I need to clarify a few things from my last post. Unfortunately I was rushed and kind of threw it out there without taking the time to cover all the bases. One of my astute readers quickly brought up the John Chow Google Bomb episode of last year that saw Chow lose his serp rankings because he tried to manipulate the Make Money Online rankings by having thousands of people link to him in return for a link from him.
Here is the comment from AngryCat (Jez)
Hi Griz,
Not trying to get into an argument here, spoil your plans or chew up your comments page... but the crux of your scheme is this:
"if you write a post about "Making Money Online Selling Shoes" and link to me with a MMO keyword (any main or longtail will do) then I can send a legitimate keyword anchored link back to you"
G does not only stamp on paid links, but any artificial linking scheme aimed at rigging the SERP.
1) This is artificial... these sites would not link together without you masterminding the scheme.
2) You are going for the SERP, hence relevant content / anchored links.
No matter how you dress it up, thats what your doing... and that being the case... IMO... you would be better off using a mailing list than a very public blog post.
Best regards, Jez
Jez,
First of all everyone please check out the posts I have linked back to in my "What my readers think " section and see if anything strikes you as illegitimate. All the people I have linked to have "real" posts about subjects related to my niche and I have linked back because I feel the posts are useful to my readers. This is what linking is supposed to be used for.
I am trying to get everyone to start helping each other in a way that will do the most good. I don't want someone with a shoe blog to link to me hoping for a link back. But... if someone with a Shoe blog does link to me and the post is related to my niche and useful for my readers then I will gladly link back to it.
I have hundreds of links pointing to me from my reader's sites. All legit posts and they were kind enough to link to me. None of their posts are "Review" posts. Just regular posts on some aspect of making money online. All of you probably have links from other sites of the same nature related to your niches.
It has bothered me that I have not been able to do much in return for all the kindness I have received. Therefor I decided to include snippets of my readers posts on my blog with a link back for the rest. I have only done so with legit posts. I am not able to do this with those who have given me a blogroll link as they have no relevant content for which my readers would be interested in - ie. there is no snippet to use.
I really should have thought this out before slapping up the post.
My intent is quite simple.
1) Get people who are linking to other sites to start using keywords that will help the site they are linking to. This assumes that they are already going to link to another site in their post. This isn't a request for people to link to sites they wouldn't normally.
2) I should not have used the term "review". I hate reviews! I mean normal posts that people write for their readers. If you write a post about something and link to a relevant site then use the right keyword in the link.
3) Sites that receive links from others can decide how relevant that post is in relation to their readership and if they so choose they can link back in a snippet like I am doing on my blog. In my link back to them I have chosen to use keywords that will benefit them more than just using their name.
None of this is artificial. None of this is gaming Google. If Matt Cutts was to ask me to defend my links I would have no problem.
My mistake was to infer that everyone should start writing reviews of each others sites and send links. No reviews - just your normal everyday posts but when you link out use proper keywords and wouldn't it be nice to know that the other site is likely to send a link back if your post is relevant and useful. Last time I checked G likes useful and relevant links.
This is a legitimate method that we can use to help each other out. I should mention that unlike John Chow - I am not asking for people to link to me just for a link back. I am also not specifying a keyword - just asking them to use a relevant one. I have enough "Griz" links already...
In fact I am not looking for links at all apart from what I normally receive - I am trying to get everyone to start linking to each other instead. I would like to see all the other quality sites I regularly read and like obtain the credit they IMO deserve. The only reason most of you are having trouble in the serp's is because you aren't giving and getting the right links. You all give and get links but few have any useful keywords.
Is Google going to start penalizing us because we start using useful keywords in our links instead of just using people's names?
Jez, you are correct that I am masterminding this. I don't want to and wish I wasn't but for a year now I have tried to get across the importance of links - keyword relevant links and have learned that without a push most people don't act. I was hoping that people would take my lead and incorporate it into their own blogs.
