10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know

CanuckMike · 06-23-2009, 08:47 PM

It was late last August that I first signed up for LinkVana. Today, 10 months later I have just cancelled my subscription. I wanted to share my strategies for fellow and soon to be LinkVana users - what went right, what went wrong and why I inevitably cancelled.

Judging from my own affiliate statistics I would say that staying 10 months was about 9.25 months more then other people so I think I had a pretty good handle on the system.

Now that I have no affiliation with the product I can more convincingly say to you that the product does work...when used correctly. The problem I saw with other people using and inevitably leaving LinkVana was that they didn't understand how search engines work or how to properly leverage the tools in front of them.

The Good
The easiest way I found to put LinkVana to good use, was by promoting user generated content sites the search engines already like. I would dig up low competition keywords, write and post an ezine article, then use LinkVana to bolster it up and I would be off to the races. I could do this with other article directories, squidoo pages, blogger, youtube etc. They already seem to have a leg up with the search engines and combined with LinkVana the results were really great in terms of rankings.

I typically went after 50+ searches a day < 50,000 competing pages and targeted the social sites that were missing from the first page. (Ezine, squidoo, youtube)

After a couple of months promoting with LinkVana I would have winning campaigns with the search engines and start to make some affiliate commissions.

Why People Fail
The people I saw using LinkVana (and who quickly left) were using it poorly for one of two reasons in my opinion.
1) They were going after ridiculously high volume and competition keywords like 'Acai Berry' or 'weight loss'. They didn't stand a chance and after three whole weeks of posting with no sign of their site moving past page 1000 they would leave. First off, I usually didn't see rankings moves for 5+ weeks on relatvely easy phrases. And regrettably, Google isn't willing to give you a big hug and kiss when a new site gets a couple dozen new links for those hyper competitive words.

2) The second reason for inevitable failure was because of operator deficincies in keyword research. They went after really long and out of place keyword phrases like, "I want to cook spaghetti with my eyes closed". LinkVana did its job but it can't turn coal into a diamond because being number one for a phrase with no searches is like coming first at whistling shows...nobody cares.

Why I left:
You are probably wondering why I would leave when I could sit there and build these somewhat profitably campaigns all day long. Well I moved on. I honestly got tired of kicking around for these low search keywords that would inevitably make me a couple sales every month but not what I wanted for the effort put in. Secondly, I had a mind set change with how I felt SEO should work. I decided to stop 'gaming' the search engines in favor of simply creating good quality content/products on my own sites and allow the search engines to do what they do best.

Another reason was the way people use search engines. I have heard stats that as much as 40% of all searches are unique. My sites were getting hits from so many non typical searches spending the time and dollars to go after the select phrases in LinkVana lost their return and appeal. And finally, PPC for quick targeted traffic is just so much easier then SEO. I can test larger and bigger offers much more quickly.

So to those wondering, yes LinkVana works. It does however take a few months for you to see results so be prepared to put down 450+ and time writing. You have to be realistic, it is not a magic bullet and it is not going to be right for everyone.

Bruce NewMedia · 06-23-2009, 09:29 PM

Thanks Michael, thats really an excellent review.

I had looked at LinkVana before but was
hearing alot of negative. Some, as you say, was probably marketers putting up a new site and trying to quickly rank organically for the word, "Insurance" or something.
They no doubt figured it didn't work. :-)

Since you say you've migrated to using PPC instead of seo, did you get any training in PPC and what kind of success have you been having there?
_____
Bruce

CanuckMike · 06-23-2009, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brucerby

Thanks Michael, thats really an excellent review.

I had looked at LinkVana before but was
hearing alot of negative. Some, as you say, was probably marketers putting up a new site and trying to quickly rank organically for the word, "Insurance" or something.
They no doubt figured it didn't work. :-)

Since you say you've migrated to using PPC instead of seo, did you get any training in PPC and what kind of success have you been having there?
_____
Bruce

In terms of speed and ease of implementation PPC is hands down (and quite obviously) easier then getting high organic rankings. I can start to see affiliate commissions same/next day as apposed to fiddling with getting my articles ranked for weeks. Really no contest there. The real reason I like it over tweaking for organic is it allows me to rapidly expand good campaigns to double and quadruple my money from the 'instant' traffic.

My training comes exclusively from, in my opinion, the holy grail of Adwords books. The classic 'Complete Guide to Adwords' by Perry Marshall. An amazing deal from Amazon for what you get. I don't really know what all the other adwords ebooks floating around teach but I felt like this one gave me the fundamentals to running a really good campaign. It may not have the latest nifty tricks but for the underlying understanding of PCC, it is great.

I am considering joining PPC-Coach to try and learn a few new strategies however.

malcasid · 06-24-2009, 03:57 PM

Thanks Michael! I agree PPC is awesome. I will definitely pass on getting LinkVana for now.

CanuckMike · 06-24-2009, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendandott

Michael, thank for the different review against the PPC campaign. I already signed to linkvana and I see the results as you mentioned... Yes Linkvana Works.

For the newbie prior to sign to linkvana, they should now the basic of SEO 1st. So that they can use this powerful tools properly. $147/month is very pricely to the newbie.

Fyi, my adsense earning now growing up after I use this good Linkvana feature.

--- If anyone would like to join LV via my affiliate, I will give back $25 every month. Please PM me.

