The Danger of Using Automated Backlinking Tools?

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Hello All,

I'd like to share a mistake I made this week. It involves using an automated backlink program, and the negative effect that it caused me.

Here's what happened:

I have been working for months on a blog in the diabetes niche (I don't mind sharing the niche because I tend to focus on very targeted subniches within a larger niche - still good search volume, much less competition).

Anyway, this niche blog is based around a single keyword phrase. This phrase gets about 250 daily searches, and has competition around 200,000 (more than I usually tackle, but the first page of Google looked manageable).

After proper backlinking and article marketing, I had gotten the blog to the #11 spot in Google's search engine results.

I was one spot away from the first page, and I was just starting to see traffic from it.

I thought that if I got a few more backlinks, that I'd crack the top ten, and then I'd slowly work my way up the first page.



I came across this "backlinking" tool that was suppose to automate the backlinking process.

All I had to do was enter my domain name, and the software would automatically build links on about 3,000 sites.

3,000 backlinks would definitely help, right? No. Not the way I did it anyway.

After about 200 backlinks being created, my inner IMer started to shout at me to shut the program off, which I did. But it was too late.

The very next day my site disappeared completely from Google's search engine results. And it was gone until today.

A week ago my niche blog was sitting pretty at #11. Today it's at #471. Woohoo!!

Just thought I'd share the experience with you guys. Building quality backlinks the right way is awesome. Trying to shortcut the process can end disasterously.

Much Success,

KateD

P.S. Just so everyone knows, I did NO OTHER marketing with that niche blog during the past couple of weeks. The automated backlinking must have been the cause for the drastic change in my rankings.
#search engine optimization #automated #backlinking #danger #tools
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  • Hi,

    I agree with you that automatic backlink building is not the best way to go.
    Do you mind telling me what the software was?

    I would give it a few days to see where you end up.
    Doing the Dance right now.

    Please report back in a few days.
    Would like to know what happend.
    If you stay at that position, I will give you a free tip to get it back where it belongs or even higher

    So please, wait a few days and then tell us.

    Regards,

    Mike
    • [1] reply

    • Yes, it seems logical that you're experiencing the Google Dance. I do hand-submission backlinking and notice that I move around quite a bit. I usually rank #2 most days of the week but once in a while I will be on page 2 or even 3 but I always tend to return within a day or two.

      I suspect giving it a little time, you may see better results.

      Nonetheless, the best of luck--

      Michael Cruz
  • We have all made this mistake. I need to send some of my automation hungry students to this thread.

    I was #1-2 for a term that got me 250k daily visitors and I bought a text link and everything went south for a whole year
  • Hi Kate, what type of sites were your links being created on?
  • If that tool is really capable of sending your site from #11 to #471 just use it to nuke all of your competitors.

    I'm sorry to hear about your drop in rankings but I don't believe it is so easy to bury a site like that. It would be far to easy to sabotage all of your competitors. Keep building links, wait a while, and I bet your site will come back higher.
    • [ 7 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • I agree that using off page factors it would be to easy to sabotage competitors, but that seems to conflict with those that say don't build backlinks to fast. Yet I've seen sites with obscene numbers in backlinks get Google top rankings. Could it be that by using automated backling tools (not services) you're leaving something for the searchengines to pickup on? Several autoblogging products mention using a robots.txt to block the searchengines.
    • ^ This.

      If there's a software/service that can effectively shoot down sites from the SERP and do so without much effort, the SEO game is about to change.

      Now, it'll all be about who can shoot down the competition at the highest rate. Think about the possibilities in less-competitive niche-markets! So easy to rank if all you have to do is drop a handful of competing pages.
      :p
  • WOW i want it!

    If it can build 3000 backlinks fast then i want it... what was it called?

    All you have to do is point them to an authority site with backlinks and it won't make any difference to your own site at all... in fact it will help it rank higher and higher!

    Mark Blaze
    • [1] reply
  • You should have created the automated links for the 10 sites ahead of you instead of your own. LOL
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • I wonder if this proves that Google is intelligent enough to differentiate between "natural backlinking" as opposed to "automated backlinking"

    I guess it does... *shrug
  • Sorry - are backlinks the same as linkwheels?
  • I am seriouly considering some competitor sabotage by getting some really dodgy links to their sites. has anyone tried this?

    Any tips for a budding sabatour!
    • [2] replies
    • Oh yeah sure. You want to perform an SEO attack on various websites on the net, for your own advantage and youre asking us for tips???

      Dude, c'mon. :rolleyes:
      • [1] reply
    • We'd all like to help you out. What is your money site?
  • I have many link automation tools but I always try tp play safe and make sure that my linking campaigns also have a good portion of manual linking.

    I go for slow and quality, not fast and quantity...

    Scott
    • [1] reply
    • Kate,

      Just about any time you build an excess amount of backlinks your site will jump up and down the rankings and if you keep going with it you'll probably find that it'll come back ranking higher than it initially was.

      If it was really possible to just build a huge amount of backlinks to screw a site over and make it lose it's ranking, search engine rankings would be a joke.

      I have tools capable of creating tens of thousands of links a day, as do many other people, so if incoming links truly could have a negative effect then no one would be able to hold a decent ranking due to sabotage.