I was hoping that I would see others doing the same thing on their blogs without having to ask them. This hasn't happened. So I'm asking.
I can only be so subtle
... but if I was a PR0 blog and needed a boost wouldn't it be nice if a guy like Griz would send me a link. (I get 10 emails a day asking) Hey wait a sec - he does link out to sites. Oh I see... he sends links to sites that have quality related content and look at that - they happened to link to him in the post. Well I wonder if I wrote a quality post on a relevant topic and linked to him maybe he would give me a link back as well...
... oh and look at this, Fiar has a humor blog related to mine and well he sends links back to quality posts as well... and Frank does too, and Elliot, and Terry, and Lissie, and holy shit everybody does this. Maybe I should get off my butt and write some relevant quality content and let these folks know I exist by linking to them and maybe even helping them out with a good keyword link in the process...
I hope that gets my message across a little better. If you send me a link from a crappy post - I won't link back. If your blog is in a bad neighborhood I won't link back. If you have a spam site I won't link back. If you write something that I feel my readers would find value in or just simply enjoy then I will certainly link back.
I have mentioned a number of authority bloggers that I would like to see join in. Most of them have sites like mine although many in different niches and if I was just starting out I would certainly write posts about them for my own readers benefit. Knowing that they will give me some luv back for my effort is a win win for everyone but I wouldn't write a post about MMO and then link to Fiar's humor blog and expect a link back. As always - be legit. Unless you can create a relevant post don't expect these folks to respond.
As for creating a list if I do then I will post it on the forum where it will remain private. I would rather not have too at all. I would like to start surfing all my usual haunts and see little snippets pop up on their own. If I go to OpTempo and I see a snippet from one of Frank's readers then I will know he's on board. This applies to everyone. There are several hundred of us - start your own reader appreciation section and call it what you want. (We do not want hundreds of sites with a duplicate section called "Reader Reviews" - find a name for it that is different)
If you need links then yes - start writing posts with links to the blogs that have some authority. This means most of you. There are quite a few authority sites in our little group - check my sidebar and notice the rest of the people I have mentioned in these last two posts. We cover quite a few niches.
I am not trying to manipulate G - I am trying to get everyone to take advantage of things they already do but get them to do it right or should I say effectively. Quality posts and links are fine with G - just get in the habit of reciprocating and use proper keywords!!
I could go on and on but will stop for now. I hope everyone has a better understanding of what I am trying to get you all to do. There are a lot of us swimming in this end of the pool and we have the ability to help each other out - so let us do just that. You can spend a lot of time chasing down crappy links or you can be smart and concentrate your efforts on getting good links. Up to you but I have just shown you all how you can do this legitimately.
Jez thanks for bringing this up so that we can do this right.
Cheers,
Griz
Posts
28 comments:
Very good explaination Griz. And I totally agree with you. We are just doing what we naturally do anyway but helping each other out along the way. Nothing wrong with that and I don't think anyone would disagree. Even the big G.
Great explanation Griz. My perception is that you're really not saying anything other than the age old "build your site by linking to others (Because if the content is good, you may get a link in return)" but with a key difference. USE GOOD ANCHOR TEXT when you do.
No scheme about it. It blogging 101.
I believe that the blogger in question was also penalized by AuctionAds for unethical practices. PPP bloggers and textlinkads publishers were also penalized. G also hit Squidoo with a penalty due to a spammer that created 400 nonsense lenses.
Unfortunately, I was effected by the PPP smack and the Squidoo penalty. That's why it's so important to not put all your eggs in one basket.
Love your idea of creating a network of bloggers to help each other. It's simialr to a blog carnival, without having to link to 27 sites..of which some may have less than stellar content.
:)
supermom_in_ny
*Catch you on StumbleUpon*
Trent and Fiar,
Yup... nothing new except that I'm hoping people will see the "Appreciation Links" and maybe do a little work to get them. Asking me for a link won't do it - give me a reason to give out a link and all is good - for both parties.
