I'm not sure of all the details but I know that RT Cunningham from ConnectContent has handed over the site to Court and Mark from the Keyword Academy. I have had a number of emails asking if it was still operating. I haven't talked with Court about his plans for Connect Content so if I am jumping the gun I'm sure he'll let me know. (I haven't had much time spying in the forum lately so some of you TKA members may be more up to speed than me)
What I do know is that the site is up and running at a .net url. I believe RT had it on a .com url? In any event I was able to log in to my account this morning and everything seems to be working. If you are a member or looking to join the rest of us you can get to the site here; ConnectContent.net
If you don't know what connectcontent is about you can read my post here What is Connect Content
I'm not sure why RT decided to give up ConnectContent but suspect it took up a great deal of his time. He is a busy fellow and likes to play around with the "code Monkeyism" aspect of working online. I do know that he has a knew project up and running called Post Your Own Articles and it caters to "our" crowd. If you need another source for supporting your authority sites then this should be added to your list. The concept is simple enough - post quality articles on the site (no spammy stuff) and link out to your target site. (With properly keyword anchored text of course) You can find out all the details required to become an author and the monetary rewards offered on the Author Requirements page. I'm not being paid to promote this nor is there an affiliate program - just helping a friend and pointing those F.O.G.s who know what they are doing to a new source. Don't forget to send links back to your post pages on Post Your Own Articles.
I'm still evaluating the latest serp update and will be posting about it but one thing has become clear - the best links are unquestionably content links anchored in posts. This isn't a big surprise to most of you but finding authority sites that will allow such links is the hardest part of the equation. For this reason I suggest that many of you should follow RT's lead and create an authority site (supersite) in much the same manner. The more sites available for everyone to use the better - all properly monitored for quality content while offering a source for quality links for users who want to contribute content. The owner gets an authority site because the users will be smart enough to link hubs and lenses and infobarrels etc back to their posts on the authority site which will increase the authority of their own targeted keyword pointing back to their own authority site. And the users get to use the site to target their keywords. A win win...
Another site that you can look at is InnerBuzz - you may recognize many of the authors...
I'm just about caught up and am finishing off a set of posts about the serp shuffle and a few other things which will be posted on the dormant Make Money Online Griz blog. Just thought I would wait till the shuffle is over and then talk about several little tests I set up for this round of serp bouncing. I've told you how to get to the top of the serp's so I thought I would work out what can get you penalized in the serp's and how you can fix your penalties should you see a sudden drop... stay tuned.
Cheers,
Griz
Monday, September 14, 2009
Post Your Own Articles dot Com
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77 comments:
Griz,
You are on the money about creating an authority site. It is ultimately the only way Google can weed out spam. They know what is going on. They purchased Feedburner for a reason. They started Friend Connect for a reason. They are doing Google Analytics for a reason. Everything with Google is about search and all those services are not being offered out of the kindness of their heart, they are being offered to improve search.
There are now multiple dimensions they can analyze to detect if a site is for real and to see if has any authority in the real world. It is very hard to fake all those dimensions even if you could game one or two of them.
Having established an authority site, I'm now working on creating several hundred pages of content (not blog posts) under my domain. I've found that I can rank much higher than many other sites because I've spent almost three years getting backlinks from trusted sites like CNN, MSNBC, Lonely Planet and most major travel blogs.
I think of it as being like a river running in reverse. You have a big river feeding a bunch of smaller tributaries. You don't go fishing in the big river, you go fishing in the streams. The big river feeds the streams, however.
Good to see ConnectContent is back up and running. I've been checking on it every couple days since it went down. Thanks for the heads up on RT's new article site and InnerBuzz. I will add them both to my list.
Thanks, as always, for the great info. Always looking for more places to post articles.
And, looking forward to your thoughts on the latest update - it's got me all in a tizzy. I have the feeling I'm doing something that is making it hard to maximize the work I'm doing.
Keep it up and thanks!