Thank again,
BD -

I think a basic understanding of keyword research and SEO will go along way.

Here is what I did to maximize every single one of my posts. Not very hard but I think having a plan helped.
1. Keyword appropriately used in title of post
2. Keyword phrase used at least twice usually three times naturally in the posts. I wanted to make sure they knew what I was writing about
3. Between 3 and 7 different target phrases so I wasn't getting all the links with the same text.
4. 50% of the links went to the home page, 50% of the links went to the appropriate tier two page. This makes it look more natural in my opinion. Obviously I couldn't do it with my ezine article promotions but use this for more standard content sites.

...I appreciate your kind words but I don't think using my positive review of the program to pitch your affiliate link is all to kind/wise/good.

Brad Callen · 06-24-2009, 09:47 PM

Good stuff Mike. Thanks for sharing that.

Brad

redfc · 06-24-2009, 09:52 PM

thanks mic for sharing.
cheers

MikeC · 06-24-2009, 10:26 PM

Thanks Mike, I was just about to get Linkvana and probabaly still will. However, I am not 100% certain how it works.

If you write/get written a blurb with a link to your site that will post say every day does that one blurb get placed on a different site,thus creating a backlink, every day until you cancel the membership? So if you creat 10 blurbs posting daily you get 10 new links every day?

steveniam · 06-25-2009, 08:58 AM

I have used Linkvana for 4 or 5 months for a very competitive niche - weight loss and recently cancelled my subscription as it is quite princely especially there are other cheaper SEOs

Some of my main keywords are ranked from 6 to 9 on google. However I am not sure it is due to Linkvana as I have used other methods such as backlinks, social bookmarking, RSS etc concurrently.

However I do notice ranking on 6 to 9 on google does not bring much traffic. I need to be on top 5 and now I now considering PPC and other cheaper SEO alternatives.

CanuckMike · 06-25-2009, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeC

Thanks Mike, I was just about to get Linkvana and probabaly still will. However, I am not 100% certain how it works.

If you write/get written a blurb with a link to your site that will post say every day does that one blurb get placed on a different site,thus creating a backlink, every day until you cancel the membership? So if you creat 10 blurbs posting daily you get 10 new links every day?

One post = One link. Each 100 word blurb you write will give you one link and be posted to one site. This in turn keeps all of their sites at a higher quality and will help you out in the long run says their site.

It takes a lot of time/money if you want it to work out. If 150 a month scares you then I wouldn't bother with it. It will cost you a lot more providing it with the posts in either your time or your money.

CanuckMike · 06-25-2009, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steveniam

I have used Linkvana for 4 or 5 months for a very competitive niche - weight loss and recently cancelled my subscription as it is quite princely especially there are other cheaper SEOs

Some of my main keywords are ranked from 6 to 9 on google. However I am not sure it is due to Linkvana as I have used other methods such as backlinks, social bookmarking, RSS etc concurrently.

However I do notice ranking on 6 to 9 on google does not bring much traffic. I need to be on top 5 and now I now considering PPC and other cheaper SEO alternatives.

Strange that you were in position 6 and not getting traffic if you were there on a fairly high traffic volume keyword.

One problem I see often is people checking Google for their own site and seeing it at the top but not getting any traffic. Unfortunately, your site may not actually be there. I don't know exactly how it works but I know when I click on my own sites they usually show up higher for my own searches.

The best way to test your search rankings I found, was to use a firefox plugin called rankings check that gives you your 'true' rankings.

sree94 · 06-26-2009, 02:14 AM

Actually, Linkvana posts are not as much work as you might think. Yes, they have to be 100 words, and yes, they have to be unique, but the content really does not matter, as long as the post makes sense. Why? Because you're really not getting clickthroughs, unless you target a phrase that is extremely low competition

I have more than 1,000 posts in Linkvana, and I have only gotten traffic from a couple

maverick80 · 08-01-2009, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sree94

Actually, Linkvana posts are not as much work as you might think. Yes, they have to be 100 words, and yes, they have to be unique, but the content really does not matter, as long as the post makes sense. Why? Because you're really not getting clickthroughs, unless you target a phrase that is extremely low competition

I have more than 1,000 posts in Linkvana, and I have only gotten traffic from a couple

This is inaccurate. The content around your link matters. Google analyzes the content around your link as well as the entire page to decide just how relevant the back link is to your site. The more relevant the site is that your link is placed on, the better the results.

CanuckMike · 08-01-2009, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverick80

This is inaccurate. The content around your link matters. Google analyzes the content around your link as well as the entire page to decide just how relevant the back link is to your site. The more relevant the site is that your link is placed on, the better the results.

I have to agree. One of the gripes I had was the the quality of posts that surrounded mine. Even though they had a variety of categories to put your post, I found that the majority of my posts went to sites that contained aggregates of the categories and the post was simply tagged with your choice.

That significantly reduces the quality of the link at a time when Google tends to care less about quantity and more about quality. My posts only ended up staying on the home page of the sites a half day before more posts pilled in.

I think a far better strategy for those looking to build their own high quality links with a network like this, is to build their own community of sites around it. This way you control every aspect of the site ensuring those sites are as optimized as possible to pass on the most power to the link. If you put the 150/month to building your own network, I think you will find even better results for yourself.

