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Another Link Network Failed

by yukon Banned
19 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I was reading an article over on searchengineland titled "Google Busts Yet Another Link Network: Anglo Rank". Now I don't know anything about that network, who owns the network, etc... but it got me thinking...

Matt Cutts said this:

[source: hxxps://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/409038881825095681]




That tweet was a joke about the sales pitch on the black h@t forum where the links were being sold (no footprint sales copy equals fail). That's enough proof that forums get monitored.

So, it looks like Google is hanging out on the forums which makes this forum just as susceptible to being targeted by Google snooping around & pumping info. from other forum members. I don't have a problem trying to help other forum members but this is a bit of an eye opener & maybe I sometimes talk too much about what I do with my sites, IDK. I won't be sharing as much about how I SEO & believe me, that's not easy for me to do, I like to talk SEO.

Anyways, I guess my point is be careful what you say & who you talk to, more important keep your own domains/links to yourself. That's always been my motto, never show your money (links/sites/niche), you have to look out for yourself.

Link sellers...

Well, your on your own & you can pretty much bet there's someone from Google that will eventually look at the link package your selling. Don't think just because your small fry & selling links that Google won't be snooping around your sales page or even your link profile, looks like they target the big sellers & filter down to the smaller sellers.

Link buyers...

If your buying links from these public link sellers your sites stand a very good chance of getting slapped in Google SERPs. Head on over to the black h@t forum & look at the thread that searchengineland links to, have a look at all the folks that got unnatural link notices in WMT (Web Master Tools). Don't set yourself up to fail buying easy to flush out link packages. If Google can find the sales page that's selling links, they can also find the links (footprints).

Another thing for SEO buyers, just because your not buying links from these types of public link networks doesn't mean your SEO guy isn't buying these junk link packages, odds are most low budget SEO sellers are outsourcing their link building to cheap link sellers/packages.

I'm not trying to scare anyone, just pointing out you might want to pay attention to what's going on.
#failed #link #network
  • Profile picture of the author FranksToys
    The link networks that always get hit are those that cut corners and have greedy owners like ANGLO RANK.

    Bluematter aka Botwiz unfortunately only cared about making a quick buck. It's too bad. If you advertise heavily like they did and add in utilizing low quality networks like SAPE its only a matter of time.

    The private networks I have been apart of for over 3 years has never had a single website deindexed. They however only accept referrals as clietns and haven't promoted the service in years.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    Where you been Yuke? Thats like old news already.

    I remember not so long ago we had a member here mouthing off about how SAPE had no footprints. Took me all of about 5 minutes to unravel over 500 sites. I could have found them all if I just kept going changing the RGN variable they where using in the injection script.

    If I can do that in 5 minutes, I'd say a Google employees with a lot more time and resources then me could take out the whole lot. Or maybe they're just not as good as me at footprinting.

    But here's the deal for the future of your network staying under the radar if anyone cares to listen. Something I have been doing for at least a year now anyway when building network sites.

    STOP BUILDING NETWORK SITES

    Build REAL sites that stand alone as legitimate entities. Build your network sites as you would any other site.

    Design
    Content
    Optimization
    Monetization
    Ranking
    Linkbuilding
    Social Account connections

    Buying expired domains:
    From time to time your going to pick up related domain names within your lets call it (LSI market) that you will buy and add to your network. Use the internal linking power of that site to rank new pages within that site for easy win keywords. Monetize the site like you would any other as its own ranking, traffic pulling and money making entity. When you have it all up and running, one day it will just happen to make a post with some links to your "main site".

    Most of the time we won't find related expired domains. This is where you should be using your imagination a little with your purchases. Look for branded domains that you can easily re-purpose into what you need it to be to make it related. Your PBN does not and should not be used only for the soul purpose of links. Its just soooo damn obvious to look at.
    Your shitty looking PBN is your biggest footprint, not the duplicated wp theme you choose to install on it.

    Remember your building your network hoping to rank for years to come, so if your going to do it. Do it well the first time around and sit back and relax while the rest of the world gets slapped silly by Google. Your network will only become stronger while the rest just fade and die.

