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I'm working on a site that has directories for service providers and content about those services.

My idea is to organise the services into groups, e.g. Web, Graphic, Software Development since they are different topics.

Each sub domain (hub) has it's own sales pages, directory of services providers and blog content.

E.g. the web hub has

web.servicecrowd.com.au (hub home)

web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog (hub blog)

http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/dir/p (hub directory)

Is this overkill or will it help in the long run when there are hundreds of services like dog grooming and DJing?

Seems better to have separate sub domains and unique blogs for groups of services and content topics.

I've got an unusual issue.

I set up a new website with new content and moved old (blog) content to the new site.

On the old site, most of the blog content wasn't ranking after the Oct update. On the new site it all started ranking again after I redirected old URLs to new URLs.

However while all the blog content ranks, the homepage doesn't rank for the new brand term.

There are multiple articles in press that refer to the new website using the branded terms as anchor text, but it's still not ranking.

Is it possible that the redirected homepage (and only the hompage) from the old site is carrying a penalty?

If so, should I not redirect the homepage of the old site but all of it's sub pages?

I've begun writing an annual review of local business directories.

Post from 2012 is here: http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog/top-10-australian-business-directories-in-2012/

New 2014 post is here: http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog/top-10-australian-business-directories-2014/

Is this appropriate use?

Next year the post will be similar, but different metrics reported and slightly different review.

Side note: For some reason the post hasn't been indexed by Google yet. Usually new posts are indexed as soon as they are shared on social media.

I'm working on a directory that has around 800 results (image rich results) in the top level view. This will likely grow over time so needs support thousands.

The main issue is that it is built in ajax so paginated pages are dynamically generated and look like duplicate content to search engines.

If we limit the results, then not all of the individual directory listing pages can be found.

I have an idea that serves users and search engines what they want but uses cloaking. Is it grey or black?

I've read http://moz.com/blog/white-hat-cloaking-it-exists-its-permitted-its-useful and none of the examples quite apply.

To allow users to browse through the results (without having a single page that has a slow load time) we include pagination links but which are not shown to search engines.

This is a positive user experience.

For search engines we display all results (since there is no limit the number of links so long as they are not spammy) on a single page.

This requires cloaking, but is ultimately serving the same content in slightly different ways.

1. Where on the scale of white to black is this?

2. Would you do this for a client's site?

3. Would you do it for your own site?