CanuckMike · 08-01-2009, 07:37 PM

Just thought I would add this in as it is my 'everything I know article':

I have never come across a better converting affiliate program than LinkVana. I had over 20% conversion rate from hops to sales. And that was just throwing up my link on a couple sites I own on a whim. With that said, 90% of the people stayed one month and 98% < 3 months.

I added this because I think its amazing how well it managed to convert for a $150/month product. People really want backlinks....alot haha.

bahnsurf · 08-02-2009, 11:40 AM

Hi Michael,

Thanks for sharing and yes, I do agree with you that about 40% searches are unique and search engines does not have enough data for that.

Cheers

Jaspworld · 08-02-2009, 11:45 AM

I had never heard of linkvana before but simply judging from their website and service they offer I don't think it will work.

It's not them, I just think high PR and getting links from high PR websites in this way will do your website any good in the long term or short term.

abelacts · 08-03-2009, 11:01 PM

Thanks for the post. This really helps people like me who are considering Linkvana.

Jay Cunningham · 08-04-2009, 04:30 AM

Thanks Michael for sharing. I used LinkVana for a few months myself. Worked ok. A little expensive considering what you're getting, however I spent a lot of money "trying things". I'm starting to think of internet marketing like hot rodding. You're always looking for a new piece of equipment to make your car go faster!
Thanks for the post.
Jay

LeivaMatias · 08-06-2009, 12:58 PM

I personally think SEO is the way to go. Its so much more passive if you build it correctly.

Obviously going after low tier keywords your going to get burnt out, because the traffic is not their for consistency.

Also what were you using to monetize your traffic, you forgot to explain your monetization.

Have you thought that possibly you were monetizing incorrectly, so your results were less?

Also 10months= $1470 in Linkvana.. Did you create a training course and outsource the work?

Anyways PPC is great don't get me wrong. I have been through ppc-coach.com and its fairly newbie stuff.

Your going to want to hit MSN/Yahoo and google content network hard. Make sure if you use review sites, to stick the affiliate links on them using a domain with a .php script.

Google slapped hard last week with those review sites.

Also if your going to go into a niche, be ready to spending $1k-$2k in testing to find decent amount of numbers to scale up..

Right now with SEO I am spending $600 monthly for a outsource team, and slowly expanding it, I provide all the training, niches, domains etc. They do all the rest.

Just my 2cents.

Jgregory · 08-06-2009, 11:03 PM

Thanks for sharing all this Michael.

I seem to have arrived at the same point you did about "gaming the search engines" and going to SEO. Finding that our own backlink efforts done manually by our outcource team are not only more effective, manual link building efforts stick around.

sree94 · 08-10-2009, 03:17 AM

Recently, I decided I was going to cancel Linkvana after more than a year, primarily because I am focusing less on SEO these days and more on getting immediate traffic. But I figured I would get my money's worth and start submitted more Linkvana posts this month

Yesterday, I wrote a Linkvana post for a website I have done hardly any promotion for in months. Today, I made a sale from it, my first since January.
I also have another site that had not gotten hardly any sales recently, and I have made two sales with it recently.

Is this because of Linkvana? No idea, but it seems like more than a coincidence

seolake · 08-10-2009, 04:27 AM

I have heard that linkvana blogs are loaded with articles, thereby causing more of a link deficit. So, I am not sure if Sree's sales relate to Linkvana or something else.

Can an existing linkvana member vouch for the quality of blogs? They claim all of them are PR2-PR4. Is that really so?

Chris Koltai · 08-10-2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seolake

I have heard that linkvana blogs are loaded with articles, thereby causing more of a link deficit. So, I am not sure if Sree's sales relate to Linkvana or something else.

Can an existing linkvana member vouch for the quality of blogs? They claim all of them are PR2-PR4. Is that really so?

I can field this one. From what I've seen of Linkvana's blogs, they are all at least PR2. Any time my snippets get posted I always do a copy and paste into Google to find out where they ended up.

However, they do occasionally seem to get slapped. I had one of my posts show up on a PR2 blog, and I did a "site:" search for it in Google about a week later just wondering how many posts they had on average per site, and it turned out the blog had been de-indexed and had it's PR grayed out.

At this point, I've been seeing good results with Linkvana, and supposedly they rotate you into higher PR blogs the longer you stay with them, but I've only been with them a couple of months now so I'll have to see how often their sites get booted from Google.

seolake · 08-11-2009, 07:54 AM

If they have PR2 or better blogs then their quality is definitely better than MAN at the least. And I have seen blogs getting booted off MAN frequently and penalized as well. Looks like LV is better from the standpoint of blog networks when you compare against MAN.

Thanks for your clarification

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Koltai

I can field this one. From what I've seen of Linkvana's blogs, they are all at least PR2. Any time my snippets get posted I always do a copy and paste into Google to find out where they ended up.

However, they do occasionally seem to get slapped. I had one of my posts show up on a PR2 blog, and I did a "site:" search for it in Google about a week later just wondering how many posts they had on average per site, and it turned out the blog had been de-indexed and had it's PR grayed out.

At this point, I've been seeing good results with Linkvana, and supposedly they rotate you into higher PR blogs the longer you stay with them, but I've only been with them a couple of months now so I'll have to see how often their sites get booted from Google.

pavionjsl · 08-12-2009, 12:07 PM

You all over pay so much for links........ swear I am stunned no one mentions a better value by far............

fariez · 08-12-2009, 03:07 PM

Wow!!! I really do not know about this!! Thanks for every post...

