byau

Hooray on best practices! This part I am looking forward to !!!

Thanks,
Ben

Sean Donahoe

@Blackvoid - Not at all, its the content of the feed that is important... and the content does not point to the main domain only second level links.

@Ben - Awesome

All the best

Sean

BlackVoid

So frankly we all now see what I have been pointing out for a week. Yea....I wish there was another way than here to air dirty laundry when we can't break though Sean's support staff. It took much time and tinkering on my end to sort this out and realize I'm not overlooking something in the set up.

byau

This is a good point

While every link in the feed does NOT point to the money site (it points to one of the "about us" type links which then points to our site), our domain name is still in every URL of those "about us" type pages.

e.g.

http://www.all-list.cn/tools/alexa.do?domain=[our money site]
http://www.similarsites.com/sites-like/[our money site]

Sean, is having the string of our domain in every single link detrimental even if the domain itself is not ours? Or is this type of footprint not anything to worry about?

byau

(just posted this) - our domain IS in the second level links as part of the URL

Thoughts?

e.g.
http://www.coolwhois.com/d/[our URL]

BlackVoid

Every link in the content of the feed for the throw away domain goes to the money site. We are saying the same thing but this could be used against you. Too traceable. scrapeable reportable etc.

As said we need to remove the brand name loki etc in all titles. That would solve everything. Thanks for considering to do so.

byau

Not true. None of them go to the money site. I'm not sure why you keep saying this. Have you even looked in the feed itself?

Possibly true, see previous posts of mine

Not true at all. Look in the feed as I did. Save it to notepad or whatever text editor you like and do a case INsensitive search for the string "loki" and it shows up all of ZERO times. None of the titles and none of the content contain the string "loki" (case insensitive). The URL of the feed contains "loki" which is easily fixed as Sean has already pointed out (and myself in my workaround).

BlackVoid

So I just did a quick search on "plugins/lokilinkbuilder/feed.php" and pulled up everyone. Just noticed a competitor or 2 in there as well.

The quote of mine you quote is if you are using the so called stealth mode and I see you mentioned you have not done so yet. I say it because it is so.

BlackVoid

It would appear you are mistaken.

byau

Here's a question. If you never submit your loki feed, will it show up in a google search? I agree if you submit it then it will show up. But if you don't submit it and only submit your non-footprint feeds than I am guessing it won't show up

If somehow search engines can still crawl it, I would say change your .htaccess file to block search engines from crawling your wp-content/plugins folder (say that's a good idea).

Thoughts?

BlackVoid

Good thinking as Sean's support staff already suggested but it does not work. But again I already mentioned that previously.

And its not that you want to hide as you suggest, we just need to customize the line........

Sean Donahoe

Ok guys, a lot of posts in a short time ... LOL...

This may help block the plugins folder but make sure you test your plugins once implementing: Simple Way To Protect Your Plugins Folder From Snooping Eyes...

Stay tuned for updates to the plugin but I have to run and do a webinar for the rest of the evening

All the best

Sean

BlackVoid

That renders the plug in in operable. Did it last week and you support staff refused to reply.

byau

p.s. didn't pull up mine. I have yet to submit my loki rss feed (I never planned to because of the footprint) and I specifically searched my site for it and it didn't pull up.

I think we are in agreement here in the end. It's not a good thing because it is in the URL (not title..that is just a semantics thing). And if you have already submitted it out into the world than the footprint is out there. Yes we overall are agreeing.

I think the semantics are important though because it does go into how to protect your footprints

You have to first make sure (maybe via .htaccess) search engines cannot crawl your plugins folder and find it on accident

But more important, even if you protect your folder, if you go ahead and go and submit and rss feed with the URL that has "lokilinkbuilder" in it, doesn't matter that it cannot be crawled because you yourself as a user let the cat out of the bag.

Those are two important distinctions to make.

byau

Because we want this thing to work and are having issues getting over the "gotchas" we are seeing. Thanks for all your responses so far.

BlackVoid

As Sean pointed out contained in his link above-

With Google, if they see automation plugins they do not like or auto-promotion tools they do not approve of, they can take action to penalize your site.

You are back to the htaccess thing again. For me it shot down the proper functioning of the plug in.

byau

I'm a little confused by your post. No I am not using stealth mode. In fact I am not using anything yet. I haven't publicized any of my rss feeds yet. I am only emailing myself the feeds right now because I want to see what types of posts my keywords are pulling up and then from there want to tweak the keywords a bit. That's why right now you won't be pulling up my websites using the search you are mentioning. This is a good thing right?