      Automation is completely fine when it comes to building links. What's more important than quantity is consistency. It doesn't matter if you're building 1 link a day or 1000, just make sure you're consistent.

      Additionally, don't be discouraged when your site "dances" and drops into obscurity after building links. In my experience this is usually a good thing as your site will often come back stronger as a result.
      • [ 3 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Seriously though, I don't think it was the software you were using. It was most likely the surge in links all at once to one page that looked unnatural and raised a red flag. Especially for an unestablished site.
  • if it is true, then simply use it for your competitor's site. will it kick your competitor off the first page? possibly, it will not. otherwise, it will be a huge problem for SE ranking.

    I would say what you saw is possibly a ranking dance. wait for some time, it could be days or weeks, your site will be back in the ranking. at least, it happened to some of my sites.


    david
  • Kate,

    What happened to you SERP is that you got in sandbox.
    You built too much links in short time without having good "base" for it.
    Don't worry - you will come back in some time (week to 3 months).

    It would work if you already had big number of backlinks and if domain is older.

    If site is new you should make this kind of backlinks over other sites that point to your main site:
    - first build properties on high PR sites (blogger,vox...) and link to your site from them
    - then use that software for automated links and promote those properties

    On that way you are safe and pages with your links are getting more points, so their link to your site has higher value.


    But as I said - don't worry.
    Just continue working on your site, adding new content and building more links.


    Nikola
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • This is nothing but BS ... You can not build links too fast and this has been proven... Sandbox my eye, I wish people would stop with this myth.

      I do not care if it is a brand new site, you can build 1,000 links in an hour and it not hurt you. Has nothing to do with age of domain name, what you think the spiders check your registration ?? No they do not.

      Anyone can release a brand new site and send out a press release and bookmark that site to 100 bookmarking sites, post articles on 100 article directories, build hubpages and squidoo lens, and post videos on the top video sharing sites.. All in the same day and it will not hurt them one single bit.

      They would build thousands of links in this one day and have nice listings ..

      James
      • [ 4 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
  • I have found that Google has been shaking things up the last 30 days.One of my sites that has been number one for three years dropped to 85 for 2 weeks and then came back.I have noticed sites with very few links and PR turning up on the first page, not for long maybe a week or less. I don't think 200 links would be red flag,just because you add 200 links today does not mean 200 are indexed today, my guess it could take 30 days or longer for them to be indexed.
  • KateD, I am about to send you an PM. I am in a small niche of diabetes as well. Maybe we can cross promote or work something out.

    Travis
  • Hey Guys...

    Thanks for all of the feedback. It has only been a short amount of time and maybe the site will come back.

    I mean, I know it will because I will keep promoting it and building it. And like I said, I stopped after about 200 backlinks created.

    I will definitely keep you posted if the site moves again.

    KateD
    • [1] reply
    • Hey Kate,

      Sent you a PM but not sure if you got it or not as i really do want to know what this tool is (and no not to shoot down my competitors i have more constructive thing's to do with my time).

      Im guessing it's xrumer but not fully convinced!

      Mark Blaze
  • UPDATE:

    I just checked the ranking again for my niche blog and the keyword phrase I'm targeting.

    I'm now sitting at position #661.

    I'll keep you guys posted.

    KateD
  • Of course you cant screw with the search engines they are a heck of a lot smarter now days. Plus I can stand spammy backlinkers. No offense but avoid that stuff at all costs its just not worth it.
  • Iv been backlinking my blog slowly and manually and it went from #5 to #191 , I don't know why but its still first page on yahoo and bing.
  • I'm sorry but it was not the tool that did it .. I have no idea what tool you used but the fact is build a few thousand backlinks will not hurt your ranking. This is a proven fact. I will say it again as I have many times over.

    Go do a press release with PrWeb and see dont you get hundreds to thousands of backlinks within hours. This does not hurt your rankings at all, it increases your rankings.

    Not to mention there is no program or no system that can track all backlinks, this is impossible. It is also impossible for google or any other bot to be in all places at all times. They would have to monitor billions of websites every single second of every day and they just do not have the ability to do this.

    Again no idea what tool you used but saying using automation is dangerous is a false and misleading statement. Most of the time it is the way people abuse the tools.

    James
    • [ 5 ] Thanks
  • Hi KateD

    Thank you so much for this tip.
  • That happened but then the site came back after about 4 weeks.

    Who knows what Google is up to sometimes.

    My best results are done like this:

    1. Search Google for my keyword - like "**** Berry Diet" as an example
    2. Look at each result on the first page only for a "links", "Partners" or "Blog roll"
    3. Add the site to my own directory.
    4. Personally email the Webmaster, show them their site in my directory, ask for a link back.

    Keep searching with different variations like "**** Berry Directory", etc. and repeat.

    I have gotten about a 25% response rate. BUT you have to have a really nice non-spammy site.

    This are my best traffic and incoming PR links.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • gotta agree... what we have here is somebody jumping to conclusions and blaming a piece of software.

    how long had your site been at #11

    SE ranking shifts like this happen all the time.

    you don't think all of the black-hatters haven't already thought of this and found that you can't nuke your competitions rankings this way. If this worked I'd be running scrapebox 24 hours a day nuking every site ahead of me.
    • [2] replies
    • Seriously I wish people would use the brains that God gave them .. It's common sense that building links will not hurt you and there is no such this as "NATURAL" link building..