And in case anyone is wondering both Trent and Fiar are worth the effort to get links from!
Supermom,
If we are talking about Chow the silly bugger has been caught and slapped by just about every system online. He is the reason the social networks hate bloggers.
I wasn't aware of the Squidoo spammer but that would help explain Squidoo's less than stellar performance on G these days.
Linking should always be done slowly and legitimately - I would just like to see far more people help each other out. It may take a while but I plan on giving back to everyone that has helped me out and I hope others share this view.
Grizz,
I appreciate the mention in your last post. You definately make sense. I also can't agree more about realted links and anchor text. Although I have been a follower of your blog for some time I would never ask for a link until I knew what I was providing was quality.
As an example I also have a political blog that was doing fairly well. I thought about asking fiar for a link. However, my site is not where I want it to be and decided against it until I rebuild my PR and update more frequently.
the fact boils down to respect and common sense. People that have invested time reading your blog alone as well as some of the others you mention should have good idea what is needed to help eachother.
BTW.. not to kiss your arse anymore I really respect people that either admit they are wrong or admit they could have done something better. You accomplished this with this post. Take care.
Grizz, another great post, i cannot add something valuable to this, you said everything. People sometimes confuse what is ligite and what is not, unfortunally!
Btw, squidoo it's not performing bad, my most high success is with squidoo, just as an example, i've one lens with more than 300 visits a day, just a single "page". Like everything else, it's the niche and backlinks that is important to squidoo.
Hi Grizz,
Nicely put. Anyway, I've come to a state where I don't care what Google thinks anymore. So I have no qualms about linking out. LOL.
I think many bloggers are still quite worried about being penalized for links and I don't think that's very healthy. We worry too much.
Shot you an e-mail last night, hope you catch it. I'll be using Blogigs to implement your suggestions.
Well, I'm convinced. But how would I make my 'writing' niche blog relate to your MMO blogs? Right now, it's On SERP's first page - ranks 4th, sometimes 5th. Could you suggest any way? Thanks.
Hi Griz,
Sorry, still not convinced, IMO, it is the same thing as Chow did with a few minor tweaks.
Consider this scenario:
In three months G get round to processing a report (filed by a competitor).
They read these posts.
They see lots of MMOL posts thrown up on non relevant sites all linking here.
They see that you providing anchored links back to 90% of the sites.
How do you thing G will interpret that?
Sure you are familiar with this story:
A few years ago a number of estate agents in different regions (not direct competitors) all linked to each other with regional anchors. Thus they were each able to dominate the SERP for their region specific estate agency terms.
I am sure they convinced themselves that:
"there is nothing wrong with this, we are all estate agents, the other sites are all relevant"
"we are adding value for our users... they may be moving to a different part of the country and need an agent there"
And G's take on it...
SSSLLLLLAAAPPPP!!!!
Think your playing with fire... but good luck with it anyway ;-)
Best regards, Jez
Costa-LOL.. I like your view about google. No one can control "G" and how they rate, index, deindex, sandbox a site.
Also.. to everyone.. Grizz is willing to do something with this blog. Every reader know's his blog is a success. If you don't think His idea is totally on legit .. don't use your flagship blog. As far as I can see Grizz is willing to put his blog/money where his mouth is.
IMO.. from Grizz lessons and his experiments he not an idiot and wouldn't willfully try to hurt his readers or friends. If he or other people get slapped.. then it's a learning experience.
i.e.
It's likes Vic's 100 Bans sites. In theory it sounded great. However, people had issues. If your sites weren't a success you were disappointed. However, I am sure people learned quite a bit from his challenge...that's invaluable.
Dinheiro,
Individual pages on Squidoo that have been optimized and worked (backlinks) seem to be holding their own but the site itself doesn't seem to have the same clout as it did when it started out - way to many spam pages now and this is effecting it adversely - or so it appears.
Thanks for dropping in and I'm glad to hear you are having success with your lenses. Keep plugging away.
