Backlinking Experts...Time To Fess Up

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Okay, we're going to play a game of show and tell.

Ultimately, here's the question I'm asking the backlinking experts.

"How do you get massive backlinks to your site(s) quickly without getting
your pages sandboxed to hell?"

I come from the old school. As a matter of fact, I'm going to share my
personal backlinking process right here. It is a very SLOW process.

Let's say I have a site X dot com

I want to get backlinks to my site.

Great...these are the things I do...not in any special order.

1. I write articles with links in the resource box pointing back to my site.
I write maybe 2 a day and submit them to EZA and/or put them on one
of my blogs (blogspot or WordPress) If WordPress, then it's my own
hosted WordPress and on a different domain.

2. Create videos, maybe 1 a week, and submit them to YouTube. I don't
bother with other video sites because I just don't want to spend the time and
YouTube is the top ranked site anyway.

3. I go to other blogs in the same niche and post relevant comments on
them, almost article in length. I do maybe 2 of these a week. I include a
link back to my site at the end.

4. I open up Web 2,0 sites such as Squidoo and make 1 or 2 posts a week
on these with a link back to my site.

5. If I have an affiliate program, I will contact other non competing sites
in the niche and present them with my offer. If this is done professionally
and correctly (what's in it for them) many are receptive and put up a link
to my site using their affiliate link.

6. Each time I create new content, I will go to Digg and bookmark it. I
don't bother with the other bookmarking sites because I don't want to
spend the time.

There you have it. That's my very modest backlinking efforts that I do.
All in all, this takes maybe 6 hours out of my whole week to do all this.

Sure, I know I can increase many of the above efforts by simply
outsourcing a lot of stuff.

1. Get tons of articles written.

2. Get a service to distribute my content all over the Internet.

3. Hire people to post comments on blogs.

4. Hire people to create Squidoo pages for me and make posts.

5. Hire somebody to contact all these non competing sites.

6. Hire somebody to go to all the social bookmarking sites and bookmark
my content.

Sure, I could do all that. But that's money I'm not going to shell out just
to get a few more backlinks.

So here you go experts.

What can I do, on my own, that won't take me oodles of time, but will get
me a massive amount of backlinks quickly and won't get me sandboxed to
hell?

I think many of us here would like to know...if in fact this is even possible.
#search engine optimization #backlinking #expertstime #fess
  • Steve,

    Onlywire is a very quick automated social bookmarking service and has some really good sites on it including Digg, Stumble, Twitter, Blinklist, Jumptags, Mixx, Technorati. Very easy to set up and use. It is also free if you post a teeny tiny link to them in one of your sites. Or it is inexpensive if you prefer not to post a link.

    I have it in my tool bar for fast use.

    I think Digg is no follow now...not sure if that makes a difference to you or not.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Are onlywire and bots like it, considered to be bad for link building? or Is that clean? I am just really paranoid on what can have you delisted and what can't.
      • [1] reply
  • There are ways to get a massive number of backlinks very quickly, but that's not organic and the Search Engines will penalize you. I think the methods you are using so far are good, and if you have money, you can save time and outsource.

    A huge number of backlinks too fast will definitely hurt your rankings. Excluding social bookmarking. That is good.

    Just my 2 cents...hope it helps.
    • [4] replies
    • "Huge" is a relative term. So is "too fast." In your personal experience, Alexgrett, how many backlinks and over what period of time have you found that it begins to hurt your rankings?
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • Are you sure?
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • I actually have to respectfully disagree with the fact that a massive number of backlinks will get you penalized. I am guessing that the worst it could do is "nothing", which would simply equate to a waste of time.

      The reason for this is simple. Its another case of people easily being able to exploit this and sabotage legitimate competition if this was the case.

      If this held true, I could use some blog commenting software, forum posting software and other automated link blasters and bury my biggest competitors by securing thousands of backlinks pointing back to their sites.

