Stop the Junk Links, Love Google

Today Google released an update to it’s algorithm that targeted junk links such as forum profiles and comment spam. Many people that sell services aimed at forum profiles and high pr comments are really fighting this, but the proof is there.  Check any major webmaster forum and you’ll see plenty of threads discussing the latest “Google Dance”.

A Google Dance usually refers to Google’s algorithmic changes which happen on a semi-regular frequency.  Basically, a lot of people see changes.  This one is a little different. There are more posts about lost rankings on the forums that delve into the darker arts such as xrumer, custom posters, scrapebox, and about 10 other “black hat” tools.

What can be done if I’ve lost rankings? If you’re serious, hire a link building service that can prove they still have rankings.  In fact, ask if your current link builder has seen an increase today.  No?  Maybe what they’re doing isn’t working well.

Here’s proof that I know what I’m doing.  Screenshots are taken today.

Related posts:

1. Using Google Alerts to Build Links and Traffic
2. Where To Buy Clean Links
3. 3 Easy Ways to Stop “iPod Thumb Syndrome” (ITS)

Google has repeatedly said that buying links is in, “violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

So if buying links is against the rules, what is a website owner with a legit service or business to do? This is where many of my clients first come to me.  They have a business or website and want to rank higher in the search engines, but no matter how much content they add to their sites, no matter how much time they spend working on their site, it still doesn’t rank higher.

How can I rank higher without buying links?

Start building links!

There are many different ways to build links, here are my two favorites that are working right now, in 2011.

1. Guest Posting

Guest posting is not easy.  It takes a lot of time.  Here are the quick steps.  Contact 10 website owners related to your niche. Email back and forth with 7 of them.  Find 1 or 2 that will allow you to submit a guest post.  Write a great post that they will be happy to publish (poorly written posts will be rejected). Add your links in your bio (you did negotiate to allow a link right?). Submit your post.  Two weeks later follow up with website owner to see why they haven’t published the post.  Wait another couple of weeks to see if they still want to publish the post.  Hopefully after a month it will be published.

Like I said, guest posting is not easy, it takes a lot of time and often ends up with a lot of wasted time and energy.  Taking that into consideration, it can still be effective, especially if you can outsource most/all of it.  I’ve done guest posting for a few clients and they’ve all be very happy. It helps to have connections to people, and a reputation for high quality content.

2. Hire a link builder

When I first started hiring link builders, I looked at hundreds of resume’s and tried to filter out anyone who didn’t have experience.  Then I hired a few link builders.  After a few months of paying my new employees, my websites hadn’t moved in the search engines. What was I paying for if the links they were building weren’t actually helping?

That’s when I started doing my own link building, I knew what worked, but I couldn’t seem to convey it.  That was 2006. What worked in 2006 no longer works, forum profiles and high PR blog commenting are a waste of time and resources so I had to revise everything I was doing.  Now in 2011, what works is different, and I’ve learned that doing link building myself is ridiculous especially since I need link building with a much larger volume that a single person can do on their own.  Right now I have a team of 13 link builders (and always hiring more).  The reason I have so many is that what I’m doing right now works, and my websites (and my client sites) are benefiting.  Many of my clients who start with one link builder, have grown to 3 or more link builders.

So if you want to hire your own link builders, you first have to evaluate how much added income they’ll bring in.  You need to know what a #1 ranking will bring in terms of income to make sure they cost of a link builder is worth it.  Secondly, you’ll need to hire and train a link builder.  Most will want to do manual blog commenting, Angela and Paul style forum profiles, article submission and other link building that will not do anything to your rankings.  Check out my SEO test for a little proof using an exact match .com domain.

So what will you have your link builder work on?  That’s up to you.  I’m constantly working on training videos for my link builders.  Every month I evaluate what is working, and what is not working.  I train and re-train them to do new things. This is a big project, do you have time to handle it all?

Hiring a link builder is too much work!

You’re right, hiring, training and managing a link builder is a LOT of work, trust me I know first hand.

