Let's talk about link networks
-
With the recent deindexing of blog/link networks, I was hoping to get the Q&A's take on what defines a link network. Are all link building services using link networks?
Would you consider something like:
To use link networks? They generate links for you, but most of the time they will do it with "decent" content, on sites like Wordpress, Blogger, Squidoo and other similar sites. I don't think that most of their link sources are owned internally, but I could be wrong. Some of them use profile links to send links to their articles, which is garbage.
Would you suggest staying away from services like this all together? I'd say that 90% of the services offered on submitedge might be junk, but a few look useful. I've seen a few people at my company have success with them, but fully understand that it could be short term, and potentially inevitable that those links get deindexed.
I'd like to potentially find a good link building service that could bridge the gaps between when I have time to write content and do link building, as I know the engines like to see a steady stream of both.
Any thoughts? Any other services you guys have used with some success? I am not looking for sites like fiverr or anything quick/cheap. I'd be willing to spend the appropriate money occasionally when I think I could use a few extra links, but don't think I need a regular link builder (as that's something I like to do). I also don't want to go the route of outright buying links from other websites.
Cheers,
Vinnie
-
I can't get into specifics with the URLs, but one of my coworkers did 2 of the niche plus packages (ran around $300) and had good results. He jumped from 13th to 7th and I think 12th to 5th for phrases that averaged around 3500 monthly searches at $5-6/click. That was the only change he made during the 6 weeks he ordered the package, and has sustained the rankings for 5+ months with minimal changes ever since.
Another person had a site go from 25 to 15 for a phrase that gets 9000 searches at $5.40 a click.
Granted these are only three cases and I can't show you the on page or strength of the other links they have had, or even the competitors. But I think it shows that it could help in some cases.
-
Great insight! I agree about your free lunch metaphor. That's why I am looking for a company/builder that I might have to pay a little extra, but will stay out of the bad neighborhoods and avoid using the junk link networks.
Guest blogging is one of my favorite link building methods, but at the end of the day I am looking for some diversity. I realize that some of these link build services won't necessarily provide that, but they can get me a wider range of linking root domains.
Of course with services like these, I am usually ultra conservative with the anchor text as well. I will almost always do brand name or full URL for 80% of the anchors from these networks, so it looks pretty organic. For the other 20% I will scatter in some phrases I want to rank for, and occasionally even get some "click here" anchor texts.
I will shoot you a PM about some link builders.
Cheers,
Vinnie
-
Vinnie-
Great questions and good topic......"There is no such thing as a free lunch."
Not all linkbuilders use "link networks".
I get calls all the time from companies claiming to have a link network that cant be detected by Google. And we try to get creative for our clients and are always willing to test the waters with interesting stuff to see what works and what doesn't work....most of them say the same thing....they tell you they will or have purchased domains with existing pagerank and history and strong link building foundations; that they are hosting their various domains on different class c IP addresses and of course that they continue to invest oin their networks by creating unique content with links.
We have tried a bunch of them, on a small scale and have generated some solid results. We used some companies that didnt advertise and were referred to us. They have been effective but they have been dramatically "hammered" by google over the last month.
We used Buildmyrank which was one of the more transparent solutions. They have been blown up by Google. read this release from their site.....
http://www.buildmyrank.com/news/its-been-a-great-run
We have been testing hoth.com. Has provided some value for one of our clients. Been an issue for another....
The list goes on and on.......we have had to eliminate all of these links and in some instances have been forced to ask forgiveness from Google. Bottom line is its like driving drunk.....you might get away with it a few times but when you get caught, it isnt going to be FUN. Long term it isn't a SOLID strategy.
As is the case with any organization that has to scale as their business gets bigger (whether you sell lingerie or SEO services), there are times where it makes sense to outsource or work with vendors that can help you. In the process you get to benchmark how well your link building efforts are performing/versus the cost to generate them. We have found several people off shore that have done a decent job in link building that help us fill in the holes. We have been using a guest blogging service that has been effective www.guestbloggenius.com. We have even found some small "one man shop" SEO firms that need the work.....would be happy to help you make the connections.
Hope this helps. Make sure if it has, that you give me the thumbs up. Feel free to PM me and I will send you some link builders we have used.
-
if you do use one of the services mentioned, be sure to come back and let us know the impact!
-
I was looking more at their higher end packages. I've heard good things about their link niche plus package (or whatever they have renamed it). I agree some of their article stuff looks like rubbish, and a lot of their really basic SEO stuff looks bad. Anything related to blogs I'd rather try and arrange myself via guest blogging.
I actually did a Hoth package last year when I met the guys at a convention. It gave us a boost for a month or two, but then we dropped. I wouldn't wanna order 5 Hoth packages a year, but I think when the peak season hits for my industries I will consider doing some sort of extra push. It would look organic to get more links during that time as well, since there is more buzz/traffic at that time than any other.