      • [1] reply
    • Can you explain this further.
  • Fellow-Warrior BigMike has an assortment of tools that can automate your link-building efforts. These include ArticleBot, SocialBot, RSSBot, DirectoryBot, and PressBot.

    I use a couple of these and plan to get a couple more and they are great time savers.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I would certainly like to know the answers from Backlink experts!! Recently I have spent few days writing articles then submitting to EZA, commenting on other ppl's blog,making squidoo lens and what not???

    This is definitely not gonna work for a long term, we need some serious answers that don't get us sandboxed as very rightly said by Mr.Wagenheim !!
  • Looks like you don't really need help for backlinks, because you are already doing everything you should. I could however tell you what extra I am doing.

    I am using Free Traffic System to get extra backlinks. You post an article on it and it submits it to many different wordpress blogs in the niche that you choose. The free account lets you post your article to 30 different blogs, with 2 links in your article. Paid members get more.

    This is pretty helpful, because it gets you real backlinks from sites that are in your niche. I do this for every article I write, and so far it is helping a lot. Check it out.

    I also have other ways to get free traffic among the free training courses that I am giving away in my sig. Hope that helps.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hi Steven,

    Here's how I do it:


    Number 1 - I always use a platform which has RSS functionality. This is why Wordpress is popular for a lot of people.

    Number 2 - I always have a social marketing system bolted on.

    Number 3 - Repurposing work (i.e if I write an article, I'll use part as a blog post and for a press release, then maybe even convert to audio and then put with slides and turn into video)

    Number 4 - Create a system that makes doing many of these easy and quick.


    So, for example if I wanted to launch a new site and focus on SERPS......

    (I already have multiple accounts and virtually all of the social sites, bookmarking services, video sharing sites, audio sharing sites, etc. - That takes a bit of time but it's WELL worth doing)

    Set up the site with Wordpress.

    Get the URLs for the feed (to use later)

    Setup plugins for seo, rss inputs (that's a widget now), and autobookmarking (like onlywire)

    Go to Postlater and schedule a whole bunch of posts and tweets - Postlater feeds into all of the other social systems. The main one, which if I didn't use Postlater would be my main focus is - Ping.fm (this shares to lots of social platforms on its own but can also be one of the places that Postlater feeds into).

    So - that's all of the social stuff plugged in and happening regularly for as long as I want - usually 6 months.

    Then write some articles and distribute them via isnare (i have a paid account which gets good distribution).

    Plug some press releases into a press release distribution tool and set for 1 a week for 12 weeks.

    I may have also setup the blog to pull in rss feeds to supplement the content so that when the systemized stuff eventually stops - the content keeps going.

    Sometimes I'll use Firepow or similar to just have articles, feeds etc. pulled in on a schedule for satellite sites that I use for link juice and traffic funneling to the main site.

    Usually that's enough to get a PR 6 within a couple of months and number 1 in Google for most niches without any more attention.

    If it's a really competitive niche, then I'll take a quick look (just using search engine searches with relevant operators to find the type of sites I'm after) and find a bunch of other sites/communities/forums/blogs etc.. which are high PR, dofollow and on separate servers and get myself some links or create a list and outsource to have someone get them.

    Sometimes I also have someone do directory submissions to a list of a few hundred directories also.


    If I do anything more - it's because feel like it, not because it's necessary.

    The rss and bookmarking alone ensures all pages get indexed, and the constant deep-linking to all pages ensures a consistent good ranking once the site starts doing well.

    I have a few other little tweeks I do when I can be bothered, but that's the base plan that I follow.

