An SEO Hosting Alternative?

[Amys101place]

Just been kind of rolling this around in my head lately, but what do you guys think about creating a cheap seo hosting network in this way...

50 of us get together (we could expand to 100 later on), and commit to building 50 wordpress blogs each.. 1 for each member of the group. Since most of us likely have unlimited hosting, 50 blogs is cake. We of course get our domain name at our usual place and update the name servers for each of our new 50 blogs, given to us by the person building them. Each person could automate backups for their own blogs with a plugin and since the domain name is registered with you, you'll always be safe in keeping the sites and the domain PR that gets built up over time.

It might sound like bit of work in the beginning.. but so is creating your own SEO Hosting network.. probably much more so.

I would personally be all for doing this. I'd just create a new hostgator account for my 49 business partners, if others are interested. We only have to give wordpress admin access to each person for this.. I really don't even see the need to complicate it by granting ftp access. If we need to occasionally do an ftp favor for someone (like wrapping a site to sell and exporting the db), no big deal.

Let me know your thoughts. I literally thought this up a couple days ago and have no experience with SEO Hosting, so perhaps I'm missing a key element, but it sure seems that a group of 50 blogs with 50 different IP addresses, at no extra cost, could surely be a big benefit to some of us. Host Gator's seohosting costs $225 a month. Compare that to 0.

If you can't think of any negatives, let me know if you have any interest. I'll create a private members only forum for 50 of us and get things rolling.

Thanks!

[paulgl]

Explain again how this is $0.

Paul

[MikeFriedman]

It definitely would take some commitment by the members. Most people don't have 50 domain names to use for a project like this. If you find the right, committed people, it can be good. It can also be a nightmare if people start disappearing from the network with no warning, etc.

Another alternative is to find a smaller number of people, say 20, and have each person host one domain but it must be PR 2+. Then you build out home pages with 20 links on them. It's a little different style than the usual blog network, but it can be a more powerful network because of using higher PR pages.

Basically each person is getting 20 PR 2+ backlinks for the price of their monthly hosting of one site (say $5-9).

You could make it PR 3+ sites if you wanted. You want to use a smaller number of people for this type of network though because you don't want a ton of backlinks coming out of each page. It dilutes the power of the pages.

Each person can also setup a few pages on their domain. Then setup links to those pages from the home page. Over time, they may develop some decent PR on the separate pages that can be used for the network as well.

Just an idea.

[Amys101place]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

It definitely would take some commitment by the members. Most people don't have 50 domain names to use for a project like this. If you find the right, committed people, it can be good. It can also be a nightmare if people start disappearing from the network with no warning, etc.

Another alternative is to find a smaller number of people, say 20, and have each person host one domain but it must be PR 2+. Then you build out home pages with 20 links on them. It's a little different style than the usual blog network, but it can be a more powerful network because of using higher PR pages.

Basically each person is getting 20 PR 2+ backlinks for the price of their monthly hosting of one site (say $5-9).

You could make it PR 3+ sites if you wanted. You want to use a smaller number of people for this type of network though because you don't want a ton of backlinks coming out of each page. It dilutes the power of the pages.

Each person can also setup a few pages on their domain. Then setup links to those pages from the home page. Over time, they may develop some decent PR on the separate pages that can be used for the network as well.

Just an idea.

You are right.. the domain cost might scare many off. Although.. 50 is just the max. If you don't have that much to spend, then buy 10 / 20 domains.. as you need them.
I like your idea too. Especially with the PR2/PR3 Pre-qual.

Hmm... well like I said, I just started thinking about this, so I'm trying to consider all angles. I still think a small group of us could really help each other out at no cost.

Paul.. it's free because you just build others blogs on your current hosting plan (or as I said, I'd probably just lop down another $9 a month for a separate hostgator account for this). Every blog you build is for an individual who is using that blog only for his/her own network. If you have unlimited hosting, the only cost incurred to each person is the cost of the domain names, as they build sites.

[dburk]

Hi Amys101place,

Why make it so complicated? Just setup a single Wordpress script and configure for multisite.

You could appoint yourself the group organizer, and ask all members of the group to add a site for each new member who joins the group.

A word of caution:

The only real need for SEO hosting is to hide your affiliation, generally speaking it is the most dubious players in the industry that will be attracted to such offers. You know what they say: "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas."

[commoditytrainer]

Amy, it sounds like a really need concept, maybe you could make a diagram to conceptualize what you are doing and easier for others to understand? Just an idea, but you are on to something.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by Amys101place

You are right.. the domain cost might scare many off. Although.. 50 is just the max. If you don't have that much to spend, then buy 10 / 20 domains.. as you need them.
I like your idea too. Especially with the PR2/PR3 Pre-qual.