A. van Heerden · 08-13-2009, 04:28 AM

Thanks for sharing Michael...very informative!

James Schramko · 08-13-2009, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pavionjsl

You all over pay so much for links........ swear I am stunned no one mentions a better value by far............

not even you...

Why don't you share with all of us the alternative strategies

(Linkvana works)

RichGal · 08-15-2009, 06:17 AM

i`ve been using LinkVana for some time but found lately that it`s not working as well as before.

Additionally, I really think this is not how we should b playing to get the high positions. Sooner or later, it will stop working this way.

Emmanuel Betinis · 11-09-2009, 07:56 PM

I just found 2 blogs from the LinkVana network that have some of my posts on them.

One of them is a Page Rank ZERO and the other one is GREYBARRED.

I eMailed them about the GREYBARRED one and they said they'd delete it and apologized. Several days later it still hasn't been removed from the LinkVana network of blogs yet. This makes me wonder just how many other GREYBARRED sites they currently are hosting.

LilBlackDress · 11-10-2009, 12:56 AM

When you leave Linkvana....don't you lose all your links?

I believe I read that somewhere. If that is the case, that is a good reason not to use them.

Carlton Johnson · 11-10-2009, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

When you leave Linkvana....don't you lose all your links?

I believe I read that somewhere. If that is the case, that is a good reason not to use them.

I am 99% sure that is not the case, I think you are probably confusing it with another service.

sree94 · 11-10-2009, 02:46 AM

You do NOT lose your links if you leave Linkvana. You are thinking of 3WayLinks

Emmanuel Betinis · 11-10-2009, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

When you leave Linkvana....don't you lose all your links?

I believe I read that somewhere. If that is the case, that is a good reason not to use them.

As long as you stay with them for 2 months or more, your links will not be removed from the system.

Emmanuel Betinis · 11-21-2009, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbarnum

There is no time limit. Dave Kelly, owner of Linkvana, may be able to go more into details with you, too

I got that answer from the LinkVana staff themselves.

dbarnum · 11-21-2009, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis

I got that answer from the LinkVana staff themselves.

I'd confirm with Dave Kelly himself, as his site does not say that. Seriously, hadn't heard that one, but maybe it's for trial periods or something. Our account has been long term, so don't know on that.

Emmanuel Betinis · 11-22-2009, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbarnum

I'd confirm with Dave Kelly himself, as his site does not say that.

Exactly...

dbarnum · 11-22-2009, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emmanuel Betinis

Exactly...

OK, I emailed Dave over this weekend, and he replied back with the following info along with permissions for me to post it here:

"Not the case at all. links are never removed. I have no idea where they got the 2 months thing as it is 100% false," Dave (Kelly). "...we keep your links live when you cancel. our system has no way of automatically removing links. So we'd have to log into the actual site and remove the posts manually. Not going to happen. "

So there you have it. Go Linkvana, you rock

And Dave, a BIG thanks for clearing that up and so fast, on a Sunday yet, and granting permission to post your reply. You're an awesome Warrior.

The Artful Surfer · 11-22-2009, 02:40 PM

Linkvana is an excellent, excellent tool. I'm surprised you guys are giving up on it. They also provide excellent and friendly customer service. I've been with them since late 2007.

ajldomains · 12-07-2009, 10:04 AM

Do any of you who currently use Linkvana use this for traditional service based business and what are your overall performance results?

I have a lot of high ranked websites but I am always looking for fast and easy ways to link build. I have a service business and I use alot of the strategies I learned from this website and they have me ranking high.

Seems to me creating Linkvana posts is simple and would take only a few minutes a day to create 100-200 word posts with my speech recognition software. I could probabbly knock out 5-10 posts per day.

I would really be interested in your responses or PM me.

Thanks,
Jim

Emmanuel Betinis · 12-07-2009, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbarnum

OK, I emailed Dave over this weekend, and he replied back with the following info along with permissions for me to post it here:

"Not the case at all. links are never removed. I have no idea where they got the 2 months thing as it is 100% false," Dave (Kelly). "...we keep your links live when you cancel. our system has no way of automatically removing links. So we'd have to log into the actual site and remove the posts manually. Not going to happen. "

So there you have it. Go Linkvana, you rock

And Dave, a BIG thanks for clearing that up and so fast, on a Sunday yet, and granting permission to post your reply. You're an awesome Warrior.

Thankyou for posting this (I said this a while back but my first
"thankyou for posting this" post was deleted for some very strange
reason so I'm posting it again).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajldomains

Do any of you who currently use Linkvana use this for traditional service based business and what are your overall performance results?

I have a lot of high ranked websites but I am always looking for fast and easy ways to link build. I have a service business and I use alot of the strategies I learned from this website and they have me ranking high.

Seems to me creating Linkvana posts is simple and would take only a few minutes a day to create 100-200 word posts with my speech recognition software. I could probabbly knock out 5-10 posts per day.

I would really be interested in your responses or PM me.