    Andy

    p.s as with Justin - I don't agree that aggressive linking gets you penalised - it's normal for all businesses to do marketing when they launch a site and get thousands of links quickly.
    The problem is if they keep coming from the same places and those are on the same servers.
    • [ 23 ] Thanks
  • Why are you even worried about backlinking. You said in another post that you do not care about PR or ranking on the SERPS. I was under the impression that you are not looking to rank on Google?
  • Great stuff, Andy. I'll be printing your post and adding to my 3-ring binder!
    • [1] reply
    • I've been using traffic bug with good effect. Only wire is excellent. And socialmarker is just a pain in the (you know where)!
  • Use AMA, UAW, SYA and Linkvana as they drip feed the links. Not cheap but easiest way.
    • [1] reply
    • Andy, you're a gem...thanks.

      Yeah, quite a bit of work and some of it (at least for me) technical. And we
      all know what a technical incompetent I am.

      While I understand all the theory of what you just explained, it is not
      something I would attempt to do on my own. But yeah, I can see how this
      would do the trick.

      Thanks for your help. I really do appreciate it.
      • [1] reply
  • I agree with Andy on most of those things.

    I'm ridiculously concerned with Trust and Authority these days, so my plan of attack includes drastic measures. Here are some additional things that I do:

    1. Design the site itself to be a link magnet. I try to think of related (lsi ) services or information I can provide for 2 reasons, 1. good for traffic, 2. good for getting free automated incoming links.

    An example would be, if you have a car sales site, create an image gallery of cars. Disabled right click on the images and force people that want to use them to use your copy/paste code (maybe JS or something similar to make it really tricky to edit) with a link back to your site.

    Another example would be endorsements or strange products (for ecommerce). A site I've got does well because we hired a "expert" well known reviewer to produce video reviews and overviews for all of our products. We get links from him, people who interview him, his fans, etc. If you're a general store, perhaps carrying a super weird $10,000,000 personal tank would be a good thing. People link to this type of stuff all the time.

    2. I go for resource sites. Because of the way google evaluates niches, I try to identify the same seed pages they use and get a link from there, or from all of the pages they link to, etc. DMOZ is good for finding these, as are NYT articles, Librarian indexes, etc. If there are private instructors or performers, doctors anything in your niche, odds are they have a resources page for their viewers. Get listed on these.

    3. Since my ventures are typically ecommerce there are a lot of links that aren't available to me (sales pages guys... pay attention). In this case, I'll create an industry resource page with no commercial intent (yet ) and gather links from my competitors and authority sites that won't link to a commercially driven site.

    You can do contests (best eco friendly sites) or something that people will be proud to display on their sites.

    You could just offer increased product information or interviews with company owners..... pay for independent studies (medical or non) to be done - this works great for magazine citations and .edu/.gov links.

    Hire a local college to develop product packaging or a marketing plan. 9/10 they'll link to you and alumni will as well.

    After you get those links form your competitors / coveted sources, you have 2 options.

    1. 301 Redirect the site to yours - you lose 1-10% of the link strength, but it's all good. May create an artificial decay anomaly in your profile as people figure it out though...

    2. Link to your site from the pages.

    4. Offer discounts or incentives. One of my favorite things to do is offer a student discount or discounts directly to bloggers (their blogname as the coupon code) for products. They'll link to you 9/10 and refer business as well.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • ^ Exactly.

    Depending on where you look at 99% of the links you have could be PR0. (Which Google apparently doesn't count.)

    Around 20 PR 3-5, quality, links can get you to the top of almost any search with 50,000 competitors. (Normally)

    What I do is make 4 sites at a time and every week just pay for some guy to add 20 quality, high PR, links to each of them.

    Within a few months they'll get the target keyword I want and in the mean time I get long tail traffic witch pays for my link building efforts.

    Than just rinse and repeat. (SEO sounds much harder than it is. )

    Zach

    P.S- I'm currently launching another 4 blogs that will target pretty big keywords. I guesstimated that it'll cost, over the next 8 weeks, $800 dollars per blog. (Just for the links.)
    When you outsource all your link building efforts it isn't cheap; especially if you want it done right. But it is beyond worth it.

    There's some really good backlinking guys right on the forum that do a great job and aren't too expensive.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Banned
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    • [1] reply
    • Steven,

      Getting massive amounts of backlinks will either take some time or some money or both.