Smalls
Can wait to see your test results. I have been working on a site creating decent content. However, I have been linking "out" to authority sites about my subject with a little bit of back linking to my site all links are proper seo inanchor. My thought is a upcoming website would link to an authority to try to support what is on the site.
Have you messed around with this at all? Hope all is well Griz.
Hi Griz
My second comment on this blog.
I have been working hard on my niche sites for the past 2 months since I started. Things are not going too good.
My first site was doing ok i.e. gaining ranking for its keywords. Unfortunately, I infringed on some trademark by using the brand's name in the url. I was sent a legal letter to give out my domain, which I did to prevent any more problems. A hard lesson learnt. Later, I realised you have mentioned this in the comments but I got to it too late. Urghhh.
The rest of my site are sort of bouncing all around the SERPs. It is strange since I am picking super low competition niches and yet I am struggling to rank. I am trying to get more backlinks to anchor them properly and this is where I need your advice. Among the paying services like Connect Content and Backlink Solutions, which is the most effective solution and do they really work? I am not high on cash so I really need something that is worth money.
Thanks Griz for all your free advice so far. They have been great!
Thanks Griz. i was wondering where connect content went.
Re:multi user authority site
Interesting, I was putting together a game plan to do something similar. I think Griz' idea of us to each build one is good except there may be a problem down the road. Matt C. at big G has specifically outed these types of sites. He said that he hates them. I am assuming that at some point there will be a G search and destroy mission and a lot of links are going to go poof.
I don't have time now to get specific but possibly make the index page show only categories (like a directory) and a search function you should be ok. For instance, when I go to the site I see 2 articles, one about "handicap showers" and the other is "post your own articles". This is the kind of thing that gets ole MAtt all worked up, totally irrelevant content together serving only one purpose, gaming links.
I have an idea on how to accomplish this and be totally loved by G. We could all grow our network together in a logical way and never have to worry about G because we will be feeding G exactly what it wants to eat. If we did this the right way, our network could become extremely powerful.
Imagine stirring the nest of 100+ authority sites. Holy shit Santa!
I'm not going to say anymore here, if you want to persue this I will put together a details page and send it out to everyone.
Similar things have been done before, but not free , collaberated, or niched out.
bk
Also, this is not really a "network" but more of a source to give good links that are relevant while we help build each others authority sites. Members would also have access to different class C's of course.
I said it would be free but any member would be required to host and maintain a quality .com on a quality host.
Hi Griz,
RT posted in the bike shed that his dad passed away, and that and other factors caused him to give up CC. I've been meaning to send him an e-mail wishing him well but haven't (shame on me), so I'll extend my condolences here. RT, I hope all's well and that you're moving quickly through the adjustment to life without your dad.
On another topic, I think Gary is right-on about Google Friend Connect being one of the ways Google measures popularity. That's one of the reasons I use the dreaded Twitter. My friends continue to increase on my blogs because I use automated software to post freebies all day on Twitter and people reciprocate by "friending" me when they visit the blogs. They also give me links, which is another juicy benefit. I even received an offer to write multiple posts that contain my links on a related blog with good PR. It might just be due to my niche, because my peeps (crafters, scrapbookers) love free images, but I've found that auto-posting on Twitter works. They key is to obviously not do a lot and the software I use makes that possible.
I know how you feel about social media and I agree with you. But in this particular case it's had a real-world return for me.
Griz,
Thanks for testing yet again and helping this MMO community. I'm really interested to know what worked to get you out, as I recently got penalized.
I'm thankful everyday I found you! *gush gush*
Now I need a pep talk because my piddly $10 a day isn't nearly what you lost by actually TRYING to get slapped. So my question is: How did you not lose your mind???
Anyway I'm really interested in RT's new site I've bookmarked it, but as previously mentioned.. I'm a little dense. I guess we'll find out how he wants us to use his site?
The inner buzz site is really cool though.
THanks for the update and I'll be staying tuned, on the edge of my seat...literally.
Hiya Griz,
I'm glad ConnectContent is back up and running at ConnectContent.net - I've been poking around on there this morning and see everything appears to be working as it should, and yes....it works great.