If you couldn’t tell, I was setting you up for my link building service.  But in reality, link building isn’t as simple as hiring a link builder and letting him go crazy.  The links that he’ll likely build will not help.  Just check your search engine rankings after a month of link building.  If you haven’t moved in a month, you’re not getting real results.

What do you want out of your link building efforts?  Do you want real results (moving up in the search engines), or do you want to feel like you’re saving money while still “link building”.

When you’re ready for real results and ready to stop spinning your wheels paying for something that isn’t working, let me know.

Related posts:

1. TNX.net Rocks for Buying Links!
2. What is Link Diversity?
3. Get 1 Link and Go! Drive By Linking.

If you subscribe to the FeedFront Magazine, there is an article in this months issue (April, 2011) from Morgan Linton about using exact match domains (EMDs) to rank quickly and easily.  I’m a huge believer in that exact approach and about 250 of my 350 domains are EMDs.  However, he and I have a difference of opinion about the value of .net and .org domains. He’s only a few hours away from me, so maybe on day we’ll get together to discuss domains when I’m in the LA area!

Morgan says, “the SEO benefit of an exact-match domain is the same regardless of TLD.  This means that the owner of BuyCar.net has the exact same chance of ranking {as} well as the owner of BuyCar.com, based on the exact-match bonus, since Google and Bing will ignore the TLD.”

With Google’s autocorrect and automatically showing the suggested result, type-in traffic is a very tiny factor even for the biggest exact searches.  Every domainer knows that developing a great domain is where the money lies.

As I said, Martin and I differ on our assumptions of the value of .net and .org TLD’s.  I think Martin might be assuming that .com’s rank just as well without having actually tested it. I have evidence (partially anecdotal), and would be willing to prove what I already know as fact, especially if there were a compelling reason.  Domains ending in .com rank better than .net and .org.

I just finished building 77 new exact match one-page sites. 61 of them are .com and the rest are .net and .org.  A single domain is .info. The domains all went live about a week ago. Out of those 77 sites, 38 are on the front page for their exact match keyword.  Out of those 38, 37 are .com. 1 domain on the first page is a .net domain.  I haven’t done any link building, pinging, or anything like that.

If you’re new to domains and are trying to find some exact match domains, most of the good ones are taken, but you can still find some long tail domains that are unregistered.  My favorite way to buy long tail domains is by using the Market Samurai Domains module. Just click Domains, then put in a list of keywords.

Exact match domains rank well!  Exact match .com domains rank even better.

Related posts:

1. Keyword Stuffing and Domain Names – Does it Matter?

Brandon’s Note: I first started writing this post April 22, 2007.  It’s been 4 years in the making…For everything that has changed, I’ll put a “2011 change:” so you can see progress from 2007 till now.

Death isn’t something anyone likes to talk about, but is something we must all plan for. So I ask you, what happens to all of your websites when you die?

What happens to the income and value of your websites and domains?

My wife and I are having our first child in less than 3 weeks (2011 change: My daughter will be 4 years old this week). I have life insurance so they’ll be taken care of, but what happens to my websites? What happens to the income that I make every month through my business, Adsense, Amazon, Azoogle, ShareASale, etc?

I currently have almost 100 websites (2011 change: over 350 sites now!), about 30 (2011 change: now about 100) of them make money every month. Some make money every quarter, and almost all of them make something yearly.

If I do nothing, my income will slow down, my wife will still receive checks (or deposits) for some future months, but eventually my domains will expire, my landing pages will become outdated and the link codes for my affiliates will change. Then the money will be gone, and someone will pick up some sweet domains when they expire.

You’ve put in thousands of hours into your web sites and now, nothing. Horrible right?

There are a few things you can do to stop this from happening, I do all of them to some extent:

1. Trust a friend with your account info.

If you have a friend in the business, he/she would be a great asset in your planning. I have such a friend. This friend isn’t as experienced as I am, but would be able to renew my domains and hopefully either keep them going or sell them off for what they are worth. Either way, my wife doesn’t lose out on all my hard work.

