Michael,

Great question.  I always look at Google's Keyword planner to see how it treats it.  Couple things I noticed.  1) Google doesn't see a difference between lower-case and uppercase "E" in e-file.  2) Google lists 30 exact match searches for 1099 e-file software and none for 1099 efile software.

I would probably go with "e-file" as the target keyword, and perhaps use "efile" in the text and alt-image text, just as a backup.

Eric

I was reading this article http://adwords.blogspot.de/2013/05/introducing-keyword-planner-combining.html that says that Google is going to be sunsetting it's popular keyword tool.  As an SEO specialist, I use this tool daily, so I'm concerned about it's impact on my keyword research efforts.

I reviewed the keyword planner (albeit quite quickly) and it doesn't seem to work as efficiently for SEO keyword research.  I'm curious to get others thoughts on the following:

• The new keyword planner tool
• Will the new keyword planner tool be effective for SEO keyword research
• Are there other tools that you've used that have provided good keyword research data (and are they free or paid)

I really think the main issue is with the robots.txt. If you think about it, all of your blog posts that are not featured on the home page would be inaccessible to Google (since the pagination at the bottom and the main navigation URLs to browse posts all contain "/search"). So once the posts leave the homepage, you're telling Google they shouldn't see them anymore.

I only brought up the issue with "cloaked" text because the second link I saw was to a credit company and a red flag went up in my head screaming SPAM! But it looks to be legitimate.

I would advise you update the robots.txt and create an XML sitemap for all your posts/pages and submit that to Google Webmaster Tools. Should clear things up!