Beware of Software Blasting SEO

[rowanman28]

Just a quick note, my test site Cheap Stylus was on the first page of that search, and I ordered two Fiverr gigs for back link blasting spam, and now it is so far from the first page, I can't even find it without typing in the domain name.

Whatever you may have heard, software blasting is a grey-hat SEO technique, and it is incredibly dangerous for your site.

I have built my other site in a quality, white-hat way, made back links manually, that appear natural to Google, and posted quality keyword rich content on it, and it's page rank three, and on page two of social promotion, a search with fairly good numbers, and a reasonable amount of competition.

Don't trust anyone who says that quantity is better than quality. It may have been once, but not anymore. Especially the dodgy gigs you get on Fiverr. If you're going to order something there, make sure it appears natural.

[gazraz101]

I totally agree, short term gains can hurt! I would build your backlinks, or find a reputable firm that you like to do it for you.

[highrank]

Although I was already aware that spam backlinks can damage your SERP's, I didn't think it would have such a significant effect!

So, if I want to get my competition knocked off page 1... I just have to spend $10 on fiverr getting spam backlinks for their website?

[rowanman28]

It shouldn't be that way, but I found out it is. Which is very annoying. That site was a write-off anyway. I think it's because it's only a month old though.

[markhimeb]

i wouldnt ever spend money on any seo related gig -maybe for a link wheel only. Instead i would prefer gigs of article writing, web design, technical stuff, etc.

[littledan]

The number 1 way for your SEO has always been and always will, unless Google change thier entire plan. Is to provide high quality, relevant, unique content regularily on your website or blog. Add to this some quality links from high pageranked do follow directories again using unique targeted content. Forget about all the short lived short cuts.

[dark witness]

I got an email a few weeks back from a guy who was talking about this. He was pointing out that with the new updates from google he now believes that mass profile links and so on can have a negative effect now.

He was saying he use to recommend this sort of backlinking but it does appear that google is starting to lockdown on it. i joined a few services for this and so far all the sites I have tested it on all have lost rankings.

[John Romaine]

Let me ask you.....

When did you do this?
When did your site disappear?

[rowanman28]

I did it a few days ago, and I just noticed today that my site had totally disappeared from the rankings. I'm completely new to making my own websites, only been doing it a month on my own domains. I'm just glad I didn't make this mistake with my main site. I've always had fairly good results from making my own quality links, and that is the way you have to do it these days. If you are going to pay for anything, pay for a quality article to be written, in a way that looks like the person who linked to you was doing it because they thought it was worth linking to. This is a legitimate "vote" for your site, which is what Google looks for. Google is also placing more importance on the manual links you make yourself, from your own computer.

[rowanman28]

This is really important, a lot of the advice that has been good in the past, and still exists all over this forum is basically completely wrong now. It was because of advice from this forum, and some people who've been around here for a while that I ordered those software blasting gigs, and everyone on this forum should be aware that it just doesn't work, and can really hurt you badly. Spread the word, cause nobody wants to spend a lot of money, and a lot of time, only to be socked down to the hundredth page by Google.

[Doot]

How old was the site? How many backlinks did you have sent to the site? Over how many days where the submissions spread over?

[rowanman28]

It was a few weeks old, and the back links, or spam links were done straight away, I guess. The point was, experienced warriors thought it was a good idea, and it's actually a very dangerous idea that can ruin people's hard work in an instant, which they pay for as well. I'm never going to make that mistake again, and I'd suggest that other people recognize that if they try to fool Google, they may get hurt badly from it. Bought links of any kind are grey-hat SEO, and risky business, people need to recognize that that's the way Google sees it. While there are still some elements of the original Google algorithms that remain, it's constantly changing, and I suspect it will continue to change to weed out quantity, in preference of quality back links.

[kkchoon]

Do allow me to sharing my success here...

I have used a lot of automated tools to rank my site, and my success comes from automation!