Thanks,
Jim

Jim,

I've used LinkVana for going on 7 months now and I'm still
not sure if I would recommend it or not. The keywords I'm
going for have a low strength of competition with reasonable
search volume(s) spread out over 10 markets with 11 content
pages each over 10 websites. Keep in mind, however, LinkVana
is not my only method of backlinking, so it would be hard for me
to tell you it's great even if I WAS ranking well for all pages of
all websites. What I can tell you is:

It has a nice professionally laid out interface
It allows you to backlink to an unlimited # of pages
You can set-up "drip-fed" backlinks over time

I can also tell you:

You must be prepared to spend time writing posts or
Be prepared to spend $2 additional for each backlink if you don't want to spend the time writing each post yourself.
Be patient (7 months later and I'm still waiting for satisfactory results with these test sites)

ajldomains · 12-07-2009, 10:40 PM

Emmanuel,

Thanks - I am ranking pretty well (G 1st page) on three of my websites right now and I use backlink packets currently. I use XsitePro to design my pages which really helps the proper design.

Looks like I will pass on this for now and keep watching. Thanks for your response.

Jim

Emmanuel Betinis · 12-07-2009, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajldomains

Emmanuel,

Thanks - I am ranking pretty well (G 1st page) on three of my websites right now and I use backlink packets currently. I use XsitePro to design my pages which really helps the proper design.

Looks like I will pass on this for now and keep watching. Thanks for your response.

Jim

Jim,

one thing I'd like to add is if your domains are NOT
brand new and you've had them for a while (6 months
or more), then your success with LinkVana will more
than likely be more probable because of the simple
fact you'll probably have more trust already built
with the search engines.

You brought up a key point here, and that is
you're already ranking on page 1 of Google.
Given this information, you'll have a higher
chance of seeing faster results with LinkVana
vs. using a brand new domain.

And of course, always mix up the types of
links you use in your backlinking strategies
(Not JUST articles, not JUST web directories,
not JUST social bookmarking, not JUST LinkVana,
but all of them combined together).

ajldomains · 12-08-2009, 07:22 AM

E,

Point taken --- that is the strategy I have been trying to employ. Yes, all of my domains that I consider to be ranking well (first page of G) are average 2-3 years old.

There is a service out there who will build 400 links for $99 per per month (not blogs but using anchor text on social bookmarking sites, etc).

I guess the difficult part is trying to decipher "what kind" of links G likes. In order for me to get 400 links with linkvana to the same site per month I would have to average about 13 posts per day. Not going to happen since I can only spend 2-3 hours per day on my IM unless I want to spend a couple days doing posts and then drip them but even using my Naturally Speaker software 13 posts per day would be time consuming and I don't want to pay $2 per post to outsource (call me cheap, stubborn, whatever - have to save the budget somewhere).

At 13 posts per day thats an added $26 daily expense - I spend more than that on Adwords so I am trying to watch my ROI - at least adwords is trackable - with linkbuilding your organic results is somewhat of a guessing game.

I don't know if I am comparing apples to apples but using this analysis -- Linkvana seems to be very expensive for the value for my usage requirements - now if were a full time IM'er who builds for other companies, seems like a pretty good tool to have on the belt.

Jim

Thoma$ · 03-19-2010, 10:08 AM

Thanks for this review, I have been a linkvana member for close to a year as well and you have just confirmed what I was suspecting: linkvana can help rank articles on authority sites with low competition keywords, but it's a waste of time and money for more competitive keywords.

Thoma$ · 03-19-2010, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaspworld

I had never heard of linkvana before but simply judging from their website and service they offer I don't think it will work.

It's not them, I just think high PR and getting links from high PR websites in this way will do your website any good in the long term or short term.

Linkvana advertise your links end up on high PR websites (1-6 as far as I remember) but this is wrong. When I checked my backlinks (linkvana won't give away the urls of their websites for obvious reasons), I discovered that like 90% of the blogs are either PR1 or PR2. Only a very small percentage is PR3. I couldn't find a single high PR blog on the linkvana network.

Edit: I have just checked my backlinks again (last time I did it was months ago) and most blogs I find my links on seem to be PR3 now (I could find a PR4 as well).

linkbuildr · 05-03-2010, 10:40 AM

You will have a much better time writing wicked guest blog posts for people than using this system. I have looked at it for clients and I would not recommend it for a legit business, affiliate blogs perhaps...

gman2319 · 07-28-2010, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thoma$

Linkvana advertise your links end up on high PR websites (1-6 as far as I remember) but this is wrong. When I checked my backlinks (linkvana won't give away the urls of their websites for obvious reasons), I discovered that like 90% of the blogs are either PR1 or PR2. Only a very small percentage is PR3. I couldn't find a single high PR blog on the linkvana network.

Edit: I have just checked my backlinks again (last time I did it was months ago) and most blogs I find my links on seem to be PR3 now (I could find a PR4 as well).

They say this on their sales page
Unlimited Links
There are absolutely no limits on the amount of quality links you acquire from LinkVana. We only ask that the sites you are linking to be of good quality themselves.

They say this on their sales page but they have a ridiculous system of approving only 2-5 posts per day. That makes it 60-150 posts a month. How is this unlimited. I find that really really Limited!

For 150 Posts, It is obvious that I cant have 10 campaigns with 15 posts each coz that is just not enough. So I can have at max 2 campaigns(with 75 links) or 1 campaign with 150 posts. If I am going to spend 150$ on a single campaign, it is obvious that it is making me good money which usually means that it is something with a high competition, and again...for high competition stuff...150 posts from linkvana just doesnt seem to cut it.

Grossly overpriced is my opinion. I read unlimited. I bought and they say limited. And whats worse....it isnt even a valid fair usage policy(in my books).