      It's kind of like asking ... "What niche can I pick that only requires a few articles to write or doesnt cost me very much in PPC costs that will generate $500 a day in sales?"

      Define oodles and massive ... I'll comment further once I understand your objectives/needs further.

      The solution you ultimately select may also depend on how you define SPAM.
      • [1] reply
  • Gratz Steve. Did people really tell you were a fool for working? I have followed your posts for a while and I have the impression that you built up a large quantity of sites/articles that bring in your income (around 100k?).

    I have a question that I am really interested in hearing your answer. If you were returned to zero. No sites, no articles, nothing. How long would it take you to get back to where you are now. If you had some sort of investment, would this speed up the process?

    I hope you don't think me nosey, I am in process of rebuilding myself, and I think I will get back to my previous level a lot quicker than it took me the first time. I am interested to know your opinion as it seems you have got where you are today by constantly applying the pressure and keeping up a good level of work.
    • [1] reply

    • Well, it's really not a fair question since the only way I could lose my
      sites is if I did something illegal to lose them. Nobody is just going to
      take them away from me. Plus, my name will still exist. If I wanted to (and
      I thought about doing this) I could create a killer physical product
      detailing everything I did/do to earn a solid income online, price it at
      around $397, sell 500 copies and be done working for 2 years.

      I have decided against doing it because, quite honestly, I don't want to
      spend all that time on product creation anymore. I enjoy my life as it is.

      But okay, I'll play the game.

      If I had to start over (I get to keep the money I've made, right?) I'd
      simply outsource everything.

      I'd research about 3 or 4 killer niches and then hire ghost writers to
      create the products and traffic and SEO experts to drive traffic and
      get my sites up to speed. I'd also hire copywriters for my sales pages
      and article writers for all the content.

      I'm sure I'd have to hire others as well (there is so much to do) but I'd
      have all that worked out before I did it.

      You're probably wondering, why don't I just do that now?

      Because all that outsourcing still takes overseeing. And quite honestly,
      I don't want to be a babysitter to anybody these days.

      Hire a business manager?

      Maybe, but then I have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't
      rob me blind.

      No, I enjoy the very simple, worry free life that I have now.

      But that's what I'd do if I had to start over again.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks for the honest answer Steven. My experience is in leadgen so this un-attended affiliate sales stuff has never been my main focus before. In leadgen it is all about bulding ambiguity so that you can get their details but generating affiliate sales online needs a different tactic that I am still experimenting with.

    I see the benefit of using copywriters but I am reluctant as to get someone good costs a decent amount and I am worried that I won't recoup my costs. Also in the past I hired an expensive copywriter who failed miserably to even come close to my control, let alone beat it, which put me off.

    I think you could write a WSO that was no more than 2 or 3 pages long with the main points condensed on what to do and I would buy it right now. (review copy available? :p).

    If you want a guinea pig I'll put up 10k and you tell me how to invest it.
  • I believe digg right now still do follow.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Will depend on your rating if your links stick or not..you will see....
  • Great tips in this discussion.
    Thanks for all the good info.

    Sharie
  • Hi guys,

    First of all I like to thanks Andy for starting this discussion. I am broke blogger, so I can't spend a cent to hire anyone do the link building for me. And yes, I used most of Andy's method there. But I still believe that bookmarked our link to few of social bookmarking sites will do good (not only for backlink but also for direct traffic).

    Anyhow, I have this question though. I hope, any expert warriors will help answering it (and my sincere gratitude in advance for it).

    "Is having several comments in one good PR blog with dofollow not harmful?"
    or should we just leave one or two comments only from that website/blog?

    I have to ask this, coz I love to loyally follow some famous blogger which also help in giving backlink with their dofollow policy.

    Thank u so much guys for sharing your knowledge here
  • Does submitting my own blog post to digg.com can be
    considered as spamming?