If you are just going to accept brand new domains, then I would recommend everyone just subscribe to Magic Submitter or SEnuke X instead. You can build tons of PR 0 or PR n/a sites on there without as much hassle or cost.

50 PR 0 sites are not going to give you any kind of noticeable boost in the SERPS (certainly not worth the $300-500 yearly cost to register them). Over time, they may gain PR and authority, however, they won't on their own. In for them to gain any ranking power, now each person is going to be working on SEO'ing 50 sites.

It is certainly worth it in the end if you get people committed to long term results.

The strength in private networks really is in putting together high PR domains.

[RevSEO]

Much easier said then done, let me tell you. Especially when you've got 50+ people involved your gonna run into a BUNCH of problems.

For example, while people may be motivated TODAY things come up and people will drift off. Now what are you gonna do as you start seeing the network fall apart website by website?

Now this is also a long term play as your gonna need to build backlinks and subsequently value from those websites. Fifty new websites with little content or any backlinks really isn't gonna go very far.

How are you gonna manage the network? Whos gonna be responsible for the person selling Viagra links and other bad neighborhood links from their websites?

So on and so forth. While it may seem like a great idea, its gonna be very tough with 50 people.

[Amys101place]

Originally Posted by RevSEO

Much easier said then done, let me tell you. Especially when you've got 50+ people involved your gonna run into a BUNCH of problems.

For example, while people may be motivated TODAY things come up and people will drift off. Now what are you gonna do as you start seeing the network fall apart website by website?

Now this is also a long term play as your gonna need to build backlinks and subsequently value from those websites. Fifty new websites with little content or any backlinks really isn't gonna go very far.

How are you gonna manage the network? Whos gonna be responsible for the person selling Viagra links and other bad neighborhood links from their websites?

So on and so forth. While it may seem like a great idea, its gonna be very tough with 50 people.

I wouldn't care about others posting Viagra links, as each person would only be responsible for setting up a blog for the other people.. and s/he would never touch that blog again. Each person would then be solely responsible for all the content on all of their own blogs, which simply reside on other's shared hosting plans.

[Amys101place]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

If you are just going to accept brand new domains, then I would recommend everyone just subscribe to Magic Submitter or SEnuke X instead. You can build tons of PR 0 or PR n/a sites on there without as much hassle or cost.

50 PR 0 sites are not going to give you any kind of noticeable boost in the SERPS (certainly not worth the $300-500 yearly cost to register them). Over time, they may gain PR and authority, however, they won't on their own. In for them to gain any ranking power, now each person is going to be working on SEO'ing 50 sites.

It is certainly worth it in the end if you get people committed to long term results.

The strength in private networks really is in putting together high PR domains.

Thanks, Mike. You're definitely helping me to think about things I haven't, which is why I posted. I was thinking from my vantage point of being able to turn those 50 blogs into at least PR2/PR3 within a year, and I do it with autoblogs, so it's pretty hands off and easy, but granted, everyone doesn't share the same skill set, so it could be quite tough. I'll look into this other alternative or two that you shared and think more along the lines of PR2 blogs or higher and how to form a network.

Appreciate your advice!

[Mike Anthony]

regardless of the pros and cons Amy is one of the best newbies to this thread I have seen for awhile. She is thinking outside the box, her sig has a well built site instead of a junk MFA and she has her head on right.

After just coming from a thread with total garbage from a supposed veterans claiming a .info PR n/a network is better than a network with authority its refreshing.

Your idea could fit nicely to a service that is coming. doesn't meet the conventional definitions of a network but it will try and restore the old tradition that used to exist - webmasters recommending other webmasters with great content and followed links.

If you think about it provided your idea was not to setup junk blogs there is a similarity to what you propose and its totally white hat.

In fact PM your details and I'll give you a couple PR 2 links. You've earned em

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

regardless of the pros and cons Amy is one of the best newbies to this thread I have seen for awhile. She is thinking outside the box, her sig has a well built site instead of a junk MFA and she has her head on right.

After just coming from a thread with total garbage from a supposed veterans claiming a .info PR n/a network is better than a network with authority its refreshing.

Your idea could fit nicely to a service that is coming. doesn't meet the conventional definitions of a network but it will try and restore the old tradition that used to exist - webmasters recommending other webmasters with great content and followed links.

If you think about it provided your idea was not to setup junk blogs there is a similarity to what you propose and its totally white hat.

In fact PM your details and I'll give you a couple PR 2 links. You've earned em

+1 to all of that.