Actually Google can't tell if your site get backlinks from a software or human, and they hate both ways. As long as you are creating backlinks, you are against the webmaster terms.

What I will do is - trick Google to think I'm gaining links - naturally! How do I do that? Easy, schedule your backlinks for pinging or crawling or indexing. You don't have to send all into the system at once, just schedule it out...

I won't worry about penalty when building backlinks, because Google won't find all my backlinks at once, and Google will find them gradually when I start running indexing campaign.

Automated tools work, but you have to know how to do it manually, then automate it with various software.

[marieluy143]

I Agree, first there's no such thing as shortcut SEO and if there is any then it's not permanent.

[markowe]

I wouldn't be sure your site has permanently disappeared. Certainly in the past when I have done this my site has popped back up in an even better position a few weeks later. Maybe the game has changed, maybe you'll never see it again - I probably wouldn't blast like that myself - but don't assume it's some penalty, who knows, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

[willyyard]

Agree but the bottom point is that a website will be popular and rank well on search engines if you work on continuous basis.

[noah.whitmore]

Definitely agree with you.

This whole thing brings up a weird paradox in the IM world. When you say something like 'Ordering comment blasts from Fiverr can really penalize your site', everyone jumps on board to agree with you.

But, whenever you get into a discussion about whether or not links can hurt a website, everyone throws out 'LINKS CAN NEVER HURT A SITE!' If you take it out of a 'SPAM' context, everyone thinks that links can do nothing bad to you. They always say, 'If links could hurt you, you could sabotage your competitors by blasting SPAM that links to their site'

I have actually experienced being penalized because a competing site threw up 15,000 links to my site in a few days. Google slapped me, hard. Still recovering and it was a few months ago. People need to see the truth about links - too many crappy links can kill you.

-Noah

[mmfromh]

All these "ethical" and "manual" SEO people who bash semi-auto and automated software programs probably have never used backlinking software before.

I have several sites ranking on the first and second page of Google for competitive keywords using a couple backlinking software programs.
All of these sites have been ranked high consistently for a while.

Occasionally some bounce in rank but that’s normal for most sites. Mine always bounce back and usually higher in rankings than before.

Saying your site dropped out of the SERPs because you paid someone $10 for backlinks proves nothing. It's %100 normal for new websites to bounce in and out of the SERPs.

You always hear people say "build links naturally" but what does that mean? How do you know whether Google can tell your backlink is manual and mine isn’t?

You have to be smart with backlink blasts and not just buy some cheap crappy service at Fiverr for a recently registered domain and think you figured something out.

[JSProjects]

Going fully automated is usually a bad idea on sites that you intend to operate on a long-term basis.

However, I've seen a few people who's sole income online is creating "churn and burn" sites. They'll research up-and-coming topics / keywords, put a site together, blast the crap out of it and get it to rank 1-3 (since the competition is usually very weak), and move onto the next topic. By the time Google slaps them they've already created 10 other sites.

Not my cup of tea though.

[JamesGw]

Since the site's gone anyway, while don't you send another blast of 3-5k links with these anchor texts and see if it comes back:

click here
more info
www.mywebsite.com
learn more
click now!
variation of primary anchor text
variation 2 of primary anchor text

[halfpoint]

"I did X and then Y happened. I have no proof or evidence and that X caused anything, however, I can now definitively say that X is always bad".

[BIG Mike]

If the site was fairly new, it's doubtful that the links had anything to do with. Google has no way to know how the link was made, i.e.; manually, automatically or whatever.

New sites go through a "Mini-Dance" while Google compares it to similar sites and decides where it should rank. This is why so many new sites seem like they made page 1, when really it's Google playing the best fit game.

Automated tools are just like any physical tool - used properly by a craftsman and they work great. Used improperly....disaster.

[RevSEO]

While I agree, check back with us in about 3 weeks. I bet your site will be back where it was and probably be ranked higher than before.

