Sites with spammy backlinks

If only this were true.

The reality is Google defines popularity in many ways, two of which are IP spread and anchor text diversity. These two factors are extremely difficult to create using so called high quality links.

With links created from software or using some sort of aggressive service, it's easy to boost your IP spread which enhances your popularity image to Google's algorithm.

I observe the undeniable reality that Google is on a de-indexing rampage, at the moment, against such sites and processes. (I suspect that that's going to become increasingly common.) A quick look through the threads started off here - and elsewhere - on related subjects over the last 2/3 weeks will satisfy anyone of that, I think?

And they do openly promise "more of the same".

This ^^^ exactly.

Exactly so.

This is exactly what I find, reliably and consistently, in niche after niche and with keyword after keyword.

This is significant to me in both niche selection and keyword selection. Part of my income depends on it, after all: I analyze it carefully. It quickly and easily determines (among other things) the major keyword for all the articles I write. (I get only 20% of my traffic from search engines, and of course that's not nearly such good quality traffic as my main traffic from my articles themselves, but it's still not something I'm going to ignore altogether).

Sites that have huge numbers of trashy, non-context-relevant backlinks are typically trivially easy to beat, for SEO. Even someone like me, who doesn't depend on Google for my business's primary traffic at all, can do that really easily. These sites are typically those of "other marketers" who have done their "off-page SEO" by buying crap from Fiverr and similar places, comprising "links created from software or using some sort of aggressive service". In two weeks you can overtake the whole lot of them. The sites you need to worry about are the ones who have (usually) far, far smaller numbers of highly relevant backlinks from quality sites. That kind of SEO takes longer.

Quantity alone leads nowhere.

Quality can be very hard to beat, sometimes.

Anyone who wants to know more can see for themselves the regularity with which, in Google's SERP's, lower-PR pages with far fewer (but relevant!) backlinks are beating higher-PR pages with huge numbers of spammy backlinks. There's no big secret about this, at all.

That won't be changing any time soon (according to Matt Cutts).

"Fixed that for you".

Don't waste your time with .edu and .gov links - they're just as useless as the other links. They don't get special treatment. Find GOOD links from useful sites to your visitors and stop trying to trick Google by going for links you think they like better - in most cases they do not. Focus on links from high traffic sites rather than chasing random links from unrelated sites.

Have you done a search for "write For Us" Keyword ? I can pick up 4 or 5 good guest posts a week doing that

Perhaps you should consider making sure you have a good sales process and backend and then paying for some ezine advertising and ppc.

There are MANY ways and places to get backlinks depending on your niche.

Press releases, videos, document sharing sites, online communities, etc. etc.

If you're not finding them - it's not because they're not there.

Not at all; it was worth it just for the amusement value of seeing someone recommending "links created from software or using some sort of aggressive service" (hope all my competitors try that).

Since the Penguin update, you mean, of course?

Not much use knowing that people had done that safely before, it, I think? (Clearly they had). But on the other hand, if it were since the Penguin update, it would be a little early to judge the outcome, wouldn't it, Brendan? Is 20-ish backlinks really of such great value to anyone that it would be worth taking a chance on it? I find it pretty hard to imagine, myself ...