I'm anxious to see what RT's Post Your Own Articles site will do as well. I still need to read over the Requirements information but will promptly. RT Cunningham ROCKS for those of you who don't know him.
I'm very anxious to read your posts about the G shuffle, as I've been hearing about it from other people lately.
Thanks for the heads-up on RT's new site, will certainly have to check it out.
My condolences on your loss RT.
BK...I will stop by your site and leave my contact info.
Always game for new ideas :)
Hey Griz,
Thanks for sending a few thousand page views my way. I really appreciated it.
Thanks again!
Michael
Griz,
Before I forget, you were right about the whole article thing. Yeah it still works and it is quite easy to have the people scraping your content not affect you in anyway. I just wasn't looking hard enough at your site :) I saw the info, but I guess I looked at it a certain way. I don't know, sometimes things stare you in the face for awhile. I made some minor tweaks(off site) and now my site is higher than it's ever been. It literally almost shot up in traffic overnight and continues to stay there. It's actually growing. I'm also looking forward to the whole penalties and how to rid your site of them post. It should be interesting.
Curious about how long it takes for a site to become an authority site. I know it's almost impossible to answer, but does anyone have a general idea? Like obtain so many links with so many pr for so many months? I'm sure site age is also a factor.
Griz,
The two weeks between this and your last post were agonizing. It's good to hear that you have more stuff around the corner.
When you said, "the best links are unquestionably content links anchored in posts," are you implying that G is deprecating non-post links, as in blogrolls, headers and footers?
Hi Griz - why are you using those silly little twitter url shortners for some of your in-post links? And WTF facebook???? Thats as bad as having to follow Vic or Twitter LMAO
The Internet is always in motion, constantly changing, it's good to have you figuring it all out and then sharing what you've learned, I appeciate it Grizz. I always look forward to an email telling me you've posted to one of your mmo blogs, I know I'm goung to learn something of value!
Grizz,
Nice YouTube video! I never would have guessed you looked so cute!
Janet, Just Kidding! Nice job!
Grizz, your blog looks so clean.
Thanks for posting and the heads up on RTs new site. Got to get over there.
Check back Later!
Post Your Own Articles has like 2 articles right now. I guess it will grow with your help but Squidoo and HubPages seem like better options at this time.
Griz me again I think you check your comments more reuglarly than your email - Dirk needs a bit of publicity on his monelis scam http://dirkpoulsen.com/2009/06/04/mondelis-is-it-a-scam
I refuse. I quite simply refuse to comply. That is all. No article directories building for ME.
I'll help with content for RS and mooch a few backlinks but that is all.
I've always been told I take direction well but some directions just go the wrong way. I'm gonna stick with my little junky blogs that make hardly any money and are much less stressful.
Thank you and have a nice day. :-)
The above was just me being silly so don't get excited.
Fay
Thanks for the information about ConnectContent and all the other site to post articles , I was a bit confused about what happened to Connect Content
Hey Griz,
I'm curious. How often do you get emails with companies asking you to partner with them? I imagine alot. Do you ignore them or do you ask them questions. I have a blog gaining steam that was visited by like ValueClick and another company(looks like they were researching) that's in a related field. If and when I get emails, should I just ignore them? I can't imagine them actually helping me without boosting themselves ahead of my work.
I'm still a noob regarding these subjects so right now youre my encyclopedia. lol.
looking forward to the results of your tests.
bk, can you post the url where matt c. said that he hates authority sites?
RT first mentioned he was giving up CC back in July in his Self-Imposed Stress Management post. He then followed up with I No Longer Have an Online Business a few weeks ago.
He also explained the domain name transfer problem in Domain Name Registration Problems.
Just dropping him some links... I look forward to his new venture and also to CC back on track.
By the way, are you using the shortened URL to make it less apparent to Google that you're linking to these sites?
Andre,
MattC did a webmaster video and admitted that sitewide links carry less weight. How much less is anyone's guess.
