SEO

A Word About Link Farms

July 10, 2008 By: Justin | Leave a Comment

tinfoilDuring my time interacting with those in the MMO niche, I’ve been know to directly disagree with advice and wisdom provided by other bloggers, even if they’re big named bloggers (like Vic). And this has saved my as several times from being caught in some crappy situations. I want to briefly discuss the concept of link farms, which seems to be an accepted practice in some circles.

I really enjoy SEO, so I spend a lot of my time playing around and looking at stats. And one thing I’ve noticed is an increasing trend toward the use of blog farms.

My advice, stop blatantly using link farms. Google is going to slap you.

There seems to be the idea that you must have a link farm to be successful. A link farm is not a replacement for traditional link building or legit link acquisition. Yes, successful sites use link farms. But those who get away with it do three things. 1) put effort into hiding them 2) have plenty of legit links to mask them 3) add them over time. Do not hook your brand new domain up to 8 of your link farm sites right out of the gate and allow them to be the only links that site has!

I recently made a post about footprints. I mentioned locating someone’s link farm. Well, last night I found another. If I can find your network, so can another SEO, and Google will eventually. I’m not reporting or snitching to Google on anyone, but I’m trying to keep people from getting their whole network slapped.

Posts I suggest reading:

Link Laundering: If you’re going to run a link farm, be smart about it. Layer it and create segments. Don’t direct link 8 of your sites in.

Footprint: Learn about footprints and how they can be used to track down your network. Use this information to hide yours.

I’m predicting a pretty little slap coming in a few months. Googles actions against BMD/Scuttle links and BANS (specifically .info) should be enough of an indicator that big G keeps an eye on the MMO niche

Filed Under Link Building, SEO, Sneaky

MMO Friends

By: Justin | 2 Comments

During my months being active in the MMO community, I’ve met and gotten to know several bloggers. I’ve learn about several other great bloggers, even if I don’t communicate with them directly. This week Griz made a post about the need for us to all support each other. There is a solid core group of 10 to 20 bloggers who know their stuff. We should work together to help each other out. I don’t mean a link scheme, but simply showing each other more link love.

Here are the two posts Griz made about it:

Basically, I’m putting together a list of “friends” that includes everyone in our “group”.  I think it would be a great resource not only for us, but for our readers as well. Its a list of trusted bloggers who we know, who deserve exposure for their content.

This is NOT for link or serps manipulation. Everyone on the list is already friends and knows each other. What I suggest is this. When you write a post, consider coming to the list and finding a related post on one of the sites and cite it in your post. This does three things. It provides your readers extra information from a trusted source. It helps out your friend by increasing their sites exposure, giving them traffic, and providing them with a quality link. Lastly, it will improve your relationship with other bloggers. Griz, Court, and Vic have received great success from their relationship. There is no reason 3 other bloggers on this list cannot form a similar relationship. We can all work together to promote out sites. Not to manipulate rankings, but to increase the exposure of our form of MMO, which is to debunk all the BS and seriously help people. Court, Griz, and Vic have their plates full, but there are several of us are qualified enough to help teach and help other bloggers enter the world of blogging, mmo,and im.

I don’t want to take credit for this, this is Griz’s thing, but I wanted to help build the list.

I’m going to name off some of the major players and link to their site I will link to their recent posts and ping everyone to come to this list. I want everyone to look over the list and leave a comment on any corrections or additions that need to be made to the list. Let me know who is missing and leave a link to their blog. Once everyone has had a chance to add to the list, I’ll send it on to Griz for him to post on his site.

You’ll be able to access the list to find several respectable and trustworthy bloggers. Not only is this a good resource for us as bloggers, but also a good resource to share with anyone new to MMO. If a person says, “how do I make money online”… simply point them at the list.

Make Money Online Friends

How to Make Money Online for Beginners
Last Post: http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/2008/07/word-of-clarification.html

Make Money Online
http://bloggerunleashed.com/tools/get-bookmarkingdemon-before-the-upgrade/

Internet Marketing
http://courtneytuttle.com/2008/07/09/on-the-perils-of-emailing-popular-bloggers/

Local Niche Blogging
http://forserious.info/localnicheblogging/introducing-for-serious-info/

Make Money Blogging
http://bloggingzombie.com/blogging/new-make-money-blogging-theme/

Money Saving Reviews
http://optempo.com/2008/06/29/domain-buying-for-fun-and-profit/

The Honest Way
http://www.thehonestway.com/blog/make-money/how-can-i-make-money-online/

The Rookie Blogger
http://therookieblogger.com/loans-lend-a-hand-in-getting-out-of-debt/

Freelance Writing
http://www.thewritersmanifesto.com/blog/2008/07/09/write-distraction-free-with-q10/

Niche Marketing
http://www.blogexplosion.net/2008/06/13/how-to-find-your-bans-niche/

Life in the Internet
http://www.jtrigsby.com/2008/06/fathers-view-of-fathers-day.html

Money, Tech, Blogging
http://www.mcgrath.ca/2008/07/08/10-off-on-powerdesk-pro-7-auctionsitewriter-110b2-update-see-free-movies-legally-update/

SEO
http://seozombie.com/mmo-friends

And before someone jumps in about reciprocal linking being useless, check out my post: Link Exhanges That Work

I’m not talking about link manipulation or sitewide links. I’m talking about deeplinking to each others posts, but only when it is relevant and applies to your topic. If someone on this list has a useful post on a subject, consider linking out to their post. This is about providing our readers with useful links to alternate resources, but applying these links as contextual keyword anchor links to help out your friend. Everyone benefits. Your readers, your blog, and the person you link to. Even Google benefits because your provide them with a link to another quality post on the same topic.

If someone needs to be added to this list, drop a comment. I’ll put together a final list.

Filed Under Bloggers, Online Success, SEO

Page One Galore

July 7, 2008 By: Justin | 2 Comments

Some time in the last 24 hours my rankings rocketed up across the board for all the keywords I am working. I’ve hit page one for every one of my targeted keywords. I made a post back in May about how I planned to dominate all Nashville SEO related keywords.

So here are all my rankings:

Nashville SEO

Rank 5 for Nashville SEO

Nashville Web SEO

Rank 1 for Nashville Web SEO

Internet Marketing Nashville

Rank 4 for Internet Marketing Nashville

Online Marketing Nashville

Rank 5 for Online Marketing Nashville

These rankings are sure to bounce around some before they solidify, so if I’m on page 10 tomorrow, I won’t be surprised. This is a good indicator that my SEO and link building is going well. I was really surprised by this because I didn’t do much SEO work the month of June. This is the result of the links I got in May aging and my domain aging. After I solidify my Nashville SEO rankings, I’ll work toward more general keywords that aren’t Geotargeted.

Nashville SEO on Technorati

Filed Under Nashville, Online Success

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