      Sorry to all those that try to push your backlink service by saying "NATURAL" but fact is and yes I said fact is ... No search engine can tell if a link is "NATURAL" or not. They have no idea when it was posted, how it was posted and who posted it.

      James
      • [2] replies

    • Trust me. I'm no SEO expert, nor do I pretend to be. I just made an honest observation on the ranking of one of my blogs.

      Am I freaking out? Hardly. Just gave my opinion on what happened to my blog. I know that in time, it will come back.

      It's just that I had been working at it very slowly and cautiously. The only type of promotion I did for that blog in the last couple of weeks was using the automated backlinking tool.

      So I am making the assumption that it was that tool that caused my blog to make such a drastic leap in rankings.

      Is it dangerous to my blog today? Yes it is. I was just starting to see the traffic from almost being on page 1.

      Is it dangeruous to my blog long term? Well, that depends. I know, I know. It's just the "google dance" and it will settle back down after some time.

      But who know how long that will be? A couple of days? A couple of months?

      KateD
      • [3] replies
  • This happened to me 3 times in 6 months. No need to back link anymore its going out of trend. On the contrary lesser backlinks with shoot you up to the top. Better wash off all those dirty backlinks . I am much better off without backlinking. Just let it be natural. hahahha.

    Peace
  • 3000 links? It sounds like one of the tools that submits your site to all of the whois directories online. Your site will pop-up in a few weeks time. Don't be too concerned. Assuming it is this tool, the links won't pass much authority to your site but the tool does help get you indexed fast. The page your link will appear on isn't going to be a bad link neighborhood so she'll be apples in a few weeks.
  • @admav yes I do agree with your opinion. If it is that easy to get your site bury with that software, your competitors will be "dead".

    Keep building links with the right way and see what happens.
  • Your story is changing.

    You first posted that you only used the tool once for 200 backlinks and now you've said that it's the only type of promotion you've done over the last couple of weeks.

    I don't think you have to worry about the tool.

    I think you are experiencing a natural shifting of SE rankings. It happens all the time. I have a site that is playing ping pong at the moment, it drops to the 120's then comes back in the 20's... then drops back to the 70's... then comes back in the teens... then drops down to the 40's... so on and so on... it's playing ping pong with google. I've also had sites that have dropped down to the 500's or 800's for a couple of weeks then bounce back... this stuff just happens.

    It could be that your site will bounce back at a higher ranking or it could be that you were receiving that elusive new site ranking bump and now your site has dropped down to where it naturally belongs.
    • [1] reply
    • No. My story isn't changing. Both of those statements are true:

      I did only use the automated backlink tool once (a few days ago).

      It has been the only promotion that I have done for this particular blog over the last couple of weeks.

      KateD
  • A GOOD handyman NEVER blames his tools.
  • It seriously amazes me how people are so quick to jump and blame automation... Millions of people use automation, DUH!!! Guess what google's spider is automated ..LOL!!

    Anyways ... Let's get real, for those of you that talk about this mythical google dance and sandbox or this myth about building links to fast.. You seem to leave many factors out.

    * Maybe your competition is building higher quality and more quantity than you are and thus your listing is no longer related and is pushed down.... This is natural and has nothing to do with some dance or sandbox.

    * Maybe your onsite seo that some expert told you to do is done wrong. Maybe you are keyword stuffing your sites. Maybe and just maybe a site with better on site seo kicked your butt.

    There are so many factors involved that it would be impossible to claim some automation software hurt your listings. Google or nobody else can tell how those links was built. That also is impossible as google does not have access to your personal life, servers, computers, and ect...

    Honestly this thread title should be changed because it is false and misleading. There is no danger of using automation... Millions of websites and companies use automation every single day. It's called being smart!

    James
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [4] replies
    • More than likely your site is just being "evaluated"...

      Your site isn't "gone" - It's not "banned" - It isn't going to slip into the neverworld and never appear again.

      More than likely, your site was "stale" with very little or no promotion in the way of backlinks. You started to build some links so Google is evaluating where you site should be.

      Give it a bit and it will 99% of the time not only come back, but come back to a better permission.

      Manually or automated...what is the difference?

      Either way, links are being posted on a site. Do you really think the search engine knows - "oh boy, this person is using XXXXXX software - Time to give their site a slap"....no.
    • sometimes I wonder about that. If someone using the Google toolbar was on the site when the link was dropped, Sidewiki could have easily recorded the IP of the link dropper.
      • [1] reply
    • There is no danger of using automation? Then how come Google is cracking down on autoblogs? I've read all kinds of comments from people to avoid putting Adsense on Autoblogs because Google will nail you. Autoblogs are automation alley all the way.
      • [1] reply
    • Well said James!!!

      There are so many possibilities here that could have caused the drop in rankings. For example...

      *Using automated software that scrapes search engines but the "User" uses the same IP address throughout the entire session. That's a quick way to be classified as a SPAMMER.

      *Extreme Keyword stuffing

      *Did KateD go back and check to see how many of those automated Backlinks actually stuck?

      To say that Automated Backlinking Tools don't work is categorically FALSE! In terms of back linking, ninety-five percent of my backlinking is done with automation and I've never had an issue, NEVER!
  • I never make any back links. Only outsource them. That way they never are created with my IP. May or may not make a difference, but I am a conspiracy theorist.

