After Both Google Updates, What Works & What Not ?

Every Google update is the same. They only get a bit better at sniffing out black-hat SEO. But some still work. Although I wouldn't advise it myself, a good quality tiered link campaign, and a private blog network will still help you rank without much trouble from Google. But who says it will next week? Or the week after that? Google will get smarter, and each time they do hundreds of thousands of website who use black-hat techniques will go down the train.

If you want to stay safe and guarantee a long term future for your website, stop trying to outsmart Google. Go back to basics, it is just as effective as any black-hat campaigns when done right.

Scout your competition, see what they are doing, analyse their backlink profiles. Technically, any link they have, you can have too, if you are smart about it.

Build content that is useful and people want to share. (I know this one gets thrown around a lot, and is practically useless on its own, but it is worth thinking about. What can you put on your website that someone will make someone decide to share the website with friends?)

And my last bit of advice. If you are going to try and build forced backlinks, do it with useful content. If you build a web2.0 to your site, put unique content on that people find helpful. There is a chance people will link to that. At the very least people will be more likely to follow the link and give it good reviews or upvotes or thumbs up. So it is a win win!

Basically stop following the same tired out methods that are supposed to trick Google. Be innovative. Use the power of your niche in your favour to gain REAL links.