I have encouraged my friend to sell all of my websites one by one on at various places like such as Flippa, forums, or a brokering service. I have made it very clear that selling one by one will take a lot of time, but will also bring in a lot more money than a bulk sale will. If he were to try to sell all of the sites as a group, the amount of people with that much money would hinder the total amount of the sale.

This plan could very easily backfire on you.. Remember, your friend has access to your FTP, affiliate accounts, maybe even bank accounts. A lot of power. The only way to now remove this power is to change all of your passwords. For me, changing all of my passwords would take a long time.

There is one way to avoid this however, tell your friend you have a file or printout physically located in your house or safe deposit box in the event of your unexpected death. Then he can get the file that has everything he will need. This will give him access to all of your accounts, but only after your death.

2. Write down everything and hope your spouse can remember what to do.

This is something else that I have done. I’ve written down all of my account info including passwords, direct deposit information and how the accounts should be managed. My wife however won’t be able to change anything on my websites, she just doesn’t know how. So even though she has this information the income will dwindle if this is my only after-death strategy.

The other option in this strategy is to create very detailed plans of what to do with your website(s) and clearly write down how to accomplish these things.

For me, I would write something like, “Open Cyberduck FTP. It is the little yellow duck in the dock at the bottom of the screen.” With instructions like this, my wife would be able to follow along. However, writing these instructions down would take a long time, and I doubt my wife would want to maintain my websites.

3. Sell everything now for market value.

I know you didn’t build your website portfolio just to sell it now. You plan to keep it, make more money from it, and maybe someday sell it to Yahoo! (2001 note: Google’s probably the better buyer now) for a million bucks. Isn’t that everyone’s exit strategy?

If you go this route, your after-death losses will be minimal, but your future potential will also be seriously hindered. There is an increasing amount of value in domains and websites that are old. As Jim Boykin says, “I like ‘em old.” If you don’t consider the value of your domain age, you’re losing money on every sale.

Obviously these are not the only methods that you can use to play for your untimely death, but hopefully they’ll get you thinking about that unfortunate day and planning ahead for the sake of those you care about.

2011 change: There are now a few companies that provide a service for distributing your information after your untimely death.  A few of the popular ones are Entrustet, DataInherit, and AssetLock. This will not help with handling your website business, but will distribute the information to the correct people.

Do you have any additional ways to plan for that unfortunate day? Would you be interested in a service that handled your websites after your death?

Related posts:

1. Creating a Strong Brand with Twitter
2. I Have Too Many Websites, What Do I Do?
3. Intro – Great Websites, Limited Funds

There are multiple ways to earn money online using the news. Here are a few that anyone can do without any special skills or training.

1. Cover the news, again.

The first is simple, you just cover the news and rewrite interesting stories that appeal to a certain demographic. For example, you could target web developers who use Apple products. Your website can include everything from web development and related programming languages to Apple stock reports, new products, etc. This is a pretty simple approach but a lot of people would like to see a lot of their favorite things in one place. A few other examples would be Getting Things Done and small business owners. There is a lot of overlap between small business owners and a strong work ethic. This approach takes a lot of writing, if you’re willing to do a lot of writing, consider other ways to earn money by writing before committing.

2. Expand the news.

There are a lot of news outlets, but not many that take the time to research all of the facets of the news they cover.  It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. An ideal story would include the background on why a news item happened, what the ramifications are, who it affects, how it affects them, etc.  This idea takes a more seasoned writer, but is the type of site that is frequently linked to, as well as quoted and used for lectures and papers.

3. Give people what they want.

Most people have a particular news outlet they prefer to get their news from.  Some people love FOX News, some people hate them.  It’s the same with your local newspaper, and anyone who ever writes news. If you want to make money and have a lot of readers, give them what they want.  Rewrite the news with your own personal bias and some people will love you and always read your blog.

4. Give people what they hate.

Looking to start a wildfire on your blog? Write an article about a news event that most people won’t agree with.  Keep in mind that this approach is likely to alienate your existing readers and might make them stop visiting your blog. Controversy sells and gives people a reason to make a comment.

Those are a few quick and easy ways to earn money online by writing about the news.  Have fun!