    Speaking of which I am going to need more back linking done soon James. Those you did for me before took the site from more than 9800 (all Google would show) to page 1.
    Thanks
    Mark
    • [1] reply
    • Mark,
      Playing with your conspiracy theory..now that you have come out and declared how you do it,Google's gonna find the sigs in your post...find your other sites(if hosted on the same server) and then penalize them all.

      Vijay
      • [1] reply
  • My guess: your site is going to come back at a higher spot in the next few days/weeks
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  • Ah, you should have bought the Link Building Black Book The search engines are not that smart. Look in the right places and you can see autogenned scraped sites (not blogs) with nonsense content that used Xrumer etc to spam links, sitting at #1 in Google for over a year for their search term..... However, it's really easy for a competitor to file a spam complaint and I think this is the reason most spam sites get taken out. It's really easy to do backlink analysis and it usually takes me about 1 minute to tell whether someone has been link spamming. You game the system too obviously, you give a wide open invite to the person who wants your place in the serps for that choice term. The reason those spam sites are still there is because they rank for nonsense terms that no-one would complain about, not because the Google Algo sees all.
    If you post a lot of links really fast, sure, it can leave a red flag - but what also ought to be of the greatest concern is what the software does in terms of varying anchor text, varying the comments that are posted, etc. You say that you only posted 200 links before you shut it off.
    Another factor to consider is the quality of what you are linking to. People who are offended by links to obvious marketing content are often pleased by links to thicker content - so you might consider a two (at least) tier system where you have money pages linked to by your own high-value content pages - and then build the links to the high quality content which "advertises" (& pre-sells) your product.
    Hopefully your site will bounce back up and it was only a temporary "sandboxing"... but yeah, a blunderbuss does collateral damage.
  • Maybe you were logged into a google account while you did it? Seriously, if Google can immediately tell if you are clicking your own ads even from another computer, why shouldn't they be able to spy on what other stuff you are running? All the more reason not to use any of Google's 'free' services.
    • [1] reply
    • Exactly why I use none of google's evil tools .. No thanks, don't need them. Yes they do track you while logged into their system...

      James
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  • Oh. Thats very bad indeed. Thanks for sharing this info Kate.

    I always try to avoid automatic or bots business. I believe only manual backlinking works its best. Now it will be really a very hardwork for you to rank up. But I hope you get the results.
  • sorry to see what happend.. and Thank you for sharing your experience and alerting all of us. Just giving URL and auto submitting same to many sites proven to be a disaster.

    I too heard that when we submit to many sites like this there is possibility of losing position and again we get it back at much higher position.

    Let us hope your site gets back on 1st page shortly..

    Wish you all the Best

    Thank You
    Sridhar
  • No Kate, the mistake(s) you made was jumping to a false conclusion about the speed with which Google could even begin to take some interest in a few hundred links, and then you posted your fears in here without researching them, and as a result you have ended up needlessly worrying some equally (as yet) uninformed folks, so that they think what you are saying is correct. Its not.

    What you are experiencing is just 'Google dance'. This is SEO we're talking here. Not PPC. It takes some time, weeks or months even, for back-links to be indexed and for Google to be able to give you some link-love, but when Google sees them, before it can work out what it all means in context of everything else they have indexed, it gives you a ranking based on authority and immediacy, and then it all settles down.

    It all settles down, I suppose, unless your competitors have back-link robots and are building links every night, while you worry yourself into inactivity...

    Typically your site will come back even stronger in the SERPS. You'll see.

    Must go now, I have to go start another robot back-link run. The wee man does one or two runs every night for one of my sites or another, and I easily add 300 links a week or more to each...

    Terence.
  • UPDATE: My site is now sitting at position #481.


    As a side note, I'm not showing up at all in Yahoo's search results (not under 1000 results anyway). But I'm at spot #23 for Bing.

    Much Success,

    KateD

    P.S. And just for the RichJerk, I modified the title of this thread. It's not a statement anymore, but instead it is a question.
    • [1] reply
    • Thank you Kate ... I just hate to mislead others into thinking that building links to fast or using automation is a bad thing ...

      James

      • [1] reply
  • You need to give it more time, after some number of new links there's always a phase of google dancing..it could very well be that your site might reappear in a few days again.

    i am using automated tools also, but i use them rather to find related blogs.

    "Bad neighborhoods" are bad, for both in-linking and out-linking..and you certainly dont want to run a tool and spam 1000s of links to any trash/p0rn/pharma/spammer site out there. IF you do this then only to a intermediary "buffer" site (like a blogger or something) which links to your site, but not to your money site.

    Dont worry....now just get some GOOD links....and hope the site will come up again soon.
  • This same thing happened to me but I wasn't using automated bots for links. I actually was just backlinking myself but got a little over zealous. I went from page 1 to page 15. What I was told was to ignore it and just keep backlinking. I also sent in a request to Google to reconsider my site or whatever the option is and within 2 weeks I was back to my original spot.

    The other thing you need to remember is all of those links may not have even been crawled yet and this could just be a case of the Google dance.

