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I've heard of #1 before. Never tried it myself, I suspect #2 is the culprit.

Thank you, i will not use this. Though i, like  many are left wondering what ways it can be done. David, i'll shoot you a PM.

Hello there,

I recently spoke to a contractor that offered me the following package, and i have to ask, in this post-penguin world, does it make sense to pursue this kind of linking? Or will it be considered spam. They said it's a manual submission process and they will 'do their best' to ensure that it's under a related category, but can't promise anything in regards to that.

What should i be requesting in this post-penguin world? How do i get quality backlinks that won't harm me given the current environment? Any help is greatly appreciated, here is the package info:

1. 900 links submissions = 450 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links - The links are built by manually publishing 5 Original Articles (500 words each) on 125 different article sites (each published article will have 2 back-links to your site). We can use up to 10 keywords and 10 different URLs of your site to build the links.70% of our Article Sites have PR 2 to 6, all with different C classes IPs.

2. 300 links submissions = 150 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links – The links are built by manually publishing 4 Reviews for your site from 4 different accounts (we can use up to 4 URLs of your site to link back) on 150 Social Bookmarking sites, 90% of the sites have PR 2 to 8, all with different C classes IPs.

3. 480 links submissions = 240 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links – The links are built by manually publishing 3 Original Press Releases on 35 Press Release sites(each published press release will have 2 back-links to your site). We can use up to 6 keywords and 6 different URLs of your site to build the links. All our Press Release Sites have PR 2 to 7 all with different C classes IPs.

4. 220 links submissions = 110 Guaranteed One Way blog links – These links are built by publishing 3 Original Blog Article (300 words each) with 2 back links to your site on 20 different free blog sites. These free blog sites are our sites (new sites with PR 0) which we are promoting to get the highest PR for them and your blog back links too.

Russ, thank you for that insight. Well now the next question is, should i rely on Places or Organic? Are there any stats out there on whether more people click on places links vs. organic?

Or am i worrying about nothing? Which is completely possible.

So according to my SEOMOZ dashboard, I'm ranking between #3-4 for one of my keywords.

My keyword is 'Boston Wedding Photographer'. My site is http://www.symbolphoto.com

I show up in google places, true. But i was wanting to rank organically. Am i right in the assumption that Google Places and Google Organic are not the same thing? SEOMOZ claims 3,4th but not organically(Assuming they aren't the same thing)

I get pretty good traffic right now being in Places, but i can't help but feel that organically ranking would bring more traffic.

Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated. TIA!

-Brendan

I don't buy the - "it gives competitors what you are trying to rank for"  arguement. Hell, all you have to do is go to a page title or look around a bit on some text and it should be glaringly obviously what they are trying to rank for.

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So i've identified some blogs which have a fairly high ranking and lots of traffic. They also allow anchor text in the name field.

Does it make sense for me to comment on these blogs, or does google treat these with less authority that true page links?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

TIA

I would love to find and SEO expert, a true expert, not a self proclaimed expert. And one that was willing to point me in the right direction to do the work myself and charge a consulting fee. Do these exist? I think they should implement that here on this site somewhere to find reviewed vendors for this type of work.

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Nope, if they did, i'd be in big trouble.

I think everyone gets these if you are ranking well. When i was on the first page for my terms i'd get all kinds. Even worse, they'd fill out my contact form posing as clients then in the body they'd describe some service they were offering, very annoying.

Well i think you need to help them understand the difference between the traditional realm of local people competing with them and possibly their storefront and with the new online search realm of people finding them via searches.

If they are a traditional business where people find them via their physical storefront and through other traditional means, then that will prove more valuable to them.

However, i'm assuming they hired you because business is down. If that's the case, you just need to make the case for using non-traditional methods including online search which will boost their sales. In which case, you really need to define what their keywords are before you find their search competition.

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I think everyone gets these if you are ranking well. When i was on the first page for my terms i'd get all kinds. Even worse, they'd fill out my contact form posing as clients then in the body they'd describe some service they were offering, very annoying.

I don't buy the - "it gives competitors what you are trying to rank for"  arguement. Hell, all you have to do is go to a page title or look around a bit on some text and it should be glaringly obviously what they are trying to rank for.

.02

I would love to find and SEO expert, a true expert, not a self proclaimed expert. And one that was willing to point me in the right direction to do the work myself and charge a consulting fee. Do these exist? I think they should implement that here on this site somewhere to find reviewed vendors for this type of work.

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