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I would disagree with you on the redirection of the old site URLs. I have worked on and consulted with several eCommerce websites and from 2004-2008 ran my own successful eCommerce site called thesprintstore.net. I changed the URL structure and had the same thing happen to my site. At the time I chalked the issue up to moving everything around and believed that the site would eventually bounce back. Due to the economy it never did.

I later discovered that the old URL structure had some seriously powerful backlinks from sites like techcrunch, engaget, engagetmobile and other awesome forums. If I had only redirected all of the old urls to the new urls all of that link juice would have continued onto my site and I would not have experienced such a significant drop in domain and page authority.

Regardless of indexation or how long ago the urls were changed its never a good strategy to play hide and seek with Google so simply apply 301 redirects from the old to the new and see what transpires over the coming months. After all, it cant hurt right?

When it comes to a web page Title Tag Google's Supper Smart Spiders pay no attention to the markup or punctuation used. So it truly comes down to the personal preference of the site owner. As for me and my OCD I prefer the Pipes cause they just look cooler!

To prove this point query the following:

allintitle:"-"

allintitle:"|"

allintitle:"/"

allintitle:""

allintitle:","

All come back with BUPKIS

I was only looking at the source code on the Conversion Optimization page and not the home page. Face Palm

Part of the panda and farmer update targeted scrappers so basically Google most likely viewed those images as scrapped or of such poor quality that it pushed them deep into the index. When it comes to image optimization you need to take a look at what Google's bots can see and that is Resolution, Compression and Meta Data.

1. The higher the resolution the better
2. The quality of the compression
3. The Meta Data, I'm not talking about ALT attributes, Titles or Descriptions, I mean stuff like GPS coordinates and manually entered information about the objects in the image and the occasion on which it was captured, as well as copyright information, categories and searchable keywords.

If your images are not digital masters i.e. has not been prepared and optimized for a particular use, such as a printed magazine or use on the internet. Then they are most likely scrapped content and there is no recovering from that. Our graphic designers place copyright information and SO MUCH MORE into every image we create for clients so that if they are ever scrapped google can see the originator of the content via the meta data.

I would recommend getting a digital master image just like one of yours that is not ranking and then fill in all of the Meta Fields using a program like Adobe Photoshop and then place it on your site and see if you can get that one to rank. If so, then all 100k images are tainted if that image still wont rank then your entire site is in Google's penalty box.

I would grab an image from istockphoto to test all of this out.

The answer is NO, there is no inherent risk of ranking loss or credibility loss when redirecting old URL's. Think of it like the post office, lets say you move a lot and as a result you have become very familiar with their change of address form. The post office isn't going to delay the delivery of your mail just because your Dads in the military or your Mom keeps moving to escape old flames. Relocating is a part of life and when it comes down to it the Post Office and Google, for that matter, thank you for 301'ing your mail so it doesn't stack up and clutter the Index with undeliverables.

From 2007 - 2004 I worked for Sprint in several positions with my last one being a Corporate Account Manager for fortune 1000 customers. In 2004 I left Sprint after the Nextel merger and created an eCommerce site called thesprintstore.net as a Sprint Nextel preferred partner. I used my inner working knowledge of Sprint to my wonderful advantage and began making 3x my original salary.

My desire for more business turned to greed and I began leaking information that consumers loved i.e. phone release dates, price points, warehouse stock levels and tricks of the trade. This garnered me thousands of links from big sites (had no idea at the time) and eventually my site was issued a Cease and Desist order from Sprint's Corporate Headquarters.

I recently realized one evening that I had a GEM of a domain with powerful backlinks that I could redirect to my current site TECHeGO.com [staff removed hyperlink]. (Some of the back links are from Engaget, Engaget Mobile, Rimmarkable and even one from Sprint.) The redirection has been in place for months now and I have confirmed that all that sweet Link Nectar is flowing through!

I have found it interesting, however, that my back link and referral domain count have never increased leading me to believe that in doing a 301 Redirect existing links become what can only be described as 'Dark Matter Links' i.e. the links are there, simply invisible.

Dark Matter Definition: dark matter is matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but is undetectable by emitted or scatteredelectromagnetic radiation.

Dark Matter Links: dark matter links are visible links that have passed through a 301 redirect which are now inferred to exist but are no longer visible by crawlers?

Is there a better definition that could be applied to the term 'Dark Matter Links'?