    If Google sandboxed or de-listed sites for doing this then it would be so easy to hire some guy using xrumer and have him blast your competition. It's not as cut and dry as everyone makes it sound.

    I've talked to people who go in with the express purpose of trying to get a site sand boxed by creating too many links to see what happens. From what he told me he has not had one site de-indexed yet. I'm not that ballsy and try to make it look as natural as possible.
  • 3000 site... r u using ksoft software. this software did submit to 3000 whois site.. its not harm my site(yet)and even half of the backlink are from china site
  • I love these threads. Everyone wants to change the other's mind. Never understood that...

    This quote fits this thread (and every other one like it that pops up year after year) - "Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake"
    • [1] reply
    • Kudos to you ch3712 - thats a delicious quote .... consider it stolen!


  • Welcome to google. What you've explained is 100% natural and probably in no way related to the 200 + links you've created in one day. Rather than pointing the finger at the software, take some time to research a bit more on SERP activity.

    Also, for a term that only gets ~7500 searches per month, you sure are putting your heart and soul into this thing. For that little amount of traffic I say it's hardly worth the headache.
    • [1] reply
    • I disagree ... Any and all traffic is worth it, maybe and just maybe 1 of those searching that keyword could be your next $1,000 customer.. Still think it is a waste of time ???

      Target anything and everything.. I normally go after huge competition because I love it.. but I also have keywords I rank for that only have 500 searches a month.. Every little bit helps.

      James
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  • Hey Guys,


    I'm totally surprised by how negative some of the comments have been. I have close to 15 niche blogs, the fact that one dropped is more of a curiosity than anything else.

    To say that I am "freaking out" is false. You obviously don't know me.

    I just made an observation. Sure, a hundred things could have affected my rankings. However, I only did one thing (using the automated backlink tool) recently, and I was speculating how that was the cause.

    Am I running around screaming, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" like Chicken Little? No.

    So please stop trying to make this more dramatic than it is.

    Here's what happened:

    1. My blog was ranking well
    2. I used an automated backlinking tool
    3. Shortly afterwards my blog sank down
    4. I threw out the question/assumption that it was using the automated backlink tool that was the cause of my drop


    The only assumption that I was "wrong" on was how lasting the drop in my blog was. I made the assumption that it was because Google was "punishing" the blog for too many poor quality backlinks created too quickly.

    Now, I'm thinking that it is a temporary change (since there was a change in my blog) as Google figures out where my blog "should" be.

    So please stop correcting me. Actually, please read the entire thread before trying to "educate" me.

    I've already learned the lesson. Thanks anyway though.

    KateD

    P.S. My niche blog is now at position #617
    • [3] replies
    • I've done some manual backlinking of one of my sites (mostly profile links, some others) and noticed rank drops like Kate mentions. Usually the ranks drop in increments of approximately 30. So I started cross referencing my linking activities with my ranking changes in a log.

      I did some linking in early January, about 20 sites. On January 4, a few days after placing links, my ranking sank by 30 positions on the three keywords I was using for anchor text. I didn't do anything else for the last month. After watching ranks for a month, behold, all the ranks came right back to where they were on February 4 for the same three keywords.

      I think this is more than a coincidence. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but IMO Google is on to it whenever I try it.

      I've been lurking in this forum for over a year trying to understand the best way to improve my site's ranking. It's over two year old domain and getting decent traffic.

      I've thought about using automated software, but Kate's story only reinforces what I've documented in my own experience.

      So, I'm open to any suggestions as to why this is happening. I've never used any automated tools, just all manual.
    • Hi Kate,

      Sorry, some of the comments did seem a bit aggressive for what you were saying.

      I have also experienced a site drop after an large influx of links. I guess it's just Google reevaluating. Eventually the site comes back up, although I have one site that continually makes it to the first page of big G and then drop out again. That site is over a year old.

      Not that I am an expert or anything, just personal experience. I find linkbuilding a bit of an enigma so I don't worry too much anymore and just go for it.

      Keep us updated on your rankings.
    • Kate,

      I know what you're going through. This happens to me all the time. I don't mean sometimes, I mean every time. Like clockwork, I can pay someone to build me 100 or 200 links by any method you can imagine and every single time my site drops several pages or drops out for several days. It has always come back though.

      Some of my sites are five and six years old, if that really does matter. If I just let them sit, they maintain their same rank in google. As soon as I send a lot of backlinks to them, boom, they drop like a rock. Maybe it's because I just leave the sites sit and then every now and then, drop a bunch of links on them. I don't know. People keep saying that if the site is old, you can send lots of links without a problem. I have found this not true, at least in my case.

      If 1,000 people tell me it's not true, I have my own personal experience to go by. I don't know why it happens, but it does. Others may not have it happen to them, so they are 100% certain that I am wrong, just like I believe them to be mistaken.

      How could it happen to someone all the time and others none of the time. I sure wish I knew

      That's what makes SEO so hard. It seems that so many people have different results with different methods. Is google and it's spiders really as smart or as dumb as some think? Who knows.


      Good luck with your website. I wish you the best of success.


      Brad
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • KateD did you build your with the exact same phrase? That's the best way to get your site penalized!

    you should be varying it up. If your automation tool can vary your anchor texts then do it and you'll see your rankings come back
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  • just my opinion but I don't think creating too many backlinks at once is the problem. I think possibly it's the way you set the links up, do they look like spam? This is a total guess but if you're using a really weird user name (one that looks spammy) for a profile link for example and you're doing it for a bunch of links at once maybe Google caught on to it.