Jez,
As I recall the real estate people got slapped for two reasons. First, these links were usually paid links and often explicitly stated as such on the page. Secondly, these pages didn't have any other content beyond the links, sometimes 100's of them per page. Agents who didn't sell links and didn't have massive links pages didn't get slapped.
- Frank at OpTempo.com
Costa,
There is a tendency to over think G at times. Many people forget that the single biggest concern G has is with eliminating spam. Quality sites are quality sites and G doesn't get too hung up about them unless someone overtly games the system like Chow did - he is a rare exception and deserved his slap.
Quality sites linking to other quality sites is not something they are going to get upset about - it's how the ranking system works. Without links the serp's would cease to be relevant.
For those reading this, Costa's blog Blogigs.com is a site that has authority in the "Blogging" niche and would be well worth checking out - Costa also happens to be a heck of a nice person. Those of you looking for links...
Mrinal,
You don't need to relate to my blogs - get to know some of your fellow "writing niche" bloggers.
Check out Fiar at;
http://humorblogging.com/blog/
Monika Mundell at;
http://www.thewritersmanifesto.com/blog/
Kathy at;
http://www.junkdrawerblog.com/
Carla at;
http://wordplayblog.com/
I've just given you four exceptional sites owned by some of the nicest people I have met online. They are helpful and very knowledgeable in the writing arena - go say hello and tell them I sent you.
Jez, (Angry Cat)
I appreciate your concern. Can I ask a favor - the first time you see me sending out a link to someone you don't think is relevant to me please let me know.
You might have the impression this is about getting links from me - its not. It's about getting everyone else to start getting and giving links between each other - relevant links between relevant sites.
Of course just about every niche can write something relevant to MMO if the author is creative - every niche is trying to make money online.
In any event - I understand your concern but as you can see I have no problem with it and I have more to lose than most. I am going to get slapped one day anyway as I push the limits in ways that my readers know nothing about (Yet) and it won't be because of something as innocuous as a little link luv. I do a lot of questionable things online in my never ending quest to find things that work and what I'm proposing here works well and has been tested for a while now with good results. The only difference is that I am taking about it openly which I think is the basis of your concern - had I not said anything and folks picked up my clues on their own you probably wouldn't be as concerned.
As for the real estate folks - they were spamming and buying links - different story and I see Frank has touched on this in his comment.
As I said earlier - caution is a good thing but I always maintain that if you post quality content then you have little to worry about. Just don't get stupid. Common sense should prevail in everything you do. If you don't feel right about inking to another site then don't.
Thanks Jez - I really do appreciate your input as it's good to get differing opinions so that folks can get input from all sides before making their minds up.
Well done.
Dennis,
Good point - don't do anything you are not comfortable with. I take risks but I know what the risks are and make my decisions based on them.
I don't think this is a huge risk but others may feel differently.
"He's not an Idiot" - ha... my wife and kids may differ with you there!
Thanks Dennis.
Frank,
Where have you been - vacation?
Nice to have you drop in - yup the real estate scam was just that. Stupid people doing stupid things.
For those not familiar with Frank he has created a true multi niche site with OpTempo and is quite successful with it. Another blogger you should get acquainted with as he goes out of his way to help others. He also happens to be quite the programmer and is very resourceful. Go pay him a visit.
Thanks Frank - hope all is well. Was a little worried not seeing you around the last few days - don't tell me you actually have a life apart from your computer! ha.
Thank you for your kind words about me in your previous comment.
Same back at ya.
BTW, I gave you some PR3 link love a while back on a HubPage about keyword research. I forgot it was there until I read this post!
Nice article, its seems that a few people are a bit too afraid to try something that has been tried and tested by someone who knows what he's on about.
Keep up the good work man.