    This advice though is really for those of us who work with "Private" networks, as the guys involved in the "Public" network side of things are not in it for the longhaul. They simply don't have the money to do such large scale development across every domain. And 99% of all "public" network sites I have seen over the years could be spotted by an infant, never mind a manual reviewer.

    Retarded default WP themes that where thrown together in about 30 seconds, a 20 post homepage about 20 different topics that get a new post 10 times a day. Just absolute garbage.

    And BTW Yuke, You never share shit with us.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Really I don't care about any of the public networks, I found the snooping to be more important than any link network failing. If they're reading sales copy & digging into link networks it's hard telling what else they're doing on forums. I'm not really surprised by the snooping I'm sure it's been going on for years, just an eye opener.




      Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

      But here's the deal for the future of your network staying under the radar if anyone cares to listen. Something I have been doing for at least a year now anyway when building network sites.

      STOP BUILDING NETWORK SITES
      That's all I've ever done is build real sites, doubtful many listen because they don't want to hear much of anything unless it involves pushing a button or outsourcing.

      What a lot of people don't get is, a group of sites ranking for each keyword is more profitable than trying to hide behind fake content while building network links. Basically network sites are categories of my main sites.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Really I don't care about any of the public networks, I found the snooping to be more important than any link network failing. If they're reading sales copy & digging into link networks it's hard telling what else they're doing on forums. I'm not really surprised by the snooping I'm sure it's been going on for years, just an eye opener.

        That's all I've ever done is build real sites, doubtful many listen because they don't want to hear much of anything unless it involves pushing a button or outsourcing.

        What a lot of people don't get is, a group of sites ranking for each keyword is more profitable than trying to hide behind fake content while building network links. Basically network sites are categories of my main sites.
        Basically what I'm doing.

        Google, if your reading this. Make me an offer and I'll take it all down for you.
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    • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
      Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post


      Build REAL sites that stand alone as legitimate entities. Build your network sites as you would any other site.
      I am more on the paranoic side of the equation, but you got me thinking Kev, when you build your sites (independently of the theme and content that I agree with you on that) do you monitor all of the with the same GA account? Do you monetize them with Adsense?, Do you host them in different hosting accounts? I mean I am understanding you open yourself up altogether to Google ranking each site for terms and not just interlinking them for the sake of ranks, so I am assuming you go full blast in the open space, allowing to Google to know those are your sites... Am I reading right?

      I am interested to know your answer on this issue
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by patadeperro View Post

        I am more on the paranoic side of the equation, but you got me thinking Kev, when you build your sites (independently of the theme and content that I agree with you on that) do you monitor all of the with the same GA account? Do you monetize them with Adsense?, Do you host them in different hosting accounts? I mean I am understanding you open yourself up altogether to Google ranking each site for terms and not just interlinking them for the sake of ranks, so I am assuming you go full blast in the open space, allowing to Google to know those are your sites... Am I reading right?

        I am interested to know your answer on this issue
        It's still something I'm playing around with for a while. Building sites is really not my thing to be honest, I just don't have the motivation for it. But I really got the idea from Yukon that in reality you don't need to over optimize external anchor text, If you are willing to lose a bit of linkjuice and use internal linking that is anchor text optimized instead.

        By right, we should not have a "Private Blog Network" but rather a "Private Network of Blogs".

        If co-citation is best practice for your PBN, why should you give that juice to someone else. You just need to be a bit more creative in branding an old domain into something totally different. I'd look to buy domains with alot of branded links or just url, the less anchor optimized the better obviously.

        Yukons been showing us examples of where really big authority sites do shit like sidebar lists "Our Other Sites". I've not dare to try that yet, but to be honest, I don't see whats wrong with doing it. So long as your not killing it with Anchor I can't see a blackhat about doing it. Maybe I have 10 sites about different Sports. That's good user experience to have other sport sites listed. Why not your sites instead of some hobbo's?

        How I'm doing it is like this.

        My site targets an entire market, 12 main products and about 3.7 million in search volume. Each product has its own market and each of those have at least 10 niches each in them. So there's plenty of room to move and make money. So in small search volume markets this might not be a good approach.