    Maybe you linked to a few bad sites?

    Also depends on how your home page is set up, I know this from experience. Once I removed affiliate links from my home page my site shot up to the top. Of course there are other factors as well, age of site being an important one.

    Something else that has NOT worked for me and has caused 2 of my sites to drop from rankings is using automated feeds or duplicate content to my site, but I really think that depends on the niche you're in too.
    I would think diabetes has some pretty strong authority competitors out there.

    Let us know how it goes.
  • Hey Guys,

    I have decided to "experiment" further with this particular niche blog. Since it's flucuating wildly in it's Google's search engine ranking (it's up around 700 last time I checked)...

    ...and since many of you guys don't think that automated backlinking is a bad thing, I have decided to have the software generate all 3000 backlinks for me.

    The software took a few hours to process through all of the available sites, but when it was done, it stated that 3,103 backlinks were generated.

    Obviously most of these won't be noticed by Google immediately. But let's just see what happens.

    I'll keep you guys posted.

    KateD
    • [1] reply
    • Is that with the exact same phrase linking back to you? Or did you vary it, don't be suprised if you site never shows up again if you didnt' vary it
  • and you can back up this claim?
  • I sure wouldn't use them, that's for sure. To risky!
  • I'm not trying to throw random statements around, this is what I have experienced from over 5 years of SEO and link building work. I have had sites thrown out for months and I've been able to bring them back after in depth research. It's also logical. Google knows all the anchor texts pointing to your site right? If they are ALL the same this is not natural and does not look like humans linked to you.

    Ever heard of Google Bombing? research and read. It's very logical as to why a site will be thrown out for having nearly 100% of links with the exact same anchor, especially new sites.

    Take it or leave it I did warn you.

    I do not agree with the 2 many links 2 quickly theory however, I've never seen any site get thrown out because of this, espcially since I vary the anchor texts. On top of that if you build 3000 forum links at once, Google will not index them all in 1 day anyway, it could take months to get them all indexed and some won't be indexed ever.
  • Hey Guys...

    I did a little more ressearch on the automated backlinking tool. Basically what it does is register your URL at certain sites that allow it. Someone previously mentioned a "whois" type registry, which I believe that this software dows.

    So there are no anchor text/keyword phrases that I can use. All I am doing is leaving my active link (just your regular url) to the homepage of the niche blog.

    How strong (and for the matter, how permanent) these backlinks are is not known to me. Yesterday I went ahead and let the program run all the way through. I'll update you with how the ranking goes.

    But I just wanted to address that becuase of the multiple mentions of me promoting a keyword phrase too much.

    No keyword phrases. Just my domain name.

    Much Success,

    KateD

    P.S. In my case, the domain name for my niche blog is the exact keyword phrase that I am targeting.
    • [1] reply
    • Heads up, bookmarkwiz has a feature that does this on 100+ websites called QuickIndex.

      PM me for affiliate link of you need support. Otherwise just purchase of bookmarkwiz.com
      • [1] reply
  • Ok, nice one Kate! BTW, are you talking about the tool that auto send your site to;

    Code:
    www.cubestat.com/yourdomain.com
www.websiteoutlook.com/yourdomain.com
www.websitevaluecalculator.com/yourdomain.com
www.mywebsiteworth.com/yourdomain.com
    • [1] reply
    • You know, I'm not sure. Like I said, it's over 3,000 sites and I haven't personally checked to see if these sites are included.

      However, the format is similar (www.theirwebsite.com/www.mywebsite.com).

      KateD
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  • Computers are designed on the basis of human psychology. All the algorithms designed for the Google are based on the Humanic Nature. Using the tool for the submission would let you for the spamming. And it could really put your website the way for the spamming.
  • UPDATE: My niche blog continues the do the Google Dance...but this time upwards in the rankings.


    Yesterday my niche blog was ranked at nearly 700 in Google's search engine result for my main keyword phrases (and again, my domain name is my exact keyword phrase).

    Today it's ranked at #460. Quite a jump.

    Now before anyone "corrects" me, I know that checking rankings every day doesn't really mean much. Sites should be changing all the time as they change and Google's algorithms change. I totally understand that.

    That being said, it's still interesting to see how this blog will change in rank due to using the automated backlink tool (which after my initial 200 backlinks were created, I went back a couple of days ago and did the complete list of 3000+ backlinks).

    I hope some of you enjoy this thread and find value in it.

    KateD
  • I guess when it comes to Google, expect anything and be prepared to do the Lambada. Putting on those shoes and start doing it is really the only way to have a chance.

    Thanks Kate and hopefully the upward trend continues for the permanent.

    Also it would be interesting to see where your site is in Bing and Yahoo, to see if this is just normal search engine jumps. Seems to me (and in my opinion) that is takes time for a new site to settle, and by keep adding and improving it tells the engines that its just not a flash in the pan.
  • I too would suggest that this is observer error, I think it is the google dance. Give it time to correct itself.
  • If nothing else KateD post the software that you are using. DANG! I am getting tired of reading the same negative crap from people. This software is apparently dynamite and I want to research it further.