Hi Gary - long time but I see things are going well for you. I have yet to figure out the real impact of social media on serp rankings but agree it plays some factor. The problem is that most terms ranked in the serp's are not conducive to having a social following - ie. Oil Filters. This means that G has to have a means of deciding who the most relevant Oil Filter site is without relying on social indicators. The answer "targeted backlinks".
In niches that are conducive to using social indicators like "mmo" or just blogging blogs in general then things like rss, friends, url linked comments etc may help to authenticate the site but doesn't seem to help the serp ranking other than it helps you get in the serp's. Targeted backlinks are still the biggest determinant of serp rank. I'm not saying that social media should be ignored - just that it presently doesn't make as much impact on serp rank as people have been led to believe.
I'm glad to hear that all your work is coming to fruition - you are one of the few I've met that laid out a game plan from the start and made it work. Impressive.
Trent - I'm not sure Court was ready to let everyone know or not but he hasn't emailed me to keep it quiet so I assume it's back in business.
Dennis - linking out to authority sites in your niche is a tactic used to indicate that your site is legitimate and it does appear to help in indexing. I have not seen it help your serp rankings though - doesn't hurt but won't gain you much if anything in rank.
Aaronchua,
You can't just use one or two link networks exclusively. Linking has to look natural and this means backlinks from as many sources as possible. ConnectContent is the best moderated and controlled program but BS, LV, and Text Links have their uses as well. So do hubs, lenses, infobarrel, Innerbuzz, Post your own articles, Ezine Articles etc. The point is to get a wide variety of links using a wide variety of anchored text in order to replicate natural linking patterns. Everything works to varying degrees but combined it all works. Keep in mind that the best links are the ones you can get from each other within the community and why I am always trying to get my readers to help promote each other.
BK,
When Matt C hates something it's a good indication it works. It should be re-mentioned that what G really hates is spam content - not legit information. Having a site full of irrelevant info is not a bad thing as long as the info is original and legit. The Wall Street Journal comes to mind... tons of irrelevant content, much of it scraped no less and G doesn't seem to have a problem ranking it well and deems it an authority site to boot. Perhaps the Huffington Post is an even better example of what Matt C hates... or does he? InnerBuzz is set up exactly as the Huffington Post - is there a reason it should be penalized while the Huff Po isn't?
Just keep in mind - real original info is useful and sites will not be penalized for publishing it - theme relevant or not.
Hey Carla,
There is no doubt that certain niches fair well using social media - I'm experimenting myself - but it is hard to replicate on the nuts and bolts side of the web. Unfortunately most of my niches are not social friendly...
Alexis,
Sign up with RT and he will explain what he is looking for. As for trying to get slapped - I had a notion a few months ago that the easiest way to find out what G doesn't like was to play around with sites that rank number 1. Trying to guess what works with a new unranked site is hard by comparison. By using a top ranked site you can see exactly what happens and how quickly it occurs by testing different posts. You can see the penalty in action, find the fix and then watch your rank come back. This is the best way of affirming which G "myths" are accurate and how much weight should be placed on them. In any event I have a few nuggets to share... are you still on the edge of your seat? lol
Michael,
I'm glad you got some traffic and I hope things work out well - pass it forward when you can!
I fell off it an hour ago. Post already dagnammit!
I was really close to number one on this four month old site. I was at number four and then G said *SMACK*. =( It was the only site I had that never got the newbie slap.
I'm signing up now and have a bunch of articles I was gonna post at goarticles. I dunno if RT wants my nasty ole fashion and wedding stuffs tho =D
Red,
I'm not sure that there is a point where you become an authority - you just are or you aren't. (In the sense that some sites become authorities quickly while others take a long time - it's not a matter of how old, how many links etc.)
A new site on MMO could become an authority overnight if all the other authority sites linked to it using a relevant anchored keyword.
One indicator that G finds you an authority is when they give you sitelinks in the serp results when you search for your exact title tag.
Andre,
I am indeed saying that G is depreciating the value of all links that are not content relevant (anchored) post links on content relevant sites (theme). This doesn't mean they are useless but each has varying levels of weight - all inferior to the perfect link as described above.
