Daniel,

I highly advise against any such method of link building. The proper link building technique is to earn links. If the links are given away free to anyone, you did not earn them. Google often views free directory links as manipulative and "inorganic".

You need to closely examine each directory. Is it a quality directory? Can anyone get in or are there authentic standards which cause a percentage of websites to be rejected? Does the directory comply with Google's Guidelines?

I have worked with multiple clients who have been penalized as a direct result of similar links to what you are describing. The result is the clients had to contact each linking site and request the links be removed. This process is very time consuming and expensive. It costs many times more to remove the links then to get them in the first place. Once again, I strongly advise against ever using any directory submission site. Even if you do not earn a penalty, the links simply offer no value.

Regarding a bridge page, Google's policies are quite clear and can be located here: http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=190435

In brief, the defining factor is whether or not your web page offers a true value to users. Are your reviews authentic, unique and sincerely helpful? Are they well presented? If so, then it would not be considered a bridge page.

How many affiliate links is considered too many?

Too many for what exactly? Are you trying to rank your website in organic search? If so you need to understand each link you add detracts from the overall link value of your page.

Too many for users? Begin by using your best judgement and perform A/B testing.

In short, if you configure your site to provide the most authentic value for users and you succeed, Google will not have any problem with your site. If you attempt to manipulate your users or Google, then you are risking a penalty.

It can't be done with respect to Google's visibility. Anyone can link to you at any time and there is nothing you can do about it.

The main positive action you can take is to earn as many good links as possible so if you get some bad links pointed to your site they will only represent a small percentage of your total links.

I know people hate this answer but we have to trust Google has systems in place to deal with black hat SEO tactics of link spamming a competitor's site.

If you wanted to go to extreme measures, you can block a link from reaching your site in your web server settings. On Apache servers (the most common servers) you can do it in the htaccess file. Once again, this is not recommended but those who are extremely determined to block the links from working can do it this way.

Yes.

Google and Bing are two independent companies which offer search results. If you wish to optimize your performance in Bing (Bing + Yahoo) then you should register with Bing WMT.

The first item we need to know: is this human translated content? Or is Google Translate or another similar tool being used?

If you are using auto-translated content, it wont rank. It is a violation of search engine guidelines. If you are using human translated content, ensure the translations are high quality. A few items to check:

• the translation should target a specific country rather then a specific language. Search engines results are provided by country such as Google France, Google UK, etc. Dialects of the same language also vary greatly by country such as Spanish from Mexico and Spain are quite different.

• the translation should account for the targeted countries monetary units and systems of measurement

• the translation should account for local customs, traditions, politics, etc.

• the page should use the proper language meta tags

• you will need to make a decision regarding content presentation. Will you use a unique subdomain? Or present the translated content in a folder?

There are numerous articles related to providing duplicate content in translated form. I suggest a quick site search will yield lots of results.

Hi Peter,

I sympathize with your situation. Since the home page is blank with just a login feature you have no information about the site or its purpose. A Google search for the site shows nothing but the home page. A WHOIS search shows the site owner is private.

There is no way to know the reason behind the traffic. Someone could have shared a "free stuff" post and for whatever reason provided a link to your site. When users arrive at your site they are of course disappointed then leave.

Some options:

• contact the site owner via the WHOIS e-mail. Ask the site owner to remove the link.

• block all traffic from Bangladesh. This option will work if all or most of the traffic is from that site.

• block all traffic which shows that site as a referrer. I have never implemented such a solution but your web host can likely offer options in this regard. You may have to implement a firewall.

Best wishes

Whats with the backslash in the url adding as duplicate content?

A backslash is viewed as a character. You could choose to present different content on a URL with a backslash versus without one.

mysite.com/testing does not necessarily offer the same content as mysite.com/testing/. Just because you choose to offer the same content on both pages does not mean search engines will understand your choice by default. Each URL is unique and viewed separately.

Is this a bug or something that needs to be addressed? If so, just use a redirect?

If you used the SEOmoz crawler and it notified you of an issue with some pages on your site which are viewed as duplicate content due to the addition of a backlash, it is not a bug. This issue should be addressed. A 301 redirect would likely be the best solution.