    BTW, I to worked a blog up from nothing to #25 and it dropped as well to 900 something but it did return and leveled off at #12. So hang in there.
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  • Me too sorry for your loss and thanks for sharing your experience with us..I was thinking of using something like that last month...Now I will never think of using such tools. And lets hope for the best..may be you can regain your blogs position back..
    • [1] reply
    • Hey Guys...


      I'm not telling people NOT to use automated backlinking tools. I'm just sharing my personal experince with using one and how it has temporarily affected my blog's ranking.

      I was ranked at #11. Today I'm ranked at.......drumroll please.....#461.


      Which, believe me, is a happy surprise. When I checked yesterday, my blog was NOT EVEN IN THE TOP 1000 RESULTS!


      So the dance continues........


      KateD
      • [1] reply
  • Links from automated tools is harmful to a website's ranking. SERP will decrease gradually. Google is not a fool, it will come to know the ways that how we are making links. Always follow manual link-building.
    • [1] reply

    • Hi..

      I hear what you are saying. But here's something to consider:

      Backlinks are not noticed by Google immediately after they are created. So if I create 1000 active links back to my blog today, not all of them will be seen by Google right away.

      They won't see 1000 links being created at once. Through their bots crawling around the web, they'll find handfuls of them each day.

      My blog is a perfect example. Although I "created" 3000+ backlinks, only a handful of them have been seen by Google so far.

      KateD
  • KateD have you been adding content to your site daily since it has dropped from #11?
    • [2] replies
    • Yusof . Great question. Content content can be overlooked when running a link building campaign but I recently moved a page form the 80s to the top ten doing nothing more than adding content (part of a successful test on a new domain).
    • No. I haven't added any new content since then.

      KateD


      P.S. I just checked my blog's ranking. It's at #641 as of 2 minutes ago.
  • Hi Kate--
    I'm a bit late to this party, but

    (1) I have little doubt that this is just the effect of google absorbing your links. I have had drastic google jumps before, and *every single time* my site comes back stronger than before.

    (2) the worst thing you can do is stop backlinking when your site jumps back in the SERPs. People take their foot off the pedal which is wrong, IMHO.

    (3) if it was this easy to "ding" a site in Google., I would simply do this to all of my competitors and I would be #1 in Google overnight.


    Tom

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  • the links is considered 'spam links' or 'slinks'

    example : if you join the comment baclinks, you will see that majority is spamming there ... and google will surely take on that fast
    • [1] reply
    • Um, no. Google won't "penalize" you for the links or anything of that sort. this place is turning into digital point.
  • Dear lord KateD, look what you did! You have a knack for drawing out the crazies and idiots.

    My idiotic 2 cents is this: Maybe you've diluted your rankings by having so many links without anchor text? I have no proof or divine knowledge to back this up, just a theory.
    • [1] reply
    • Whats the theory? How does non anchor text links dilute your anchor text links?
      • [2] replies



  • You guys are not going to believe this. I was just checking the stats of my small (but growing) portfolio of niche blogs when I noticed that I had gotten some traffic to my diabetes niche blog.

    Now, ever since I started this thread, this blog had been doing the "Google dance" between the 400s and 600s (if it was even listed at all).

    The traffic that it got totally surprised me and so I checked it's ranking. Guess where my blog's at?





    Will it maintain this ranking? Who knows. I'll keep you guys posted.

    Much Success,

    KateD
    • [2] replies
    • So to summarize:
      • On 2/4/2010 your blog was ranked at #11 and you used
      • Immediately thereafter your blog ranking dropped drastically. Presumably any organic traffic from Google for your keyword also plummeted.
      • On 2/25/2010 your blog ranked at #12.
      And the lesson to be learned from this is .... ???
      • [1] reply
    • Great to hear Kate....

      But one question that leaves me wondering... You went ahead and did the 3,000+ submission but yet you still ended up at about the same position you started... :confused::confused:

      I am all up for testing, I love to test stuff .. Mind sharing with me what software it was that you used ?? Kind of surprised it did not increase your ranking unless you are targeting a very competitive keyword.

      You can PM me the info if you wish not to post it ...

      James

  • dang, I will never use any sort of tool like that. Anything worth doing is going to take some effort
  • I have seen this argument a lot. Whether automatic backlinking is harmful or not.

    But one very important point is that this will enable people to do reverrse optimisation. A tool which can harm a site can come to a lot of great uses too. I mean if I know that it harms the position, I would be highly enticed to do the same linkbuilding for some of my competitors, making them rank lower.

    However, this is not possible. I also think your site is going though a Google dance. You should wait a few more days to record the effects.

    Additionally, I also should add that links created by automatic tools (particularly those which create thousands of links) usually fail to get indexed fast (most of them), and are not likely to provide you a fast result (both positive or negative).

    Lastly, there a lot of good tools in the market, and the general rule of thumb is to subscribe to those which can create less in amount, but high in quality. Most of the best tools involve some manual works to do at some part of the process (as most of the good sites require captcha at least), and you should look for those.
    • [1] reply
    • Maybe it would be good to read the entire thread before posting ...

      And no links created by auto means do not get indexed slower, this is false as the search engines have no idea how links was built...