Most definitely quitting after this month

Fitnessdad · 07-28-2010, 09:47 AM

Thats the reason I like seolinkvine

06-23-2009, 08:47 PM	#1
CanuckMike Up, Up, and Away War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Canada Posts: 209 Thanks: 17 Thanked 33 Times in 9 Posts	10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know It was late last August that I first signed up for LinkVana. Today, 10 months later I have just cancelled my subscription. I wanted to share my strategies for fellow and soon to be LinkVana users - what went right, what went wrong and why I inevitably cancelled. Judging from my own affiliate statistics I would say that staying 10 months was about 9.25 months more then other people so I think I had a pretty good handle on the system. Now that I have no affiliation with the product I can more convincingly say to you that the product does work...when used correctly. The problem I saw with other people using and inevitably leaving LinkVana was that they didn't understand how search engines work or how to properly leverage the tools in front of them. The Good The easiest way I found to put LinkVana to good use, was by promoting user generated content sites the search engines already like. I would dig up low competition keywords, write and post an ezine article, then use LinkVana to bolster it up and I would be off to the races. I could do this with other article directories, squidoo pages, blogger, youtube etc. They already seem to have a leg up with the search engines and combined with LinkVana the results were really great in terms of rankings. I typically went after 50+ searches a day < 50,000 competing pages and targeted the social sites that were missing from the first page. (Ezine, squidoo, youtube) After a couple of months promoting with LinkVana I would have winning campaigns with the search engines and start to make some affiliate commissions. Why People Fail The people I saw using LinkVana (and who quickly left) were using it poorly for one of two reasons in my opinion. 1) They were going after ridiculously high volume and competition keywords like 'Acai Berry' or 'weight loss'. They didn't stand a chance and after three whole weeks of posting with no sign of their site moving past page 1000 they would leave. First off, I usually didn't see rankings moves for 5+ weeks on relatvely easy phrases. And regrettably, Google isn't willing to give you a big hug and kiss when a new site gets a couple dozen new links for those hyper competitive words. 2) The second reason for inevitable failure was because of operator deficincies in keyword research. They went after really long and out of place keyword phrases like, "I want to cook spaghetti with my eyes closed". LinkVana did its job but it can't turn coal into a diamond because being number one for a phrase with no searches is like coming first at whistling shows...nobody cares. Why I left: You are probably wondering why I would leave when I could sit there and build these somewhat profitably campaigns all day long. Well I moved on. I honestly got tired of kicking around for these low search keywords that would inevitably make me a couple sales every month but not what I wanted for the effort put in. Secondly, I had a mind set change with how I felt SEO should work. I decided to stop 'gaming' the search engines in favor of simply creating good quality content/products on my own sites and allow the search engines to do what they do best. Another reason was the way people use search engines. I have heard stats that as much as 40% of all searches are unique. My sites were getting hits from so many non typical searches spending the time and dollars to go after the select phrases in LinkVana lost their return and appeal. And finally, PPC for quick targeted traffic is just so much easier then SEO. I can test larger and bigger offers much more quickly. So to those wondering, yes LinkVana works. It does however take a few months for you to see results so be prepared to put down 450+ and time writing. You have to be realistic, it is not a magic bullet and it is not going to be right for everyone.
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06-23-2009, 09:29 PM	#2
Bruce NewMedia www.OfflineAdvance.com War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Chicago Posts: 2,005 Thanks: 1,268 Thanked 572 Times in 313 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks Michael, thats really an excellent review. I had looked at LinkVana before but was hearing alot of negative. Some, as you say, was probably marketers putting up a new site and trying to quickly rank organically for the word, "Insurance" or something. They no doubt figured it didn't work. :-) Since you say you've migrated to using PPC instead of seo, did you get any training in PPC and what kind of success have you been having there? _____ Bruce

06-24-2009, 03:57 PM	#4
malcasid HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 217 Thanks: 8 Thanked 9 Times in 4 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks Michael! I agree PPC is awesome. I will definitely pass on getting LinkVana for now.
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06-24-2009, 09:47 PM	#6
Brad Callen Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Indiana, USA Posts: 2,367 Thanks: 270 Thanked 248 Times in 169 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Good stuff Mike. Thanks for sharing that. Brad
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06-24-2009, 09:52 PM	#7
redfc Active Warrior Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 85 Thanks: 6 Thanked 11 Times in 11 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know thanks mic for sharing. cheers

06-24-2009, 10:26 PM	#8
MikeC HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: , , New Zealand. Posts: 117 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks Mike, I was just about to get Linkvana and probabaly still will. However, I am not 100% certain how it works. If you write/get written a blurb with a link to your site that will post say every day does that one blurb get placed on a different site,thus creating a backlink, every day until you cancel the membership? So if you creat 10 blurbs posting daily you get 10 new links every day?