Related posts:

1. Earn Money Online Vs. Make Money Online
2. How Do Bloggers Earn Money Online?
3. Earn Money Online with Vector Art

Stealing links is a very popular link building method for many people, including my team. If I can get all of the links someone else has, then build more, I will theoretically outrank them.  That doesn’t always work out because there are many other ranking factors including domain age, age of links (yes, that’s right, the age of your links), quality of the site, on-page SEO, etc.

I posted earlier about how to steal your competitors links, so check that out to learn the easy and difficult methods to stealing links.

So now that you and the rest of the world know how to steal your links, what do you do to protect your sites ranking? The best way is a technique I learned from a lawyer.  He was explaining to me that he had a case against one of the largest companies in the world and has been in the Fortune 500 for many years. As he was deep into this case, he had asked the company for records of his client.  When the company sent records, the sent 27 boxes of records for the client, who had worked for the company for 15 years.  They basically drowned him in paperwork!

How Do I Keep People From Stealing My Links?

To keep people from stealing your links, you utilize similar methods to the lawyer. If you can give them so much data that they can’t sort through it to find your links, you’re successfully protecting your links. For me the easiest way to do this is to buy links in bulk. In the link above about how to steal your competitors links, I showed you two ways to steal them.  Buying links in bulk will protect you from both methods.  Places like Fiverr can give you thousands of links, some on high PR pages at very affordable prices. This contributes to a great link diversity. As I mentioned in my Fiverr SEO Test, these links aren’t going to help much, but they can definitely bury your competition in a mountain of data to sort though.

With 800 incoming links, it’s easy to see which links provide the most value, but when you show 8,000 links, how will your competition know which links are providing value, and which are a waste of time.  They won’t, and that’s how you protect your link profile.

Related posts:

1. How to Steal Your Competitors Links
2. Someone’s Stealing My Content!
3. Page Rank isn’t About Links

For many people, showing their skills in a SEO contest might be good for their ego, but beyond that, there isn’t much to be gained. There have been a few contests that offered a cash prize (usually less than $500), or a small prize like a TV. Are these prizes worth spending time on?

For me, these prizes aren’t worth the time and cost I would put into a SEO contest.  I pay my link builders well to get me results.  If they don’t get results, they don’t stay on my team very long.  As of today, I have 5 link builders that have been with my for over 3 years.  Others have come and gone, but most of them stick around.  I pay better than everyone else, and I expect them to build links just like I train them.  Basically, they’re very valuable to me.

If these prizes were comparable to what I could earn promoting my niche sites, or my client sites, I would drop everything and join a SEO contest.  Until that happens, I’m following the money, which is link building for my clients who demand results and my niche sites which make me a steady passive income every month.

No related posts.

An online friend, Codrut Turcanu has interviewed and posted his results with 22 professional bloggers asking them about how they earn money online.  After reading the 22 responses, I thought I should share some of my favorite ideas.

Selling Your Services

A common theme is to sell services.  These could be design services, article writing services, web development, link building services, social media services, consulting services, coaching, and an offline service such as computer repair.  This type of freelancing is always nice because you’re getting paid when you work.  With many other types of online work, you can do work but not get paid, such as with affiliate marketing.

This is one of my favorite methods of earning money online, and has consistently been one of the best ways that I earn money online.  On top of selling services and earning money, you make a lot of friends and connections that can be valuable down the road.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has never really been something that I’ve cared for.  Why should I sell your product and get 50% of the earnings when I could create my own product and keep 100% of the earnings, then hire affiliate marketers to sell the product and give them 50% and keep 50% after doing nothing?  Well, the truth is that creating that product and marketing it is a very difficult task.  Your product needs to stand out among other similar products, then you need either a large list, or a way to get the word out to a lot of people.  Definitely not as easy as it sounds.

Product Reviews

I’ve done a few product reviews in the past and have been happy to do them.  They’re usually fun and easy to do. I only do product reviews when the company is willing to send me the product if I don’t already own it.  I wouldn’t review a product that I’ve never used myself.  I’ve been sent a military grade encryption USB drive, and a few other small items to review.