What you are experiencing is typical Google dance behavior. Keep in mind that it was as simple as buying two $5 gigs off of Fiverr to knock a websites rankings out of existence we'd all be in a world of pain.

[mmickeals]

There are a couple of explanations for what you are experiencing. Neither explanation means that link blasts are bad, just that you used them incorrectly.

The most likely explanation is that you varied your linkbuilding velocity and acceleration. These should be relatively constant. If you were to keep purchasing blasts, you would most likely find that the site would zoom very up very quickly.

The next explanation is that you are suffering from an overoptimized anchor text. This is still a somewhat controversial view, but it appears that Google is now devaluing when you have nothing but a single anchor text link pointing at your site. As another poster mentioned, try using variations of your keyword anchor text, along with other common anchor text such as click here, more, etc.

Good luck with your sites, but remember that jumping to conclusions is of no help to you or others that read your posts. And don't just trust what I say, or what you read. Just test, test, and test some more to find the truth.

[rowanman28]

I'm experiencing multiple problems. With my main site, professional social promotion, my Hubpages hub says I'm linking to a prohibited site, and I don't know if thats because of incoming or outgoing links, but I know its because of links, and thats not the one i ordered the blast on. Firefox is playing up, it says connecting to myprofile.ignorelist.com whenever I try to open any page, and its really slow. I think Im being punished left right and center for spamming, and no matter what anyone says worked in the past, its dangerous, all of it. If I was to buy more back link spam as one person suggested, would I then be permanently addicted to spam, in order to keep my site in the serps? I'm not going to bother with it anymore, its not worth the hassle. I might write an article or two, and make a few social bookmarking links. Thats it for me and trying to fool google.

[larkykid]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

Do allow me to sharing my success here...

I have used a lot of automated tools to rank my site, and my success comes from automation!

Actually Google can't tell if your site get backlinks from a software or human, and they hate both ways. As long as you are creating backlinks, you are against the webmaster terms.

What I will do is - trick Google to think I'm gaining links - naturally! How do I do that? Easy, schedule your backlinks for pinging or crawling or indexing. You don't have to send all into the system at once, just schedule it out...

I won't worry about penalty when building backlinks, because Google won't find all my backlinks at once, and Google will find them gradually when I start running indexing campaign.

Automated tools work, but you have to know how to do it manually, then automate it with various software.

Does the software that you're using do the scheduling for you?
Does the pinging give a much higher success rate of your backlinks being found than if you were not to use it at all?

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by rowanman28

Just a quick note, my test site Cheap Stylus was on the first page of that search, and I ordered two Fiverr gigs for back link blasting spam, and now it is so far from the first page, I can't even find it without typing in the domain name.

Whatever you may have heard, software blasting is a grey-hat SEO technique, and it is incredibly dangerous for your site.

I have built my other site in a quality, white-hat way, made back links manually, that appear natural to Google, and posted quality keyword rich content on it, and it's page rank three, and on page two of social promotion, a search with fairly good numbers, and a reasonable amount of competition.

Don't trust anyone who says that quantity is better than quality. It may have been once, but not anymore. Especially the dodgy gigs you get on Fiverr. If you're going to order something there, make sure it appears natural.

I will guarantee that after 30 days your page will be back and ranked higher then it was.

[Rogbog]

If you blast a whole bunch of backlines to your website in a short period of time that's not natural ang Google's not stupid. So they will penalize you for blasting spam. Build your backlines slow and steady. Why not anyway; won't hurt. Do the work. Put in the time.

[rachs]

Its depend on various factors. Blasting is not indexed at the same times. Google need time to crawled their and found.

And if your site are new and ranked for short period that's normal process of google. If your site are really good with content just keep building link and you will good.

Rachs

[JawadAshraf]

Never blast too many back-links directly to your site, these will not be counted. You are just spamming your site, wasting your time and money. There is a SECRET strategy to do it effectively which you need to figure it out or have to learn from whom who knows how to get full benefit of such blasts. Cheers