Lissie,
awe... ya' noticed my little url's.
I'm testing them out as bit.ly has a cool little link tracking program. I like to compare my clicks with other third party stats like the ones used by aff ad networks. It's actually pretty informative knowing which links get the most clicks on a page and I intend to find out if keyword authority is passed as well as pagerank using short url's.
Thanks for asking! :-)
Lissie again...
Facebook?? Lol
Just having fun and scheming...
Steve... Is there any reason you wouldn't use all the options available and not just Hubs and Squidoo? Think about it...
Red,
I get a lot of JV emails from a wide range of companies. I tend to say no to everything not directly related to my traffic and ask for more details from the relevant ones. In most cases I decline as I can't do the John Chow/Problogger thing and recommend or endorse most of the stuff offered. It may not all be crap but none of it is needed...
Stephen,
Thanks for the RT updates!
I don't think the short urls would confuse G - just testing out the tracking feature with bit.ly
RT,
From what I can tell sitewide links have no more juice than comments... I can't prove that - just a hunch.
Alexis... your posts are kinda "girlie" but I'm sure RT will overlook that. Now if you had written something important like Tiger kicking ass this weekend at the BMW Championship... ;-)
Just a thought, Griz. Sometimes over thinking the backlink to authority sites gets you out of hand, so to speak. I've found myself overdoing the backlink strategy and losing on the authority - which is IMHO all about great content.
One thing to remember - I've seen top ranking (#1) authority sites with literally no backlinks making me scratch my head in wonder.
Don - without a doubt "less is more" when it comes to backlinks. I concentrate on getting just a few really good links and find I am miles ahead of people who have thousands of crappy links. Those authority sites with only a few links just happen to have some amazing links... Forbes, eHow, About.com etc. Getting those amazing links is the hard part...
I don't think that social media has any impact on SERP's per se. What it can do is increase the domain authority in the eyes of Google.
Take your site for example: Google knows you have an above average number of subscribers via Feedburner. It can validate that via the number of unique subscribers reading it in Google Reader. They can also check the number of people following you on Friend Connect. All that data points to the fact that this site is legit. A landing page would never be able to get a diverse group of people to subscribe and would never get the sort of authority a site like this could get.
I assume that Google knows what Twitter accounts point to what URL's. I don't know if they are using this data, but they could in the future and I don't think it would be a giant leap for them to do so. It would be yet another data point similar to the ones I listed above. Proven traffic and social media buy in is evidence of authority.
As for stuff like Twitter and Facebook, I'll just say that there is a tremendous amount of value in having a big social media profile, it just doesn't come in the way people are thinking. (ie: advertising and search). I have already gotten several thousands of dollars in value from Twitter. Granted, it might not work for someone in the MMO niche as well as it does for me, but there is a ton of value there if you know how to use it.
Hey Grizz. A bit of a question of...Canadian tax laws. I know you are a canadian as well, and it's gotten to the point where I may need to start declaring (or not declaring) my earnings. I'm really not sure how to handle the whole IM earnings thing with the tax man, so thought I'd ask an old season'ed bear like yourself for a few tips on how to handle MMO earnings and canadian tax. Bet that's a new question for you, lol. I could send you an email, but I know you are pretty busy and they get filtered out.
Look forward to the new post about what you've found with your experiments.
Ben
yo Griz,
Are you kidding ? You comparing the WSJ & HuffPO to a little blog with link stuffed articles? You and I both know News sites are treated differently in the Algs anyway, mashed content, dup content etc... Furthermore, The WSJ could run full page ads "SELLING LINKS FOR 1K EACH" and nothing would happen.
I am well aware Google does not penalize a site for having irrelevant content. There are a ton of blogs that have content on Sex to Boating and everything in between. I should have been more clear. What Matt C was referring to was paid post. Paid post come in many forms, but the ones he pointed out specifically were blogs that host articles for $$$. This is a screenshot from Mr. C's blog of what he considers paid post http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb40/bmaso/paid-example1.png
Most of us here will recognize that blog format. There are some here including MOI that pay for the use of these types of blogs. My point is the guy said he hates them and he didn't qualify them by saying "oh, if the content is legit than its ok" no sir, when he finds them they are getting deindexed.
