You can use PHP redirects, and they'll do the same thing. Though it will be a little slower and the page still has to technically exist. If it's a very high traffic site, then it may eventually become an issue.

Sure, but the subdomain/folder debate has been going back and forth for years. And I wonder if it's not so much a question of where, but a question of a bunch of new URLs. Would that possibly make a search engine reconsider the pages?

We know Google and Bing have stupid amounts of computing power. Duane Forrester has said that a Bing server farm causes so much heat, that they have to contact the FAA when they vent the facility. It causes turbulence.

We already know that no search engine can crawl the entire web at this point. So, it may be reasonable to think that some pages are just rated and possibly semi-forgotten. Once a page gets a new URL, it may look like a new thing. The algorithm has changed. New results populate. That may be the case.

Or there could actually be a genuine human preference, though my mom doesn't pay much attention to the URL.

This stuff is quite difficult to discern with complete certainty. It's basically physics. When you contact the search engines, they contact you back. Now, those contacts are happening billions of times a day.

For now, I will remain agnostic. Sub domain, or sub folder are equally fine until proven otherwise with proof beyond a few tests.

A sub domain is no better than a folder and vice versa. I'm more curious what brought about this decision. So if you know of an interesting argument, I would like to hear it.

Now, what you may need to do, unless all the external links to the pages are terrible, is setup 301 redirects. How to do that would really depend upon your server. The vast majority are Linux based. So you would have to search something like '301 redirect htaccess (server flavor)'. That could be Apache, Nginx, CentOS... whatever. Either way, you'll get there, and if it's still a question then there are plenty of forums that specialize in your server type.

Beware of htaccess. It will knock your site down if you mess up the configuration via white space or some other syntax error. Try it in a test environment first, if possible. 'Always look both ways before crossing the street.' That is how you handle htaccess.

I don't want to startle you, but right now you're possibly losing a ton of traffic. Maybe you aren't losing any at all. I don't know, I don't know your domain. I can't even begin to guess.

Refer to your analytics and redirect if it's worthwhile. That's all I can say without knowing more.

That's probably your queue to run away screaming. Guest blogging for the sake of guest blogging is a very bad idea these days. You might also want to mention that 'Loved by Moz' bit to someone at Moz. They can confirm or deny. Whoops, they just did.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/

That's not to say all guest blogging is dead per se, but guest blogging for ABC plumbing company on alllandscapersseolinks4all.com is dead.

Here's a semi-fictional scenario:

Internet Guy A walks up to Internet Guy B and says; "Hey, for some reason I don't want to post this on my own deal, but I think your audience would really benefit from my words. What do you say?"

And Internet Guy B says; "Cool bro, much trust. I know you'll behave yourself and be excellent - Wyld Stallyns 4 eva!"

Then Internet Guy B would be vouching for Internet Guy A. Everybody's p-toot is on the line and the honor system, with editorial control on Internet Guy B's part. So long as Internet Guy A or Internet Guy B aren't offering a material incentive for the post and everyone follows the bajillion other rules, some unwritten, everybody is cool.

But what you're talking about seems to be scary and you may want to think twice. Do you really know who you're getting into 'link bed' with? You don't until it happens. In the real world, that takes an inordinate amount of vodka. If you've had one of those nights, you know it isn't pretty.

It's pretty hard to tell if that's a followed link, what with the strike-out and all. Though I would say this falls into the link scheme category, given the exact match anchor text. Google has already been fairly clear that badge/widget links, especially those that pass PR and include exact match anchors, are seen as manipulative.

So yes, it appears they're playing a pretty dangerous game. Though they may slide in under the wire until it comes to a manual review, or if it becomes so noticeable that it's filtered or hit by the algorithm. It definitely violates a few of these guidelines on link schemes.

410 is the recommended way to tell search engines the page is gone. all of the things mentioned above are a facet of how you should deal with this issue. sorry for the brevity and terrible punction. moz forum is a pretty iffy thing via mobile. my eggs are getting cold.

I really don't know how that forum handles sigs, so I can't say for certain. What you can do is check a handful of your old posts at random, if the sig is gone - the links are gone.

The problem with all link data, even Google Webmaster Tools, is that it's never up to date. Mozbot, Googlebot and all the various crawlers have to crawl the links to show us link data. It can take a while between removal and another crawl, so the answer is 'patience'.

If the content isn't there, you can setup a 410. That will tell the search engines and users that the pages are gone for good. GWT will also show broken links to your site as well. So you will want to distinguish between the inbound 404s and the pages that are no longer there.

There's a possibility that the pages have been gone for so long, they're no longer indexed. So I'm not really sure how much good a 301 will do from a link perspective. However, if you have access to referral data - you may find some of those inbound 404s are worth redirecting to a relevant page.

It could be seen as a link of little value for all of the reasons you stated. If your site had a vast preponderance of little but forum links that pass juice/equity with exact match anchor text, like 'buy nike shoes', you would be heading into a possible penalty. That would show intent toward manipulation.

So the short answer is: Removing the links isn't going to help your site, but if they're truly removed they aren't going to hurt your site.

There would be other things to consider, if the forum related to your business. Some things to consider are referrals and conversions from referrals. But since you stated that the forum is unrelated, I won't worry about that.

If you haven't read this yet, it's a good idea that you do. Staying within those guidelines, and avoiding anything in the grey will generally keep your site in good standing from a linking perspective.

Long story short, the page isn't cached in Google, but it does redirect - so odds are the actual link is gone. Your client's site content was probably scraped. In another example, whoever did this also scraped content from another site.

Scraping is pretty common, and it would result in backlinks if the scraper didn't totally remove all of the links. The scraper/hacker likely didn't choose sites strategically, rather they likely just targeted vulnerable sites.

If you run into live instances of your client's stolen content, there is always the option of a DMCA takedown.

Edit: I just revisited my response and found that even the Web Archive link redirects. I took a look at the source code after stopping the browser before the redirect, I haven't found anything in a timely manner. Suffice to say, that's odd.

If the links don't point to your client, there's little to no need to tell anyone anything - other than out of courtesy. You would do better telling their host's technical support, however. Hosts tend to hate this stuff more than site owners for some odd reason.

But yes, the example given looks like the result of a hack. Now that doesn't mean the links weren't paid, per se - but the hack is the end result. It wouldn't surprise me if whomever did the hacking later pulled the links and pointed them elsewhere.

You could follow that rabbit hole to the end of the internet. Instead I would focus on links that actually point to your client's site. And that is if it appears the links have harmed, or definitely will harm the site.

If you feel the need to continue, gather as much link information as you can from open site explorer, Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, Majestic SEO and/or aHrefs. Once you have a mess of spreadsheets in-hand, prune duplicate links. Then, feed it into Cemper Link Detox.

Link Detox should be able to flag the obvious stuff. But they also still put out some false positive/negatives, so you still have to judge links individually. During the judging phase, I always use a Linux machine. You never know when you'll hit something that executes script - then your machine is totaled.