The page is definitely indexed by Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FImageWorksCreative

If you just changed the URL and it used to be ranking higher, then it could be that Google is still digesting the URL change. To get the page ranking higher, make sure to link to it from all of your other web properties, such as Google+.

Also, the link to your website from your FB page is broken, you probably want to fix that!

I've never heard of anyone getting penalized for a press release link. Ever.

That being said, Google has warned against dofollow links in press releases, and using anchor text links can put you at risk of Penguin. If you are just using your URL, you should be perfectly safe for now, but there is always the risk that Google may change things later.

The actual link juice that these links pass isn't very significant, so it may just be safest to nofollow the link, depending on your risk tolerance. If you want dofollow backlinks, there are much cheaper and effective ways of obtaining links that actually matter.

It's best practice to put canonicals on every page of your site, so that Google never gets confused by things like URL parameters. This can usually be automated by most modern CMSs.

If you are talking about using a cookie-free subdomain, that can definitely have an impact on site speed:

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#cookie_free

Just using a subdomain won't have any benefit, and may even slow things down. Using a CDN for images and other components is usually the quickest and easiest solution for most sites.

Agreed. You should describe what is depicted in the image using the alt tag-- this helps Google understand what the images is about and also helps people who are vision impaired or are using text-based browsers. The alt tag is also displayed in regular browser if an image fails to load for whatever reason, or if the user decides to turn images off while browsing.

The title attribute does not have any SEO value for links (or images, for that matter). Links can influence click behavior for users, which may indirectly affect SEO, but it has no direct impact on rankings.

In your second example above, the link would still pass 85% pagerank not 72%. Obviously, in order for a 301 to pass pagerank, it needs to be used in a link. If a 301 link only passed 72% pagerank, then it would always pass less pagerank than a regular link, which would contradict what Matt said.

Yes, I've used this approach for a number of ecommerce clients, and it is very effective. There are many advantages to this approach:

• Eliminating duplicate/thin content across the site
• Focusing link value on a single page instead of spreading out across multiple products
• Less effort creating unique content (one page vs multiple)
• Potentially better user experience

Of course, if you have the resources to write unique content for each of your product pages, that is going to be a better solution. You can still create a landing page in this instance, you just wouldn't canonical the product pages to it.

If you want to rank for "flat head screw driver", the canonical approach can still work. Simply create a landing page for flat head screw drivers, and include all of the flat head screwdriver products from each of the different brands. Then canonical each of the individual product pages up to the main landing page.

Yes, that is a good solution, especially in this post-Panda world. Ideally you would just have one page for Bic pens, with a drop down from which you can select different options such as colors & size. If your shopping cart system doesn't allow you to do that, then the canonical is a good approach. This cuts down on the amount of duplicate content you have and the amount of unique content you need to create.

Tables render slightly slower than divs, but it's not the end of the world. In general, you should avoid tables unless you're working with actual tabular data, but if tables make your life easier they're not going to have much impact on SEO, if any.

The meta description is the description that is usually displayed in the search results (usually, because Google can change it to whatever they want). It has absolutely zero impact on your SEO rankings. What you want to do with the meta description is make it compelling so that people will click through to your site. Approach it like you approach writing copy for an Adwords ad.

The excerpt (I'm assuming you're using Wordpress) is the snippet of text that appears on category pages and other archive pages on your site. Usually, this is just the first several lines of your post, but you can customize this to be a short summary of the content of the post. The summary approach is better from an SEO perspective since it is unique content, and may be a better experience for your users as well. However, writing a custom excerpt for each and every post can take time & resources, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth the effort.

Yes, I would go for the link. Since this is a product review, getting a relevant anchor text link is totally appropriate, but be sure to mix things up when approaching other sites to avoid being hit by Penguin.

When evaluating a link, don't worry too much about domain authority. Having a high domain authority is nice, but just because you have high domain authority doesn't mean you'll rank for your desired keywords, and just because a site has a high domain authority doesn't mean the link is valuable.

Here are some of the factors Google looks at when determining the value of a link:

• PageRank (higher is better)
• Relevance of the site to your site (relevant sites are better)
• Relevance of the content on the page (relevant content is better)
• Total number of links on the page (fewer is better)
• Anchor text of the link (relevant is better)

If a site meets a number of the criteria above, it's generally a good site to get a link from.

PageRank and mozRank are good metrics to look at when evaluating a blog.

I'm not sure how wide a net you want to cast with your contest, but I wouldn't be too quick to ignore links from even relatively low PR sites. As long as the site is in the same niche, getting links from a bunch of relevant sites (especially with good anchor text) can do more for your pages' rankings than just increasing your domain authority.