Some time ago you posted 6 PR4 blogs(from a certain paid network) that you had personally checked the PR. Today 1 site is PR0, another was deindexed this year, 2 are parked, another is totally gone, and one redirects to a golf site.
I am certain that when you come across a site/blog that has 4-5 commercial and unrelated post that you know the purpose for the site. Well, so does Mr. C and he calls it paid link spam regardless of the content quality. He doesn't have a problem with paid post of any kind as long as you no follow them btw.
Hope that clears things up a bit, btw RT, Im not trying to bust your balls on your new site. I think it is very generous for you to take on this project. I would hate to see it get thrown out with the bath water so to speak. I just think there are ways we could put these up that would pass even a manual from G, and make the links stronger.
ps. no follow links, make sure you have some.
bk
Hey old friend! How are you doing? It's been a while.
Hey Griz,
This post made me feel a bit hopeless, maybe I am misunderstanding! Do you think it is impossible to make a decent living off making websites and blogs (the way you have been instructing), without making an authority site? I have been putting in a lot of time, but I don't think there is anything in the world I know enough about to become any sort of authority in!
What kind of advice do you (or anyone else) have about becoming an authority site in anything? Does it usually have to be something you are very good or knowledgeable in, or have you been able to come up with an authority site in any other ways?
-Cas
Hi Griz,
Just want to say thanks for all the great info. and found the Post Your Own Article site very interesting.
And also want to share that my new blogspot blog was indexed by G for my targeted keyword (more than 7m results) in a very competitive niche and followed by my twitter account, 3rd and 1st page respectively. lol
And still, we're waiting on updates of your Make Money Online Grizzly blog and some results of your experiment. :)
Lastly, a couple of question to clear my mind...
- Should I verify all my blogger sites on one (G) account, and can I use just one Adsense account on all of them?
Again, thanks and more power.
Ariston
@bk um sorry but ezine goes against your logic. That's an authority site that has become nothing but a link site basically with so-so articles, but has kept it's pr. I don't see the site above being any different.
@Grizz, I can't think of anything to say about Tiger except RAWR and YUM. Does that count as an article?
Signed up on RT's site gonna send my posts in today.. when you see all the fashion and wedding stuff... don't assume! kk? It's not only me that loves girly things!
Speaking of backlinks, I'm curious if anyone has experimented with no (or few) backlinks. I've noticed if I make 3 blog posts in a day my blog will get indexed for a few days. I call it the 3 post 3 day phenomenon in my head. 3 posts = 3 days of indexing, my numbers are not scientific it just seems that way to me.
I was messing with a little blog I set up on Aug 30th. I made 2 posts and then forgot about it and last night I remembered that blogger account, so I went in and made 3 posts. I then checked my site with google and the last 2 posts that I made were indexed.
Out of 5 posts I had 2 indexed, so I updated all my posts within the blog content with links back to the main page and made another post also linking to the main page, then I went to bed.
This morning all 8 posts on the blog were indexed, so I made another post and at the time of this posting all 9 are indexed.
What that tells me is the google spider doesn't really check the archive links of a generic blog all the time but it does follow all the content links even on a sucky little blog with few posts.
I thought I'd fool around with it for a week or so and see how many posts I could crank out and see what can be done with a new blog with only internal linking.
Just wondering if anyone has already done it and what the results were.
Fay
@Wedding
First, it is not "my logic", I am pointing out the a crystal clear policy of Googles Senior Spam Engineer!!
2nd, EZINE IS FREE !!!
I know, so is RT's, but the format is identical to paid.
Good luck,
was just trying to help
^actually, I made an error there. GOOGLE DOES NOT HAVE ANY CRYSTAL CLEAR POLICIES - NO EMPLOYEES OF GOOGLE HAVE ANY CRYSTAL CLEAR POLICIES EITHER.
