That's nonsense. Talk to Google about what? The automatic penalty that was applied? That apparently they cannot do anything about.

It's nice that you presume those that have been hit, have done something wrong. It seems common among those who have managed to dodge Panda, to presume they safe and that the rest of the world has done something to deserve their fate.

In my niche, it's image heavy and low on textual content. This is by nature and not due to any wrong doing. My user metrics are amazing and yet my website was hit by Panda recently.

I don't want to come across as being harsh, but I do feel your response was a little presumptuous and insensitive.

Google treats sub domains, almost as different domains.

I would keep sitemaps relative to their own subdomain.

Hello Aidan, welcome to SEOMoz.

As with all link building, keep it natural. Avoid link pages.

Only link to relevant websites within your niche. When you do, it's best to mention them within a blog post or similar. I'd avoid sidebars and footers.

Google will only have an issue, if it appears that you're trying to be manipulative. I personally also link with brand name, rather than targeting keywords.

Hope that helps.

That's true Ryan I guess it is coding related really.

Issues like this are a real pain in the ass. And most people don't even check WMT to realise the issues exist. TBH, I don't check as often as I should.