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I have a quick question regarding Microdata / Schema.org files that are not hosted on secure connections. I receive a receive a security error from my e-commerce site because the code references the schema over HTTP instead of HTTPS.<div< span="">itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"></div<>This is not the first time I have run into this issue.  We also use MRSS schema for an RSS feed from yahoo and the same thing happens.<div< span="">xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss"></div<>The problem mainly lies in the fact that these schemas are not hosted over HTTPS. If you add HTTPS to the beginning of both you will get a security error.Just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this or similar issue and what the "best practices" are around this?Is it ok to obtain the schema directly and then host it on our server, over our secure connection?Thanks!

Can a company's Google+ page be designated as the author of web content (as can be done with individuals) so that the COMPANY comes up as the author in the web results? Is it preferable for company bloggers to create individual Google+ profiles and be listed as the author of the posts that they write? Or rather is it a smarter move to create a company persona (under the guise of a real person) and have all authorship be attributed to that personal Google+ profile. AuthorRank is going to become more and more important to Google's algorithm.  As bloggers write for a company, if they are listed as the author of the work, they create trust for their own personal brand.  If and when this employee leaves, this equity is presumably taken with them instead of remaining with the company.  Is this assumption correct?  How are companies dealing with this potential issue?

On a recent post in /r/SEO I mentioned that I used SEOHosting.com in the past, and it was met with several warnings that this could result in deindexation or penalization. I just wanted to know if there is anything to back this up. I did some digging on my own and it looks like some of the private blog networks that got shut down recently were using SEOHosting.com, and they were speculating (screenshot of pertinent parts included below) that this is how Google was able to track down their network and shut 'em down. But I've also heard a lot of speculation that the smartest way for Google to map out these networks would be to create tons of content, submit it all, and look for patterns - which has me wondering what role, if any, SEOHosting.com played in taking down the private blog networks earlier this month. Is using SEOHosting.com a legitimate concern?  Is it a threat even to websites that meet Google's quality guidelines?  Is it especially a threat to those that don't? Any thoughts you guys have would be greatly appreciated. XX6nM.jpg

The SEOmoz Web App is showing me that every single URL on one of my clients' domains has a duplicate in the form of the URL + :80. For instance, the app is showing me that www.example.com/default.aspx is duplicated in the form of www.example.com:80/default.aspx Any idea if this is an actual problem or just some kind of reporting error?  Any help would be appreciated.

Hypothetical Situations: You get a guest post on another blog and it offers a great link back to your website.  You want to tell your readers about it, but linking the post will turn that link into a reciprocal link instead of a one way link, which presumably has more value.  Should you nofollow your link to the guest post? My intuition here, and the answer that I expect, is that if it's good for users, the link belongs there, and as such there is no trouble with linking to the post.  Is this the right way to think about it?  Would grey hats agree? You're working for a small local business and you want to explore some reciprocal link opportunities with other companies in your niche using a "links" page you created on your domain.  You decide to get sneaky and either noindex your links page, block the links page with robots.txt, or nofollow the links on the page.  What is the best practice? My intuition here, and the answer that I expect, is that this would be a sneaky practice, and could lead to bad blood with the people you're exchanging links with.  Would these tactics even be effective in turning a reciprocal link into a one-way link if you could overlook the potential immorality of the practice?  Would grey hats agree?

I'm sure by now a lot of you have had a chance to read the Let's Kill the "Bad Inbound Links Can Get Your Site Penalized" Myth over at SearchEngineJournal. When I initially read this article, I was happy.  It was confirming something that I believed, and supporting a stance that SEOmoz has taken time and time again.  The idea that bad links can only hurt via loss of link juice when they get devalued, but not from any sort of penalization, is indeed located in many articles across SEOmoz. Then I perused the comments section, and I was shocked and unsettled to see some industry names that I recognized were taking the opposite side of the issue.  There seems to be a few different opinions: The SEOmoz opinion that bad links can't hurt except for when they get devalued. The idea that you wouldn't be penalized algorithmically, but a manual penalty is within the realm of possibility. The idea that both manual and algorithmic penalties were a factor. Now, I know that SEOmoz preaches a link building strategy that targets high quality back links, and so if you completely prescribe to the Moz method, you've got nothing to worry about.  I don't want to hear those answers here - they're right, but they're missing the point.  It would still be prudent to have a correct stance on this issue, and I'm wondering if we have that. What do you guys think?  Does anybody have an opinion one way or the other?  Does anyone have evidence of it being one way or another?  Can we setup some kind of test, rank a keyword for an arbitrary term, and go to town blasting low quality links at it as a proof of concept?  I'm curious to hear your responses.

I stumbled across Twibbon today - it's a service that basically creates an easy way for you to brand your Twitter/Facebook pictures, and to allow others to promote your cause as well. I'm not sure if I'm late to get on board here or if this is a relatively new thing, but it seems pretty cool.  I can definitely see this really working out for promoting philanthropic causes.  It would also work really well for events - imagine if every speaker at an SEO conference used Twibbon to brand their Twitter/Facebook?  I think it would really help with branding, for both individuals and businesses.

Hypothetical situation: You write a guest blog post for a popular blog about your niche topic.  The post is a hit and sends you visitors, leads, and social media followers. Would you consider running a linkbuilding campaign to the blog post in order to help it rank better for its target keyword(s), given that the post has proven to convert successfully, despite the fact that the post is on a domain other than your own?

I was very active in SEOmoz's Q&A forums today and completed my profile - raising my Moz points from 0 to 50.  On my profile, however, I am still listed as Unranked.  Also, I do not appear on the SEOmoz Top Members List next to other users with 50 points. I'm guessing this is something that is updated once a day or so, and the rank will update tomorrow.  Is my suspicion correct?