Hi Griz,
Re read your post and am kinda coming round to your idea ;-)
Like I said, good luck with it... will be interesting to see the results ;-)
To Mrinal Bose:
I think that there is an obvious way to be relevant to Grizzly's blog if you look at things in an 'outside the box' way. If you were to write a post on the subject of a blogger in a niche (that just happens to be the MMO niche)who is considered by many to be a very effective and entertaining writer (yeah, that is pretty obvious to see by the following he has built up here)and how his blog is an example of the importance of writing well for your intended audience whoever it is, then you might see how you and Grizz match up - so to speak.
Just a suggestion. ;)
Oh yeah... it was only your site I thought was at risk... not your readers... sure they will be fine whichever way it go's ;-)
Lots of great comments. I don't think your idea is enough to get everyone slapped. Its only appears to be "gaming" because we all know enough to link trade effectively. People trade all the time, but they don't know anything about SEO, so it doesn't game rankings.
Its simply:
Three bloggers I'm friends with gave me links and I gave links to 3 other friends. It just happens Griz suggested it and introduced people. I know or know about almost every blogger you mentioned and wouldn't have a problem dropping a keyword anchored link out to anyone.
The great thing is, we all know how to give quality back links. For example, I linked to Griz's new blog. (was not asked or paid, and it wasn't a trade. 100% legit link) But I gave him the "perfect" link. MMO title, high MMO density, MMO anchor link, MMO first 100 words, MMO last 100 words, and MMO bold. (and all on a SEO/MMO related blog). Give my site a few months to age and that post will be a solid backlink for Griz.
One thing that kills people linking out is this concept of leaking "juice" or "pr". A related contextual link won't hurt anyone's juice. It'll help your friend and they'll be honored. That friendship will help more than that small fraction of juice you lost.
I think I'm going to make an effort to link out more and I think everyone else should too. It's really simple. Every time you write a post, go to one of the blogs in our little group for 20 to 30 SEO/IM/MMO bloggers and find a post that related. If I talk about blogger/blogspot, I should link to Griz, if I talk about BMD or BANS, link to Vic, article marketing, link to Court, MMO Blogging, I could link to Justin G. and hell Frank talks about so much stuff I could link him on several topics.
And if you talk about SEO, link to me =P
I'd like to see a list of friends. Don't really call it anything or direct a purpose, but a published list of "friends" would be nice. A list of quality bloggers associated with the griz, vic, court. I'd be nice to have their name, site, topic, and preferred keywords. It'd be a quick way to find someone to give link love out to.
Damn, I rambled a lot... trying to avoid cleaning up around the house
Grizzly, thanks, Still regarding squidoo, the great flood of traffic that squidoo had 1 year ago, was a "false" one, it couldn't last forever. It's like wikipedia that was dominating the serps, and now are falling everywhere. Squidoo was the same, google was giving importance to the domaim itself, but after people use and abuse, google begins to see each lens at squidoo like a "website". Look at hubpages, they also begin to have great traffic and serps, but that serps are falling too. The next one will be wordpress.com. There will never be a website in these modern days, that google will love during much time. We need good content and lots of link love, that's a real fact now.
Jez, i see you're "alive" :) Did you left msn?
Dinheiro
Haha yeah Im still here... i use Linux most of the time so dont get the MSN popups unless I start the client... which I keep forgetting to do ;-)
Will try and catch up some time soon :-D
Great stuff as usual Grizzly!
We need to be 'mutually supportive in related content blogs', if that isn't too big a mouthful!
It certainly isn't wrong in any sense (Please note Angrycat), and as I just read on Costa's blog (Unleash your links) such linking is the very juice that nourishes G and is the entire reason for the existence of PR in the first place!
jez, glad to "ear" that, you need to turn on your msn :)
Regarding what you're defending, i agree with grizz. What grizz does and many others does, is something that is "normal", if you go to the world of PERSONAL BLOGS, that are not related with money, just people talking about their lifes, you'll see that they do exactly what you said it's not ok. In this case, yes, it's money, and it sounds more "dark", but it's not, it's a common pratice that all humans do :)
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