Each participant was asked to rate more than 100 search ranking factors along with specific questions about hot issues in the SEO field.

• Anchor Text from External Links

• Keyword Use in Title Tag

• Raw Link Popularity

• Diversity of Linking Domains

• Keyword Use in Root Domain

• Cloaking with Malicious Intent

• Link Acquisition from Link Brokers

• Cloaking by User Agent

• Frequent Server Downtime

• Linking Out to Spam

• Linkbait + Viral Content Creation

• Blogging and Engagement with the Blogosphere

• Classic "Create Valuable Content" Strategies w/o Promotional Marketing

• Public Relations (beyond just press release publication)

• Direct Link Purchases from Individual Sites/Webmasters

• 83% Content on Subdomains inherits some, but not all, of the query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain (or other subdomains) and is judged partially as a separate entity.

• 10% Content on Subdomains never inherits all of the query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain (or other subdomains) and is judged largely as a separate entity.

• 7% Content on subdomains inherits all or nearly all of the query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain (or other subdomains) and is judged much the same as other content on the shared root domain.