        So I can pick up a domain with decent existing auth. And base the whole site around a single product/category or niche/sub-category, and still be able to add good content, co-citation back to the main sites related pages. And use the sites existing authority to internally link pages targeting some easy low comp words for itself. You don't need to optimize anchor because all you're looking to do is build the auth of the page on the main site.

        From that main site page you can then use internal links with anchor for your main keywords. Do you get my drift?

        No, I have not had the balls to plug them into G yet. I think it would be un-wise for me to put my hand in the crocodiles mouth just yet. Mainly because they are targeting the same products. If they where mixed up into monetizing in completely different ways, you might be fairly safe..
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

          It's still something I'm playing around with for a while. Building sites is really not my thing to be honest, I just don't have the motivation for it. But I really got the idea from Yukon that in reality you don't need to over optimize external anchor text, If you are willing to lose a bit of linkjuice and use internal linking that is anchor text optimized instead.

          By right, we should not have a "Private Blog Network" but rather a "Private Network of Blogs".

          If co-citation is best practice for your PBN, why should you give that juice to someone else. You just need to be a bit more creative in branding an old domain into something totally different. I'd look to buy domains with alot of branded links or just url, the less anchor optimized the better obviously.

          Yukons been showing us examples of where really big authority sites do shit like sidebar lists "Our Other Sites". I've not dare to try that yet, but to be honest, I don't see whats wrong with doing it. So long as your not killing it with Anchor I can't see a blackhat about doing it. Maybe I have 10 sites about different Sports. That's good user experience to have other sport sites listed. Why not your sites instead of some hobbo's?

          How I'm doing it is like this.

          My site targets an entire market, 12 main products and about 3.7 million in search volume. Each product has its own market and each of those have at least 10 niches each in them. So there's plenty of room to move and make money. So in small search volume markets this might not be a good approach.

          So I can pick up a domain with decent existing auth. And base the whole site around a single product/category or niche/sub-category, and still be able to add good content, co-citation back to the main sites related pages. And use the sites existing authority to internally link pages targeting some easy low comp words for itself. You don't need to optimize anchor because all you're looking to do is build the auth of the page on the main site.

          From that main site page you can then use internal links with anchor for your main keywords. Do you get my drift?

          No, I have not had the balls to plug them into G yet. I think it would be un-wise for me to put my hand in the crocodiles mouth just yet. Mainly because they are targeting the same products. If they where mixed up into monetizing in completely different ways, you might be fairly safe..
          I've done ok with a network of legit same niche sites, I first noticed that type of setup when one of my own comp. started creating feeder sites (it works).

          IMO it's better/easier to build at least one authority site, more is better If you can do it over time. Then use the feeder sites to help rank additional pages for keywords that have already proven to generate decent traffic (ranked main site pages). This way you can test multiple page titles at the same time for each individual keyword & still bring in traffic while testing which pages get a better CTR, plus it's more SERP real estate & it builds up authority for all the pages involved.

          I know this might sound absurd to some people on this forum but I don't really care about my same niche sites leaving footprints, I mean I don't give it much thought. A few of my sites even have the same GA/GWT Google account, I'm not trying to hide, I want Google to find those relevant sites. Keep in mind I've never once been slapped by G. I did bounce around the SERPs once about a year ago for a page I've had ranked for years (main keyword), that same page eventually went right back to the #1 SERP position (I didn't touch anything (links/pages)).

          I also don't sell HTML links on any of my sites, I've sold javascript links to my competition for a while but that was only for relevant traffic. I would never let my comp. have an HTML link, I don't need their pages being stronger in the SERPs. I do have some HTML links that point to relevant sites/pages that I don't own but it's not competition, it's sites/pages that don't have any type of monetization on their own pages.

          Anyways, normal sites link to same niche sites, that's what Google is all about, relevancy. That won't be changing anytime soon.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    BTW, I'm about tired of all these idiots sponging off the silo concept. Goes to show trying to help some people brings out the gold diggers that try to monetize everything under the sun.

    Bit of a rant there...
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  • Profile picture of the author GyuMan82
    Another "private" network down.

    Yawn.
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  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    Here's a new concept (well, it's not new lol) go out and buy legitimate niche-related sites for your networks that are not expired! Haha - you're welcome. Yep, it costs more. Yep, it works. And, yeah, keeping them private goes without saying.