Selling Links or Paid Posts

5 years ago I would imagine that 75% of bloggers would consider this their main form of income.  With Google cracking down on paid posts and selling links many people are scared to venture into that territory. The best new strategy is to build links naturally.

Related posts:

1. Earn Money Online Vs. Make Money Online
2. Earn Money Online with Vector Art
3. How To: Make Money Online (Intro)

Stealing your competitors links is the quickest and easiest way to make progress when trying to rank for a competitive keyword. Here’s how you can do it too.This is a strategy that my link builders are employing every day. There is an easy way to do it, and a difficult way.  The easy way includes owning Market Samurai (free trial).  The difficult way is free, but a lot more difficult.

Easy Way to Steal Your Competitors Links

Open Market Samurai and click the SEO Competition module on the left side.  Change “Backlink Source to Yahoo Site Explorer then click “Generate Results”.  I set my max backlinks to 1000, but you can do less if you’d like, it will be faster.  Here is the part of Market Samurai that many people don’t know about.  Next to each domain is a little triangle, click that triangle then click “PR Analysis”.

For these screenshots I used the keyword Dallas Wedding Photographer.  As you can see, there are 2 PR4 blog comments, a few PR3′s you can grab, as well as a bunch of PR2 links waiting for you!  And this is just one of the sites in the top 10 for a single keyword.  Imagine how many links there would be if you did this for all of the top 10, and chose 10 related keywords.  That would be enough links to keep you busy for at least a few weeks.

Difficult Way to Steal Your Competitors Links

The second and much more difficult way to steal your competition’s links is to go through the Yahoo! Site Explorer, put in your url and then click “Inlinks” then “Except from this domain”.  That will show you all of the links that Yahoo! knows about, but they’re not sorted at all, and if the website has a sitewide link, you might see 500 links from the same domain which is a pain to sort through.

Using the Yahoo! Site Explorer is definitely not ideal, but if you want to save a few bucks, it will definitely work.

Now go put that into action!  Steal some links and start ranking.  Or, hire my team and we’ll do it for you.

Related posts:

1. Page Rank isn’t About Links
2. TNX.net Rocks for Buying Links!
3. From Adsense to Affiliate Links

If you’ve never been to Fiverr.com, there are millions of links to be had.  The only problem is that they’re mainly junk links which are only good for increasing link diversity, and not actually helping pages rank.  Increasing link diversity can help keep your competitors from stealing your links.  On second thought, these links are also good for helping a new site get indexed.  They can quicken the process and help Google find your site sooner.  For most sites, this happens pretty quickly, within a week at the most.

So, to prove this theory that junk/spam links don’t help much, I’m going to take one of my sites and buy a bunch of packages at Fiverr and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.  The domain is an exact match .com which makes it very easy to rank.  If I had my link builders work on this site, I would expect a number 1 ranking in 2-4 weeks.

The only work I did was to spin a generic article using TheBestSpinner which took me about 2 minutes to get to 75% unique.

I won’t link to the site from here since I don’t want to skew the results.  The site is Job In Hawaii….com.  As you can see, it’s a one page site that is currently ranked #93 (as of 4/19/11).  I did a comment blast on it a few weeks ago, that’s why it’s ranking #93.  It’s been ranked at #93 since I’ve been tracking it (4/10/11).  I’ll come back and update this post in a few weeks and we’ll see what has happened.  Subscribe to my blog if you want to see the results but think you might forget to come back.

Fiverr Gigs ordered:

1 x Scrapebox links, 10k comments

1 x SEnuke X, only Social Network/RSS

1 x Article Marketing Robot submission

3 x Xrumer profile links, pyramid and direct

Total Cost: $30

This is what the test site looks like, just so you can make sure you’re at the right place.

UPDATE: 6 Days later…All links have been finished, and are now live. Ranking went to 63 for one day, now it’s at 109.

UPDATE: 22 days later…No significant change in ranking.  Site is now at #66.  Screenshot below from Market Samurai showing no significant change.

What do you think, is Fiverr worth even $5?

No related posts.