    Because if you see the purpose of social bookmarking site
    is where people share interesting stuff all over the internet.

    What if I submit every post on my blog to digg.com and
    other social bookmarking sites.Will that be considered
    as spam?

    Or I just need to submit my blog post that I think is
    interesting.

    The question is actually "How to do social bookmarking
    without spamming the social bookmarking sites".

    Anyone?

    Azim
  • In regards to Digg, I find that it has been overly selective on which referring URLS are allowed and denied posts. I think too many people abused it and they raised the spam filters quite a bit.
  • I'm no link building expert but there is not much activity in this thread which is a shame so here is my modest contribution

    Link wheels (just started recently, looks promising)
    article directories
    relevant comments on a small number of high traffic forums with no nofollow
    tried blog posts but stopped as a waste of time
    stumbleupon (with exchanges)
  • I eat my own dog food (see sig).

    And I follow my own advice here:
    http://www.thelinkjuicer.com/7.steps....marketing.pdf

    The pdf is about niche marketing but it explains the backlinking method I use.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Peter,

      I used your service a while back and what I found was that Google never picked up on the links posted to all the accounts your service distributes to. At least not mine. I was wondering if this might have bee because those sites were not crawled regularly or the posted notes where too little in word count despite the minimum word count you set?

      Maybe you have an idea and could kindly share your thoughts?

      Thanks!
  • Thanks for the sharing guys. Personally speaking ranking high on SERPS does not apply to certain techniques. Google algorithm is changing every year, as webmaster, we need to keep track the knowledge of SEO whether is OFF page of ON page optimization.

    To be frank, I start working on link building by submit my website to thousands of web directories, but it is not worth to do it nowadays.

    Writing an article and distribute to XXXX article directories? No really.
    One of my website tested with just submitting articles to EZ and link back to main page and inner page. The ranking do climbs with this link building fashion.

    So, the best link building method I would say is.. test it yourself and later set up your own link building system. Either with:

    1) Link Wheel
    2) Articles Distribution
    3) Video Submission
    4) Blogs Commenting
    5) Web 2.0
    6) Blogs creation
    7) Forum signature
    8) Drop link in answer site like yahooanswer, wikianswer...
    9) Linkvana
    10)Neurolinker
    11) 3 way links
    12) 1 way links
    13) RSS distribution
    ...
    *the list going on...

    Just for sharing
    • [1] reply
    • 1. This is a good list...I would add "pinging" the backlinks from any and all of those sources to help with indexing.

      2. You can also create an RSS feed for all of your backlinks and submit those to RSS directories for better indexing.

      3. I would also recommend making some of your backlinks "authority" links by massively backlinking them as well. I've found for some niches that you can't get any real authority backlinks so you must create your own. Prime candidates include:

      a. Your own Youtube channel page: Of course the only outbound link on this page should be yours.

      b. Your EzineArticle.com Author page: The links on this page are no follow but it will have a link to all of your articles which do pass link juice.

      c. Your own Feeder sites: I recommend setting up a few simple wordpress sites that function as doorways or landing pages for your money site. Make sure the domain name features your target keyword as the rest of the site will be very thin.

      d. Your own Facebook fan page: I am not as sure about this one and am currently testing but it seems to make sense.

      Now you have 4 "authority niche" pages for your money site!

  • Banned
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  • I use all the above plus my own system. Spread your activities across many methods, build steadily, as in a few dozen a MONTH, and focus on getting the links indexed rather than just building links and movin on.
  • Angelas list has done well for me. You can find it in the wso forum. Its basically a list of 30 high quality pr sites you can add your link to every month.
  • This is something normally I wouldn't share because it could be easily considered black hat or at least Grey hat.