When I am comfortable, then yes I will submit my RSS feeds. And you can bet I will make sure the feeds I submit do not contain "loki" in the URL whether using Sean's stealth mode or my own workaround. I will be making the URL to my feed as generic as possible.

byau

I'll play with it and see what happens. .htaccess can be used to disallow crawling to your site, but that doesn't mean you yourself cannot access the URL.

It's possible your .htaccess rules blocked ALL access to the plugins folder instead of just search engines. If you did that, then yes your plugin would stop working.

You can configure .htaccess many different ways, some will disable access to your plugin, some will not. So I'll play around with it and let you know what I find.

BlackVoid

That would be appreciated. As to stealth it is as I have said.

byau

Did you do a google search of "plugins/lokilinkbuilder/feed.php" ?

If so,you're not actually crawling a site for plugins. You are just searching for a string and the results you are seeing are RSS directories where people have submitted there loki feeds with the loki footprint in the URL.

This goes back again to previous post I wrote. If you never submitted the rss feed with the "loki" footprint in the URL, it won't show up. So don't submit the RSS feed with the offending footprint and it won't be found. If you already submitted it, then it is out there in the world. So what you are finding in your search results is anyone who has submitted a loki rss feed with the offending footprint to an rss directory, the results are coming from rss directories. I think we do agree this footprint seems to be pretty offending.

As far as the .htaccess file not making the plugin work, that's kind of a generic statement so without knowing details it's hard to guess why it doesn't work. My guess is you are blocking access to the plugins folder. What probably is happening is this will disable access to the rss feed (which is good, you don't want that feed used anymore anyway since it has the footprint) but will also disable access to the php code cron is trying to get to to build your rss feed (not good, this would break your plugin).

I have a big family weekend planned but I'll be looking at it next week and let you know what I find.

BlackVoid

Byau pm me if you like. Dont have enough posts to initiate.

Sean Donahoe

Ok just getting ready to release a new update. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up...

1. Optimized Syndication - We revamped and improved the email posting to work with restrictive systems
2. Stealth Location - Change the folder name of the install for greater peace of mind
3. Optimized Formatting - Ideal message formatting for micro-blog networks
4. Feed Management - You can change the name, description and name of the main feed
5. Custom Feed Location - You can place Stealth LOKI in your website root to minimize footprints
6. Link Cloaking - We now add automated link cloaking to protect the direct location of the destination urls
7. Speed Tweaks - Internal optimizations for faster processing on shared servers to minimize overhead

Just recording the videos to go over this in more detail...

Keep an eye on your emails for updates when ready... and upgrade instructions.

All the best

Sean

BlackVoid

Nice : )

Sean Donahoe

Ok, just released and we sent out an email. Go check out the members area, download the plugin and watch the videos in the training area...

All the best

Sean

riverdude

Sean,

Sent you a pm.

Actually, 3 as I may have figured out the problem, but not sure how to fix it.

riverdude

Okay everyone,

I installed the updated version 1.0.3.

Everything works perfectly, even the email posting.

The only problem left is posting to HelloTxt. They have their own link shortener, which is broken. However, if Sean can find a way to add an asterick (*) before each link for us HelloTxt users, it will bypass the HelloTxt shortener.

Since Loki now has a built in link shortener, we really don't need HelloTxt changing it anyway.

How Sean can configure this for HelloTxt, without messing up the links for other services is beyond me. But if anyone can pull it off, Sean can.

Thanks so much Sean.

byau

I played around with this thing quite a bit yesterday and today. I really really like the idea here but there are a few things I still have some issues with. Maybe they are non-issues, I'm not sure because I am still trying to learn some best SEO practices.

Sean (and others) My biggest three questions:

1) the built in first level links (those "about us" type links) aren't reliable at all. Many times they are not built or have an error. Or they are built but do not contain a link back to our site. Even though they are "auto", it is not reliable. Seems like it would be better to just manually build the first level links (or build them in some other way) and use those as our first level links instead of the "about us" auto built links. e.g.using youtube, web 2.0, ezinearticles, etc.. and copy those in for our first level links and just delete all the "about us" first level links.

Thoughts?

