Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I would consider asking yourself what the value of those extra product pages are to the user?  If your primary, properly optimized page provides the best user experience then I would definitely 301 redirect the old URL's.

It's very likely that although those extra product pages are in the index they don't actually get traffic b/c they never turn up in the SERPs unless you are performing an advanced site: search.

Redirect the traffic via 301, don't worry about telling Google anything, they will remove the old URL's once they read the 301.  If you have any external followed links to the old pages you may want to reach out to the webmasters to request they link to the new page before you do the 301.

I highly doubt these old pages are dragging down your results for your properly optimized page but if they aren't providing any value or getting traffic then your time is better spent optimizing elsewhere.

Best!

If you find the directory useful as a user then it's safe to get a link there.  If you wouldn't use the directory yourself it's best to just steer clear of it.  I can't imagine many situations in which you would want more than 10 niche directory links because there just aren't that many quality directories any more.

Thanks for the response.  Our internal linking structure is fine and I'm of the belief that we shouldn't mess with the URL's because there is more potential risk regarding the 301 than potential gain from a better folder structure.

Thanks for the response!

I've never heard of displaying javascript analytics code via CSS.  You need to either edit header.php, index.php, or footer.php and paste the code directly into one of those template files.  I recommend header but I've seen it at the beginning or end of index.php and I've seen it in the footer.

The best place to insert the analytics code is in the header.php file so it loads when the header loads.  Some people recommend putting it in the footer but if you are using the asynchronous version of the analytics code then you don't need to put it in the footer.