Welcome to the Q&A Forum

man, I know I am opening the flood gates for some serious debates, so let's just not and say we did. All I want is for some people to help me out.

My site is www.ontracparts.com we sell heavy equipment parts.

So we were steadily increasing in traffic and rank, before penguin. I had ordered a few backlinks from a semi spammy source (meaning that they used spun content)

Like I said our rank was increasing pre-penguin, and I stopped ordering. We seemed to hold our postitions after I stopped ordering (for about 2 weeks everything remained the same)

So, I ordered more of them. Then penguin dropped and our rankings and traffic remained the same. for a little while that is. Soon the rankings started to drop.

Probably a direct result of those links right?? Well here is the weird thing.. Traffic is slowly increasing again now that I ordered more links.

Rankings drop, but traffic increases? what the heck?

what should i be doing now, post-penguin... just writing and publishing content on the site everyday??

How do I go about getting links if I can't just buy them anymore??

I should also mention that there is practically ZERO guest blogging opportunities.. I say that because there is nobody blogging about heavy equipment right now. Not that I could find anyway.

It did actually. My pages that had the word specifications on them were getting a lot of niche specific traffic for

"(make / model) specifications"

even though we sell

"(make / model) parts."

That little traffic cloud is dwindling, I have considered doing something to at least help those searchers find what they need, since they are likely having an issue finding it.

Well, regardless, it certainly seems like some sort of brand introduction opportunity could be in order, considering we sell parts for those (make / model)s

EGOL you hit the nail on the head there. Those numbers were affecting my site average pretty significantly.

The "specifications" related traffic has dropped -24.7.% average over the last 2 months

While "part(s)" related keywords risen +19.6% over that same two months.

Looks like Google might be paying even more attention to time on site than I thought after all... o_0...  ?

Hey there Frank. Well, that would depend on what you are registering them for. Regardless of how many or how old they are.

Do you mean here on SEOmoz?

Well in the first case with my competitor that 301'd to a new site, absolutely, that was almost a year ago, and they are still sittin' just fine.

It does sound like a good buy, since your site is less powerful, but then again, it would depend on the link profile of the sites in question.

If you have a really clean profile, and they have a messy one, you might lose some value of having your site completely "virgin" if you will, to any spam.

Also, even though they have a higher DA, do they actually rank higher than you for any phrases?

If so, how many, and how valueable are they?

I have not ever personally used it, but honestly, I would say it is probably not the best idea.

I think it would detract from your other marketing messages, which would cost you more than you gain.

That is IF anyone uses it to link to you anyways. In all of my years, the only way I have seen people copy and paste things from sites is embeddable widgets, or cool type things.

In tech industry (which you said you aren't in, lol me either..), then it MAY would be worth considering.

I would recommend going a route like Search Engine Land does, and offer a lot of social engagement instead (which these days are becoming valued a lot like links)

If you were still going to do it, then I would recommend doing it SUPER non-intrusively  as in, don't come across as begging, or forcing them too.

Maybe even just add it in the mix of "share" options, in a box similar to Search engine land's.

Also, if you really want them to do it, then you will probably have to incentivize it, but hey, people will do anything for cash these days.

Including copy and publish a link.

XrMx9

She was right with all her suggestions, but the community can help you a lot here. You should tell us a few things though..

Like

A) what keyword are you trying to rank for

B) if you use Google Analytics (if so, then you should check it and tell people the date range that it seems your traffic dropped)

C) what you have paid / done to increase your rank, and when you did those things

Ahhhh, I see, well there are a lot of reasons to do them all separately, but if you want to do them all in one campaign, then they have to be on the same domain.

You said register though, so I just wanna' make sure my new friend isn't cracking into his wallet too fast, because you only have to register and pay once.

They have a 30 day free trial for pro (which comes with 5 campaigns, and 300 keywords), pro plus (with 1,000 keywords, 12 campaigns), and pro elite ( 3,500 keywords, 30 campaigns)

I'm guessing that they are all separate domains, so in that case you would set up 3 new campaigns.

1. Go to -> http://pro.seomoz.org/campaigns

to start your first campaign

Then honestly, with SEOmoz. Bam. My job her is done, ahaha. They will walk ya through the rest, and 4 steps, and you will be done in no time!

I'll be around for about an hour if you need anymore help.

So basically, I have about 500 GB of movies on my computer and I don't want to buy an external hardrive.

1. I don't want to spend the money

2. A website I could access anytime, and anywhere, without having to carry my external with me everywhere I go.

Thanks in advance for any help/ references.