Google policies more resemble the whims of a 16 year old girl hooked on red bull and bad acne drugs.
bk
Grizz,
Super important question here. I was ranking number 2 for company brand term in a post. The company was first. I decided to go back and edit the post and at the bottom of the post I put an anchored link to the company's website. Now, the next day, my position on that term is now on page 2. My question is, if I remove that link, will that be a penalty against my site?
Is anyone else having problems submitting to InnerBuzz?
Anytime you try to write them on their contact page they have an anti-spam device setup but no computer generated word to type in. Frustrating.
BK,
I'm not sure what's eating your shorts, but there is no "paid link blog" format. Posturown.com is set up very similar to my 3-year old flagship blog which is doing very well, thank you, and has never been de-indexed and recovered quite nicely from the 2007 paid links slap.
Google doesn't discriminate based on appearance. In fact, I've noticed that ugly (or plain) is better when it comes to search engine rankings. Perhaps it's because there isn't a ton of crud for the bots to wade through to get to the content.
Sure, I could have made it look like a social site but it wouldn't have made an ounce of difference. I worry not about visual inspections because there isn't anything black hat about it and every post is checked to make sure no spammy or questionable sites are linked to.
So please, unless you work for Google and can read minds (and decipher what they say is not always what they mean), please stop making assumptions. You're starting to sound like a G-conspiracy theorist.
Wow, there are some interesting thoughts and observations here about the building of authority sites as a group. Bottom line is this... Quiet and Private. Thats all I have to say if you want to be 90% safe.
If you want to go at it from a quality standpoint then everything has to be monitored.
Simply looking at what Matt Cutts says about Google Knol will give you a guideline of where to start. those suckers are now dofollow on links from publishers that are trusted.
Obviously Google sees value in allowing the passing of juice when it is from trusted writers. Isn't this the same concept of Hubpages, and to some extent Ezine articles? Then the bottom line is show Google that the content is monitored for quality and value and you should be OK.
I'm feeling really discouraged....Maybe Grizz or someone else here can give me some insight. I found this site months ago and decided to give this a try. I chose a niche that is pretty competitive, but not nearly as competitive as MMO.
I thought I could do it but I think I'm in over my head. I've tried a couple backlinking services over these months, and I have not made any meaningful headway at all. I didn't think it would be *this* hard. I only rank for terms that don't make any money (I rank for them because of my content--I have not made any anchored bl's with these terms).
Maybe my niche is too competitive and I should just walk away, but I hate to do that since I spent hours upon hours writing my content.
I'm going to have to get much stronger backlinks from relevant sites...But I don't understand why a competitor of mine would ever agree to link to me? I wouldn't sell a link to a competitor no matter how much they offered me, because to me nothing would be worth giving them a boost in the SERP's possibly at my own expense.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
To jl83,
To the right of this page is something that Grizz has been talking about for months "the keyword academy". For one dollar, you're gonna learn exactly why the niche you picked isn't working. I hate to be salesmen here, but I get nothing out of telling you that. Nothing. I've been a member since May 11th and can't tell you the help I've gotten from there.
I suggest invest the buck and find out what your'e doing wrong.
I think i need to go with amazing links strategy. Crappy links is aste of time.
Grizz, if I could get any one program that is less than $100 a month, which program would help my online ventures most? I have earned about $130 so far, and I would like to invest some of it into something that will help me make lots more money. So, should I go for a linkbuilding service like Connect Content, or maybe a article place like Article Marketing Automation, or what else would help me MOST?
Thanks for the heads up about RTs new site. I like the idea and if enough people got on the bandwagon it would work. I mean in creating their own and adding to the community. Whether it should be more niche, or newsy, or whatever is testable, but the idea is fab.
...and you're so right on about authority sites. I just used my wife as a sound board the other day talking about authority sites and creating them and leveraging (traffic and indirect rankings) from authority sites that already exist. This is where newbies should put some attention.