2) Just about 100% of the news story links in the RSS feed are changed from the actual news story to our first level links. Is this kind of suspicious that every link in the feed goes to a first level link which then comes back to us? Or is this okay? Seems suspicious to me but again I'm not an SEO expert. Thoughts?

My inexperienced SEO gut feeling was thinking it seemed suspicious and maybe 50% of the links being changed instead of 100% would be better. Or basically something less than 100%. So maintaining some of the actual news links and then changing the rest to our first level links

3) Is publicizing our feed going to hurt us? The feed itself is coming from our website so will that look suspicious? Because then our website will point to our first level link which then points back to our website. My gut almost says it would be better to NOT publicize the RSS feed and instead use the email function and email the list of articles to our web 2.0 properties and hellotxt accounts so instead these web2.0 properties point to our first level links which then point to us instead of doing what almost looks like a two way link exchange.

I'd love to get some feedback - am I just bonkers or are these good points?

royalmice

I bought this plugin but later found out how sneaky Sean were with his sales page.

The multi site license only allow you to install the plugin on 10 sites. This is not clearly indicated on the sales page and i think it is intentionally done to get people to sign up just to find out later they are limited to only sites. Why was it not simply called a 10 site license.

So now i need to pay an additional $67 on top of the $47 i have allready paid, just so i can get to install it on 50 sites == That's $114 for a WP plugin which i think is extremely expensive. Or $47 + $127 = $174 for unlimited install

I really feel cheated, specially since i bought several of Sean's products in the past. Maybe next time i need to read the small print.
I was really not expected to be misguided by a reputed IM

Luckily i can still get out on the 60 day guarantee because $47 for a plugin which i can only use is crazy, specially since i have not really seen any improvements in traffic since using the plugin, if anything it looks like it is hurting my seo

riverdude

@Royalmice

The sales page (lokilinkbuilder.com) states "You get this plugin and can use it on up to 10 of your OWN sites and start creating AMAZINGLY powerful links starting NOW… (You can also upgrade for more sites later)"

I'm not sure what is unclear about that...

With the recent updates, this plug-in rocks.

Sean taught me this strategy about 3 years ago and my sites soared.

Well worth the money.

royalmice

The fact that the so called Multi site license is only for 10 installs could have been made more transparent and clear, instead of listing it in small right towards the botom of the sales page - I believe this is misleading and done intentionally to fool people.

Dont know what the big deal about the recent upgrade apart from the fact that one can now change the path it show the feed at, everything else is basically like it was.

I have it installed on 10 sites and use the big links list as oppose to the base list that is provided, have followed all the suggestions and tips given in the cheat sheet and videos, and after 1 week, several of the sites actually show a decrease in traffic according to Google analaytics.

Anyway i am not here to bad mouth the plugin and or the results that can be achieved, i just wanted to voice my concern on the fact that is not CLEARLY indicated the multi site license is only for 10 installs

gj2802

I've been using LOKI for a couple of weeks now and I'm close to jacking it in as yet another piece of junk...

The support for this product is very hap-hazard when you need assistance..

I've set it up on 5 sites and as yet there have been feed problems on each and every one..

byau

Just another response here. I did not get a chance to play with it too much more. I didn't get the upgrade yet either since I had started in on workarounds for the different things the upgrades took care of anyway.

I ended up returning my loki linkbuilder. I really like the idea of this thing and I returned it because I was doing so many workarounds that I think I'll eventually just end up scripting something for my own use.

I was a bit disappointed to see my questions not answered here. I was also disappointed that the second level links were so flaky.

But as far as the idea of how this software works - I thought it was quite educational. I wish everyone look who decides to use this and would love to hear how people are doing with it.

BusyMum_2010

Hello Sean,

I bought the LOKI Plugin in July but just starting to use now. My questions:

What's the purpose of tiny url link cloaking (I know you said this is optional)? I am curious when our purpose is to create backlink to our site --which when Mask linking is not enabled will serve the backlink purpose because the url is http://www.authoritysite.com/homepag...acklinking.com, instead of, tinyurl.com.

Also, you are all the time saying that loki link builder creates multi-layered links -- links on second level links and links on first level. My questions:

1. What is the second level link? Are the llb feeds the second level links?
2. What is the first level link? I am confused because the urls on the llb feeds are the destination or as you say authority sites that when clicked doesn't have links to any post or page of our site?