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I track several niches that I am not in so I am not to biased with my own, and I noticed one site despite its rather mediocre quality, never moves.  I have seen other websites rise and fall in rank, a few with pretty good content. He writes reviews, but very obviously never touched the products he reviews.  However I see some other sites with real photos, and good advice for making a decision - they will sit on page two or three. I havent done a lot of research other than the size of the sites, and the links, and they are about equal. Sometimes the ranking site is smaller (its about 90 pages in google).  The other sites I have seen have more content on one topic as well, which is interesting google opts for his one page "once over" review over something more in depth and authentic. It got me thinking about whether some sites are white listed by google, as in hand picked to rank despite what else is out there. Is this possible?

One of my competitors rose above me drastically, above everyone actually.  His website has a sidebar on the homepage, but when you click a post it leads to a full width page of his content - with no sidebar at all.  The only button on page is HOME. My site has the sidebar on all pages, meaning juice is flowing around in all directions.  Would it be smarter for me to remove my sidebar as well?  In theory, this would create a boost in rankings correct?

One of my competitors has something implemented on his website where if you click a link thats internal, it tries to load the page and then directs you to the affiliate website. I think its to help his bounce rate because it loads a secondary page, waits a few seconds, then redirects.  Is this allowed? If it is, I think I should implement it. Any information would be helpful.  He is running wordpress

I would like to switch my sidebar from listing Category Name with posts listed below each- to a concise custom menu. This custom menu would list the top three products I am promoting first, and then go on to list the categories on my site. Currently it looks like this (but with 6 categories, with between 7-10 items in each - this is on EVERY page) Widgets
-Green Widget
-Blue Widget Gidwets
-Big Gidwet
-Small Gidwet I rank well in google right now, but I am concerned that changing my sidebar will result in a penalty.  Maybe for over-optimizing my top three products I promote, or possibly for trying to control the flow of link juice. Can anyone chime in here who has adjusted their site structure within wordpress, and tell me what you found worked best? ** Before anyone asks**, this structure does work much better for the user.  My sidebar now is massive, and is confusing even to me.