Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Rand explains this on these two posts:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-maybe-changes-how-the-pagerank-algorithm-handles-nofollow

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow

Here is a recent article from July 5th:

http://jymtarrant.com/nofollow-dofollow/

Why don't you want to use a 301?  If you are truly restructuring a site, then you will need to use 301s.

There are a couple of posts about this topic.

http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/44720/site-restructure-urls-301s-inbound-links-already-301d

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use

Here are my top 10 blogs to follow:

1. http://searchenginewatch.com/ - Search Engine Watch
2. http://searchengineland.com/ - Search Engine Land
3. http://www.seomoz.org/blog - SEOmoz
4. http://www.seomoz.org/ugc - SEOmoz Users
5. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ - Google
6. http://mattcutts.com/blog/ - Matt Cutts
7. http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ - VWO, Great A/B Testing Blog
8. http://conversationmarketing.com/ - Ian Lurie
9. http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/ - Bruce Clay
10. http://www.seobook.com/blog - SEO Book

Yes, there are many, but I find it easy to setup RSS feeds into my Outlook and skim through them like emails.

The best way to do this is to have a separate domain, not subdomains, for each country.  And if you use the Country's ccTLD you can have the same content without being penalized. (make sure there are little difference such as currency, etc.)  I would also Geotarget each domain accordingly.

I would stay away from all those types of programs.  Even if you only have to pay $9.99 for 1,000 submissions, it will do more harm then good and most likely you would only see a few links.

Focus more on Quality links.

We have also seen the same minimal numbers.  But it was very interesting to dive in and start to investigate.  I have been reviewing all sections in both Analytics and GWT.

It will be interesting to see which pages are receiving the most clicks vs. impressions.

Honestly, we just need more time and data.  Not too much activity as of now.

Yes, so many 404's is bad, but it all depends on how long Google has seen them.  If too many you may find yourself in Google's 3 month ranking hole.  First you should set up a 301 and try to redirect as many as possible to relevant pages.

Second, use Google Webmaster Tools and start removing the bad urls from their index.

Might be a lot of work right now, but you have to clean them up asap.

Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing.

I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with  and would like some other professional feedback.  Especially since their site isn't marketed very well.

http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.)

Breadcrumb Trail

They have asked us to implement a Breadcrumb trail on every page, where the final page is the only H1 Tag.

1. Are breadcrumb trials important for SEO?  (I know they are helpful for Users, but SEO)
2. Are they important for Search Engines to track back for structure.
3. Any thoughts about them?

Similar question asked in February : http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-important-are-breadcrumbs

I would have to agree with Damien and Thomas.  Local SEO is an excellent integration with your national SEO campaigns.  And as Thomas said, don't change your site to focus on local.

Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing.

I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with  and would like some other professional feedback.  Especially since their site isn't marketed very well.

http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.)

Website Restructure

I agree we totally need to restructure our website.  I have no idea what the previous SEO guy was thinking.  The new SEO company is telling us that the structure is a big part of SEO.

1. I don't believe so, but besides a little loss in 301 juice, is there any other downfalls?
2. Are there any real benefits?

Similar question asked the other day (and answered by me): http://www.seomoz.org/q/don-t-want-to-lose-page-rank-what-s-the-best-way-to-restructure-a-url-other-than-a-301-redirect

I would say that it all depends on how they are currently ranking.  If you are just in the beginning stages of SEO, then I would say go ahead and make this step.  But if the site is already doing well then I might hold off.

There was a great answer about here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/website-restructure-good-or-bad-for-seo

Restructuring allows you to organize your content into "Silos" and eliminate some of the unnecessary links through JSON objects, iframes, and nofollows (some debate there on which is optimal).

The Downfalls: There will probably be a 30-90 day dip in traffic but if you do page-to-page 301's it won't hurt nearly as much. Anytime you change URL's you are likely to see some inbound links drop off, but that happens when the pages don't change, so it's going to be minimal. Sure, 301's might drop some of your PR during transfer, but only a minimal amount according to matt cutts.

The Benefits:  Organizing your content into silos and pruning cross-category links will allow you to control the flow of pagerank and anchor text much more effectively. Bruce Clay has a huge amount of resources on this, and they even cover it on their blog.

Will it be painful? Yes.

Will it be worth it? Yes.

Google's PR is pretty much for visitors, and not for SEOers.  Focus on the DA of the site, and then the PA of the page.  If the site has a good DA, then the page should follow as long as it isn't garbage.

Make sure the site is still ranking well, because you don't want to have their bad juice get passed over to you.

This is a great post about links. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-wikipedia-model

Hope this helps.

It would all depend on if you want to focus your SEO in Brazil, http://www.google.com.br/.  If that is the goal, then use the .com.br.

I guess we would need to know a little more about what your plans are.  You may be able to utilize both even with similar content.

It will all depend on how your site is setup and what type of server.  Can you give us more detail on that?