-
I've used submit edge.com in the past, in particular one of their article submission tpe services, I forget which exactly. I used the service to help promote some PA and traffic to a guest blog post I had done.
I wasn't exactly impressed with the result. Most of the links came from completely unrelated niches, blog comments, spammy twitter accounts and really bad directories. I haven't been near a service like it since. Though my blog post did eventually gain some PA and my website got some traffic from the entry. Would it have got traffic and authority without the submit edge service? probably.
I won't be using the service again.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do the external links at footer menu take away PR or Linkjuice?
Hi all, We have some external links on our footer menu. I'm just trying to figure out whether these take away pagerank. What if they are follow or nofollow? How fair to have DMCA badge with link at footer? Will this hurts? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
I'm Pulling Hairs! - Duplicate Content Issue on 3 Sites
Hi, I'm an SEO intern trying to solve a duplicate content issue on three wine retailer sites. I have read up on the Moz Blog Posts and other helpful articles that were flooded with information on how to fix duplicate content. However, I have tried using canonical tags for duplicates and redirects for expiring pages on these sites and it hasn't fixed the duplicate content problem. My Moz report indicated that we have 1000s of duplicates content pages. I understand that it's a common problem among other e-commerce sites and the way we create landing pages and apply dynamic search results pages kind of conflicts with our SEO progress. Sometimes we'll create landing pages with the same URLs as an older landing page that expired. Unfortunately, I can't go around this problem since this is how customer marketing and recruitment manage their offers and landing pages. Would it be best to nofollow these expired pages or redirect them? Also I tried to use self-referencing canonical tags and canonical tags that point to the higher authority on search results pages and even though it worked for some pages on the site, it didn't work for a lot of the other search result pages. Is there something that we can do to these search result pages that will let google understand that these search results pages on our site are original pages? There are a lot of factors that I can't change and I'm kind of concerned that the three sites won't rank as well and also drive traffic that won't convert on the site. I understand that Google won't penalize your sites with duplicate content unless it's spammy. So If I can't fix these errors -- since the company I work conducts business where we won't ever run out of duplicate content -- Is it worth going on to other priorities in SEO like Keyword research, On/Off page optimization? Or should we really concentrate on fixing these technical issues before doing anything else? I'm curious to know what you think. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | drewstorys0 -
Links to category pages unnatural?
If people are linking to your site, it would seem natural that the vast majority of those links would point to the homepage, product page, or a article/content page. Let's say you have 100 links pointing to your site, and 40 of them are pointing to category pages. Would this seem unnatural? Does Google or other search engines have a way of determining this as a factor in ascertaining whether the links are natural or not? Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to the pages that are linked to on your site?
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
What's the best way to go about building/using interactive snippets?
I'm starting to see interactive snippets (I guess they're called islands) like the attached image in our SERPs, so I figured I would look into experimenting with them, but I'm not entirely clear how to proceed. I have only seen them in adwords, so is that the only way you can use them? Is there some way to set them up or some service you need to set them up organically? Lost, but intrigued, Ruben SW7ak4d.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Do links count in syndicated content?
If I write a press release that goes viral and is syndicated all over do each of those links to my site in the syndications of the press release count and pass page rank with Google? Or does Google only count the link in the original press release? I heard that Google counts all the links for a time then eventually counts only one link from the original content and discounting all the other links as duplicate content. Any truth to this? Thanks mozzers! Ron10
Algorithm Updates | | Ron100 -
Outsourcing of guest blog articles and usefulness of links from guest blogging
I'm not the greatest writer but want to do some guest blogging for links and traffic. Are there any businesses out there that write world class guest blog articles for subjects that match my business? Also, i've read that doing this for links is really moot because the blog posts get archived and become pagerank "unranked" thereby offering little link value after about a month or so. Once they get archived do they still get counted by google and does the anchor text and page rank still count? Thanks in advance mozzers! Ron
Algorithm Updates | | Ron100 -
So, useless link exchange pages still work?!
After 3 years out of SEO I thought things might have moved on, but apparently not. Bit of back link research and all the top sites in my niche have tons of reciprocal links to barely relevant sites. Do I really have to do this? I mean I thought this was so out of date, it's not much better than keyword stuffing. So, should I just forget my lofty principles asking myself 'is this of any value to my users?' and just take the medicine?
Algorithm Updates | | Cornwall0 -
Google indexing my website's Search Results pages. Should I block this?
After running the SEOmoz crawl test, i have a spreadsheet of 11,000 urls of which 6381 urls are search results pages from our website that have been indexed. I know I've read that /search should be blocked from the engines, but can't seem to find that information at this point. Does anyone have facts behind why they should be blocked? Or not blocked?
Algorithm Updates | | Jenny10