    Step 1
    5-10 quality articles posted on various sites PR 5+ (record the actual article link)

    Step 2
    Link these articles to high heaven in almost anyway possible,

    it would be pretty hard to get a PR5+ site sandboxed no matter what linking strategy you use and google expects these sites to be linked alot so they don't look to hard into how its being done

    I don't know if it will work for everybody but I have a few sites I couldn't rank at all for because of the competition and now I am number one with 3-5 backlinks for my landing page
  • #1) First of all you create a feeder blog that has an exact matched top level domain. Make sure it is optimized for a keyword different than what you are going after on your main site. Then you add a backlink to your main site on that blog that uses exact anchor text.

    A lot of times depending on the competition you can grab a page one ranking in two to three days just by having the right domain. Which would mean extra traffic for you right out of the gate. That traffic will funnel straight to your main site if you create the content on the feeder blog as a pre-sell for it.

    #2) Next you set up a Squidoo lens that backlinks to your main site and nothing else. Make sure you use original nonspun content on the lens or you will risk having it flagged as spam. Also add a bunch of Youtube videos and other glitter to hide the fact that the lens is nothing more than a backlink to your main site.

    #3) Join Unique Article Wizard, Niche Press, My Article Network, Article Ranks and SEO Link Vine. Once you have submit a well spun plr article containing a backlink to your feeder blog. Doing this will take you roughly 30 minutes and will generate close to 3000 backlinks.

    #4) Repeat step #3 but this time backlink to the Squidoo lens.

    #5) Purchase backlink services and backlink the hell out of the articles that were submitted in steps #3 and #4.

    Repeat and rinse every week, month or quarter at your discretion.

    If you follow this plan you'll end up with a boat load of feeder blogs that are funneling link juice to your main site while at the same time gathering traffic from the serps themselves.

    Whenever you see that you have lost your ranking for a feeder blog or lens you'll know you got too aggressive with the backlinks. So you end up losing a feeder blog or a lens for a few months. Big deal. It'll come back around. But more importantly your site will remain intact and out of the sandbox.

    It's kind of like heating up a sandwich with a flamethrower. If you direct the flame directly onto the sandwich you'll burn it all to hell. But if you direct the flame close enough to warm it but far enough away to keep from scorching it you'll be able to enjoy a nice warm meal.

    The mistake I see many people make in seo is that they backlink directly to their main site. Which isn't a bad idea once you know what you're doing and what to look out for. But imho it's best to follow the plan I just laid out.

    I used to love playing in sandboxes when I was a sprout. Right up to the point where I found out cats liked to use them for litter boxes. Leave the sandbox for the kitties who don't know any better and the felines who know what to do with them.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Are massive amounts of backlinks really important?

    I like to cook the Google algorithm down to Authority(PR)*Relevance*AnchorText, very simplified of course and you could add some weight (PR*w1)*(Relevance*w2)*(AnchorText*w3). No one really knows the exact algorithm or how much weight it places on each factor, but those three are factors all will probably agree on.

    Then it also follows that the best link would be a sitewide high PR, relevant site link.

    Second best would be up for debate, unrelated high pr, anchor text link or related, but not high pr, anchor text link.

    Further down would be non anchor text links from high pr sites or massive amounts of anchor text links on unrelated, non pr sites.

    My humble guess as to where Google is going, is unfortunately in the direction of placing a lot of importance on authority, strong top domains. All signs point in that direction. The Caffeine update and the Mayday update seems to have rewarded trusted sites and removed a lot of relevant but not trusted pages.

    So, I will generally go for a link from trusted, relevant sites as a top priority to build up the top domain. Then go for massive amounts of anchor text links. The first should be easier to get with great content. The second requires automation or large database sites.

    I am thinking very much in virtual real estate at the moment and personal networks.
  • One thing I do is keep an actual checklist of the content I have created, where I posted and promoted it. It is too hard to remember with ineruptions, distractions etc. And then I cross promote my profiles too. Everything I have SEO'd has gotten to page one. Lather, rinse repeat, key thing is repeat. And as the original poster said, put in a pile of work for a few years, then get on auto pilot mode...
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