVER recommend simply creating a one-page site. It take all of 5 minutes to add in the additional pages which will add valuable creditability to your site.

I would first determine the commercial intent / KPI of the domains.  Are you selling a physical product, info product, building a list, etc. This will determine the voice / message used for the next steps.

Create your landing page: 500-1200 words, 1-3% KWD, and intelligent use of LSI keywords. H1,H2,H3 main keyword, main keyword in first and last sentences.

I would then take the same article, and create a video that is in alignment with the core concept.  Your video should be no less than 3 minutes. Longer the better -- seeing how videos will drive on-site time up. Direct sales-pitches are generally a no-no, as you want to build a personal connection with your reader and walk them through the emotional buying process. IE. solve their problems and touch on fear, vanity, greed.

Last but not least, you need to add in: about, contact, privacy, terms of service pages.

You can add in some additional on-site tricks, such as hiding the action button until the video is completely done playing. Also the new craze is revealing/flashing sub-headlines three seconds after page load. This forces the readers eyes back to the headline and prevents skimming.

I actually just got done with a similar issue.

The best way to take care of this, in my humble opinion, is to delete the claimed (and inferior) listing. Do this first.

http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=154102

Then, claim the better listing like normal.