    Yukon I like your helping-out philosophy (of old) but it sucks too much to share anymore. Keep it to yourself, man!
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    A had a little look over on their sales thread. They don't seem to be hurting too much so, looks like G didn't do that much of a good job after all.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    I am not using blog-networks since BMR/ALN bust...*still*re-building some sites which I ****ed up because of what I did in the past. But I was/still am baffled how crappy and shitty SOME networks look and how obvious many of those sites are identifiable as such.

    I like how they call their network "private" but then have sales threads on BHW handing out "free samples".

    People had almost two years now to think about the risk and "usefulness" of blog-networks.

    There is only ONE way to do this...this is when a network is really "private", say yourself or a friend of yours acquired high PR domains... you know *exactly* what you're doing..and most importantly that each single site in the "network" looks (and basically is) a fully legitimate site. So pretty much if you build yourself a bunch separate "real" sites on expired, high PR sites...if possibly even on separate hosts. (The irony is that this is actually not even that difficult since there are ways to clone 'legit' sites, there is no reason to build a network of crappy sites).

    "Footprints"? If there is a public service/signup there WILL always be footprints. Do you think Google doesn't have the manpower to have people join those networks...with some easily identifiable links...it's nothing but a matter of time.

    Also: The ranking power of a PR5 or PR6 with a GOOD link-profile is mind boggling. You don't even need a shitty, public network with "100s of sites" to take full advantage of this. Invest your money into handful of PR5 and PR6 with good L/P and that's all you need.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery Moss
    Most likely, someone just reported the forum post to Google originally and that's what started the investigation, rather than Google being so smart. Though I'm sure Google and Matt Cutts are more than happy to take credit for cooking up a conspiratorial plot to uncover this link scheme.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Jeffery Moss View Post

      Most likely, someone just reported the forum post to Google originally and that's what started the investigation, rather than Google being so smart. Though I'm sure Google and Matt Cutts are more than happy to take credit for cooking up a conspiratorial plot to uncover this link scheme.
      You go right ahead and keep believing that.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Jeffery Moss View Post

      Most likely, someone just reported the forum post to Google originally and that's what started the investigation, rather than Google being so smart. Though I'm sure Google and Matt Cutts are more than happy to take credit for cooking up a conspiratorial plot to uncover this link scheme.
      Does it really matter If G found the thread on their own or it was reported?

      Did you see the Tweet/screenshot comment Matt C. made? He made that comment after looking at the sales thread.

      What's funny about that BH forum sales copy is this part Request Sample Links.

      I'm not ready for the tin foil hat but I'm still sure G has people snooping around IM/SEO/BH forums, even If it's only peons doing the initial snooping.
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  • Profile picture of the author jinx1221
    It could just be my own tinfoil hat talking, but I think they find out the new networks, then sit on it for a couple months or more, just to let them get a whole bunch of customers, then they go for the k.o. to send everyone a message. The more people complaining on forums about how their site tanked by using public networks the better. Just a thought
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      You could build a pristine network. Great themes, mix it up with wp, HTML, drupal. Even put some great content Etc etc. Doesn't matter.

      The minute you start renting/selling out links the footprints come.

      why?

      The customers ARE the foot print.

      Everybody curses the network owners and how they set them up but ever take a look at the customer sites they are linking to? its rare you see a site that you think - "okay someone might naturally want to link to that"

      Further it must be a punch line at Google that has them all rolling with laughter -

      "So they built this perfect network with no footprint and lots of authority and then they......... advertised it on WF and BHW."

      Rim shot!
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      • Profile picture of the author IMdeaming
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post


        Further it must be a punch line at Google that has them all rolling with laughter -

        "So they built this perfect network with no footprint and lots of authority and then they......... advertised it on WF and BHW."

        Rim shot!
        This right here man
        I saw one of those loudmouth link sellers on here a few weeks ago talking about how safe and footprint free his network was. Scroll down and there's a link to his sales thread right in the sig.
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        Something stinks...
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  • Profile picture of the author raymagnetic
    Just buy traffic and the SEO traffic will come if you're sending the paid traffic to quality sites.

    People will naturally tweet, like, google plus etc., your site if the information on it is good.
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