06-25-2009, 08:58 AM	#9
steveniam Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Singapore Posts: 1,163 Thanks: 119 Thanked 58 Times in 51 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know I have used Linkvana for 4 or 5 months for a very competitive niche - weight loss and recently cancelled my subscription as it is quite princely especially there are other cheaper SEOs Some of my main keywords are ranked from 6 to 9 on google. However I am not sure it is due to Linkvana as I have used other methods such as backlinks, social bookmarking, RSS etc concurrently. However I do notice ranking on 6 to 9 on google does not bring much traffic. I need to be on top 5 and now I now considering PPC and other cheaper SEO alternatives.
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06-26-2009, 02:14 AM	#12
sree94 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: , , . Posts: 372 Thanks: 4 Thanked 25 Times in 17 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Actually, Linkvana posts are not as much work as you might think. Yes, they have to be 100 words, and yes, they have to be unique, but the content really does not matter, as long as the post makes sense. Why? Because you're really not getting clickthroughs, unless you target a phrase that is extremely low competition I have more than 1,000 posts in Linkvana, and I have only gotten traffic from a couple
	RegCure

08-01-2009, 07:37 PM	#15
CanuckMike Up, Up, and Away War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Canada Posts: 209 Thanks: 17 Thanked 33 Times in 9 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Just thought I would add this in as it is my 'everything I know article': I have never come across a better converting affiliate program than LinkVana. I had over 20% conversion rate from hops to sales. And that was just throwing up my link on a couple sites I own on a whim. With that said, 90% of the people stayed one month and 98% < 3 months. I added this because I think its amazing how well it managed to convert for a $150/month product. People really want backlinks....alot haha.
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08-02-2009, 11:40 AM	#16
bahnsurf HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: , , Singapore. Posts: 111 Thanks: 25 Thanked 36 Times in 12 Posts Social Networking	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Hi Michael, Thanks for sharing and yes, I do agree with you that about 40% searches are unique and search engines does not have enough data for that. Cheers
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08-02-2009, 11:45 AM	#17
Jaspworld Jaspreet Singh War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 48 Thanks: 5 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know I had never heard of linkvana before but simply judging from their website and service they offer I don't think it will work. It's not them, I just think high PR and getting links from high PR websites in this way will do your website any good in the long term or short term.

08-03-2009, 11:01 PM	#18
abelacts Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 563 Thanks: 15 Thanked 42 Times in 26 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks for the post. This really helps people like me who are considering Linkvana.
	- Abel Latest WSO: Health & Fitness PLR Others: Dating PLR\|Twitter PLR \|Weight Loss PLR Product Reviews Conduit Style

08-04-2009, 04:30 AM	#19
Jay Cunningham Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 55 Thanks: 0 Thanked 8 Times in 8 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks Michael for sharing. I used LinkVana for a few months myself. Worked ok. A little expensive considering what you're getting, however I spent a lot of money "trying things". I'm starting to think of internet marketing like hot rodding. You're always looking for a new piece of equipment to make your car go faster! Thanks for the post. Jay

08-06-2009, 12:58 PM	#20
LeivaMatias HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 150 Thanks: 0 Thanked 37 Times in 11 Posts Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know I personally think SEO is the way to go. Its so much more passive if you build it correctly. Obviously going after low tier keywords your going to get burnt out, because the traffic is not their for consistency. Also what were you using to monetize your traffic, you forgot to explain your monetization. Have you thought that possibly you were monetizing incorrectly, so your results were less? Also 10months= $1470 in Linkvana.. Did you create a training course and outsource the work? Anyways PPC is great don't get me wrong. I have been through ppc-coach.com and its fairly newbie stuff. Your going to want to hit MSN/Yahoo and google content network hard. Make sure if you use review sites, to stick the affiliate links on them using a domain with a .php script. Google slapped hard last week with those review sites. Also if your going to go into a niche, be ready to spending $1k-$2k in testing to find decent amount of numbers to scale up.. Right now with SEO I am spending $600 monthly for a outsource team, and slowly expanding it, I provide all the training, niches, domains etc. They do all the rest. Just my 2cents.
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08-06-2009, 11:03 PM	#21
Jgregory Senior Advisor War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 149 Thanks: 32 Thanked 91 Times in 43 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks for sharing all this Michael. I seem to have arrived at the same point you did about "gaming the search engines" and going to SEO. Finding that our own backlink efforts done manually by our outcource team are not only more effective, manual link building efforts stick around.

08-10-2009, 03:17 AM	#22
sree94 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: , , . Posts: 372 Thanks: 4 Thanked 25 Times in 17 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Recently, I decided I was going to cancel Linkvana after more than a year, primarily because I am focusing less on SEO these days and more on getting immediate traffic. But I figured I would get my money's worth and start submitted more Linkvana posts this month Yesterday, I wrote a Linkvana post for a website I have done hardly any promotion for in months. Today, I made a sale from it, my first since January. I also have another site that had not gotten hardly any sales recently, and I have made two sales with it recently. Is this because of Linkvana? No idea, but it seems like more than a coincidence
	RegCure

08-10-2009, 04:27 AM	#23
seolake Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 43 Thanks: 4 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know I have heard that linkvana blogs are loaded with articles, thereby causing more of a link deficit. So, I am not sure if Sree's sales relate to Linkvana or something else. Can an existing linkvana member vouch for the quality of blogs? They claim all of them are PR2-PR4. Is that really so?

08-12-2009, 12:07 PM	#26
pavionjsl Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: Mechanicsburg Pa. Posts: 804 Thanks: 118 Thanked 97 Times in 81 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know You all over pay so much for links........ swear I am stunned no one mentions a better value by far............

08-12-2009, 03:07 PM	#27
fariez Warrior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 4 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Wow!!! I really do not know about this!! Thanks for every post...