      James

  • Hi - Can I ask a question on this thread please from a different angle. I just happened to look at my site in the search engine box like so site:my domain name, and three of the pages have got this after my domain name m
    • [1] reply
    • Ioncube is a php encryption program. Most of the time it is used to encrypt and protect proprietary code. In this case, it looks like it's being used to mask a redirect.

      In short, it looks like you've been hacked. I'm just guessing, but it's likely the hacker is using your site to send out porn spam.

      Contact your hosting company immediately, if not sooner.
      • [1] reply
  • This is a great thread.... even with some of the negativity.
  • I haven't tried the auto-backlinking tools, but almost did and from reading this glad i didnt. but i while back I used an SEO company to do some major link building on a site of mine - it got down from the top 20 to the top 200 and stayed their for about two weeks, then it can back to number 9 and has stayed their since.

    With Google et all you need patience (alot of it) and some luck! hope your rankings return ASAP
  • Maybe sometime It's just google dance. Have You check again recently? Sorry I guess It's quite old thread.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi...

      Yes, I do believe that it was just the Google dance.

      However, my niche blog NEVER got back to its original position of #11. It did get to position #12 for a couple of days, but then moved on from there.



      I haven't touched the blog at all. But again, it NEVER got back to its original spot.

      KateD
      • [1] reply
  • The secret is mixing automation tools so that you can decrease your footprint in google's eyes. Backlink diversity is crucial.
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    • [1] reply

    • We wont make the mistake of letting a scammer off scott-free. :confused:



  • All you have to do is point them to an authority site with backlinks and it won't construct any dissimilarity to your own site at all... in fact it will help it rank higher and higher!
  • Of course there are dangers in using automated backlinking tools. However, the results you get depend on the way you build those backlinks. I like to use ordinary blogger blogs and web 2.0 for the backlinking software. I then link those ones to my main site. That way, my footprints are hidden from the search engines.
    • [1] reply
    • Newbie point of view here but just looking at this logically; if an automated and relatively cheap process can quickly knock a site off page #1, why isn't this common practice for eliminating competitors?

      Forget about the ethics, this is business.

      It's not something I'd be comfortable doing but I find I had to believe that big G's evolving algorithm could be so easily tricked into penalizing a given site based upon a surge in low quality links.
      If this were true, then surely it would be more effective (in cost & results) if competitors concentrated on 'taking each other out' rather than trying to out rank each other?
  • it happened to me also ... site disappear ... i thought its sandboxed ... then later after few days it came back ... but ranked BADLY
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    I just did a test with a 1 month old domain that has a 1000 pages (thin affiliate site), blasted it with 100.000 comments, 100.000 xrumer links, 1000 AMR articles (2000 links), 1000 bookmarks, 1000 rss feeds, 1000 pings/meta-index files. All spreaded over 1000 pages. Site is completely de-indexed now
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    What does work for one page / keyphrase:

    - High PR links
    - Anchor diversity
    - Web2.0 links to keep up with a good ratio of low vs high PR links
    • [1] reply
    • While this is an old thread, I found it very useful... I am taking away how important it is to have a diverse source of backlinks. And how to link instead to a Web 2.0 site that has content linking to my main site.

      Not clear if the automatically generated backlinks were sent to too many random sites, in unrelated niches? Not mentioned (until just now) was very much about CONTENT being posted, and continued to be posted.
  • Things are becoming more and more obvious to google, and Panda is catching these. Its not easy to teach an inherantly dumb machine to do what a human can do with intuition. Anyways, it can now spot poor content, unnatural links (not just quantity wise), etc. You have to be ahead of the game now, not by trying to mass produce links by the thousands, but slowly adding contextual links within high quality content where you can. Slow and steady wins the race!
    • [2] replies
    • Can I ask what you are all using to check the movements of your rankings?
      Is Market Samurai the best for this??

    • Where is the proof of that... You people make all kinds of statements but never show any proof... i know for a fact that your wrong... because i have sites with content i have written myself (and as you can see English is not my first language) and is heavily backlinked with AMR and sicksubmitter, and is survived the whole zoo of Google updates...

      That is way i say in my other post that people need to do their own testing, don't take my results s truth but certainly don't take anything Matt Cutts says as truth.

      If you're serious about SEO, you need to do your testing yourself...
  • Rank Tracker is good.
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  • well if you just put in the domain name and that's it of course google wont like that,

    - if you did this manually you would get exactly the same results (and would take you longer)



  • I am sorry for your lost, but i have the feeling that there is more than that your telling us, if it was that easy to deindex websites with a view (you say 200) automated links, you would have seen people using it on their competition...

    You people (and you know who you are ) really feel that Google is some-kind of God that can see which links are automated and which not, like Google is looking over your shoulder.... but that isn't so.

    And really 3K of backlinks doesn't make your site de-rank, like i sad people would use it on their competition and Google knows that...

    But Matt Cutts says something and a lot of you people belief everything he says... he is the Goebels of Google, his job is to misinform you... to spread the Google propaganda and make you scared of getting backlinks....

    Do you own test instead of listing to people as Matt Cutts or people like me on message boards, get 10 domains and blast the shit out of it and see what the results are... then you have real knowledge and not the crap Matt and Google is feeding you
  • You should be varying it up. If your automation tool can vary your anchor texts then do it and you'll see your rankings come back
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