08-13-2009, 04:28 AM	#28
A. van Heerden Warrior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 23 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks for sharing Michael...very informative!

08-15-2009, 06:17 AM	#30
RichGal Active Warrior Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 43 Thanks: 0 Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know i`ve been using LinkVana for some time but found lately that it`s not working as well as before. Additionally, I really think this is not how we should b playing to get the high positions. Sooner or later, it will stop working this way.

11-09-2009, 07:56 PM	#31
Emmanuel Betinis --> SEOHelpVideos.com <-- War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Minnesota, USA Posts: 730 Thanks: 75 Thanked 46 Times in 39 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know I just found 2 blogs from the LinkVana network that have some of my posts on them. One of them is a Page Rank ZERO and the other one is GREYBARRED. I eMailed them about the GREYBARRED one and they said they'd delete it and apologized. Several days later it still hasn't been removed from the LinkVana network of blogs yet. This makes me wonder just how many other GREYBARRED sites they currently are hosting.
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11-10-2009, 12:56 AM	#32
LilBlackDress Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,464 Thanks: 94 Thanked 263 Times in 180 Posts Social Networking	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know When you leave Linkvana....don't you lose all your links? I believe I read that somewhere. If that is the case, that is a good reason not to use them.
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11-10-2009, 02:46 AM	#34
sree94 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: , , . Posts: 372 Thanks: 4 Thanked 25 Times in 17 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know You do NOT lose your links if you leave Linkvana. You are thinking of 3WayLinks
	RegCure

11-22-2009, 02:40 PM	#40
The Artful Surfer HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: SoCal / New York Posts: 208 Thanks: 7 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Linkvana is an excellent, excellent tool. I'm surprised you guys are giving up on it. They also provide excellent and friendly customer service. I've been with them since late 2007.

12-07-2009, 10:04 AM	#41
ajldomains Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Buffalo, New York, USA Posts: 63 Thanks: 9 Thanked 3 Times in 2 Posts Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Do any of you who currently use Linkvana use this for traditional service based business and what are your overall performance results? I have a lot of high ranked websites but I am always looking for fast and easy ways to link build. I have a service business and I use alot of the strategies I learned from this website and they have me ranking high. Seems to me creating Linkvana posts is simple and would take only a few minutes a day to create 100-200 word posts with my speech recognition software. I could probabbly knock out 5-10 posts per day. I would really be interested in your responses or PM me. Thanks, Jim
	I have many IM Domain Names Available For Sale in many Niches such as Health, Money Making, Products and more. PM me with your interested topic.

12-07-2009, 10:40 PM	#43
ajldomains Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Buffalo, New York, USA Posts: 63 Thanks: 9 Thanked 3 Times in 2 Posts Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Emmanuel, Thanks - I am ranking pretty well (G 1st page) on three of my websites right now and I use backlink packets currently. I use XsitePro to design my pages which really helps the proper design. Looks like I will pass on this for now and keep watching. Thanks for your response. Jim
	I have many IM Domain Names Available For Sale in many Niches such as Health, Money Making, Products and more. PM me with your interested topic.

12-08-2009, 07:22 AM	#45
ajldomains Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Buffalo, New York, USA Posts: 63 Thanks: 9 Thanked 3 Times in 2 Posts Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know E, Point taken --- that is the strategy I have been trying to employ. Yes, all of my domains that I consider to be ranking well (first page of G) are average 2-3 years old. There is a service out there who will build 400 links for $99 per per month (not blogs but using anchor text on social bookmarking sites, etc). I guess the difficult part is trying to decipher "what kind" of links G likes. In order for me to get 400 links with linkvana to the same site per month I would have to average about 13 posts per day. Not going to happen since I can only spend 2-3 hours per day on my IM unless I want to spend a couple days doing posts and then drip them but even using my Naturally Speaker software 13 posts per day would be time consuming and I don't want to pay $2 per post to outsource (call me cheap, stubborn, whatever - have to save the budget somewhere). At 13 posts per day thats an added $26 daily expense - I spend more than that on Adwords so I am trying to watch my ROI - at least adwords is trackable - with linkbuilding your organic results is somewhat of a guessing game. I don't know if I am comparing apples to apples but using this analysis -- Linkvana seems to be very expensive for the value for my usage requirements - now if were a full time IM'er who builds for other companies, seems like a pretty good tool to have on the belt. Jim
	I have many IM Domain Names Available For Sale in many Niches such as Health, Money Making, Products and more. PM me with your interested topic.

03-19-2010, 10:08 AM	#46
Thoma$ No Hype Internet Marketer War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Barcelona, SPAIN Posts: 205 Thanks: 28 Thanked 33 Times in 17 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thanks for this review, I have been a linkvana member for close to a year as well and you have just confirmed what I was suspecting: linkvana can help rank articles on authority sites with low competition keywords, but it's a waste of time and money for more competitive keywords.
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05-03-2010, 10:40 AM	#48
linkbuildr Link Building Ninja Join Date: May 2010 Location: Vancouver Posts: 48 Thanks: 4 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know You will have a much better time writing wicked guest blog posts for people than using this system. I have looked at it for clients and I would not recommend it for a legit business, affiliate blogs perhaps...
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07-28-2010, 09:47 AM	#50
Fitnessdad Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: USA Posts: 43 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: 10 Months With LinkVana: Everything I Know Thats the reason I like seolinkvine
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