Use authority sites to get quick rankings and direct traffic to your blog or site.
jl83,
I'll echo what The Wedding Guru says - you've almost certainly picked something way too difficult. Go for something quite mundane that you can more easily dominate then develop from there. Just make sure that the subject attracts some level of advertising though.
I don't actually "select" my best keywords, I just choose fairly narrow subject areas I think I could write an awful lot of words about and watch closely to see what keywords start to pull traffic. Then I start backlinking to those keywords and aim to rank high for them (top half of page one).
If you write a long post (2000 or more words) about something and have done a reasonable job of keeping it focused on topic then it will likely sit quite high on Google for a day or so after you post it.
Pay very close attention during that time to see what keywords your traffic is really using then go after those. They are frequently not the keywords you thought you were targetting at the outset, but they are the ones that will make you money (regardless of what Google's AdWords Keyword Tool might say).
And don't despair - this takes time and requires patience. Throwing backlinks at fresh content will not work, so occupy the time creating more content and fleshing out your support network.
RT,
I don't wear shorts, lol
I'm not talking about appearance, maybe a better word is characteristcs. The site has the same characteristics as paid to post sites. 1)multiple authors 2)random topics 3)its on a blog 4)each post has outbound links
Thats all I'm saying, the characteristics of the site are the same as the sites Mr. C has outed on more than one occasion.
Since you already have a site like it that is doing well then it is no big deal,I'm just passing info.
I do think it is a very good idea, especially if a bunch of us participate. I just want to be careful.
And yes I'm a little paranoid, I HATE losing sites.
BK
Thank you, Wedding Guru and KuleKat. I appreciate the help. I will definitely try out your suggestions!
Hey BK,
I understand what you're talking about and I think you have to be careful with any multi-author blog, be it a single blog or a WPMU-type with subdomains.
Big G knows that multi-author sites will have external links and they're scrutinized for that reason (I guarantee my kung fu is stronger than their kung fu).
The one thing that has been made painfully clear is that in-post links are considered editorial whereas site wide links are not. Hence, sidebar and footer links now carry about as much weight as comment links.
Blog farms get de-indexed frequently because the people doing it are clueless. The ones with a clue don't set them up as blog farms and are very careful how they use them. Any blog with external links could be considered a blog farm in the eyes of G and if you think about it, they really are. The only alternative that will keep you completely safe is to be an island, but that would really suck.
Strange coincidence Grizz. We were talking about creating something like this the other day, so I did.
I have set up a PR3 site where we will allow people to register and become contributors. I set it up to look just like an article site but we will be a lot stricter about what we accept. Got a great theme and plugin and although it is very simple and still a little under construction it is working well already.
Sites like this take little time to set up and people seem to enjoy writing content on wordpress.
The site www.allthatsolive.com is open to all and since it started the other day traffic has already increased significantly.
If we could all set up something like this and have a bunch of general authority sites in six months or so that rank well then who knows, as Terry Pratchet says "The world is our mollusc".
Anyway, just thought I would let you know as it seems like you were asking people to do it, well we have. All the best.
I have been thinking about something like this for a long time already, and I set up a few sites like this - not yet open for the general public - already. The thing is that I am not going to be able to spend time moderating them, so I can't really allow anyone to join just people who I have some trust on. I think I will go with "recommend it to a like minded friend" once I am finished setting them up.
Thanks for the good post, I'll definitely use this!
Hey...a bit off topic here.
A while back we were having a discussion about keyword research tools. An alternative to MS and KE was discusses, and for the life of me I can't remember what it was called. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Is this the post you were looking for?
http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/2009/08/keyword-elite-v20-not-fake-affiliate.html
It seems to me that in the example above the site was trying to appear "legit" while hiding the "paid" links out while ezine and the others state their goal outright... ? Does G only use a formula or do they flag and then a human pushes the "search and destroy" button??
Maybe?
I didn't see anything about 301 redirects so if there is a post can somebody say and I'll find it or...
I discovered through www - website grader dot com that I had 150 links pointing to the non www. version of my site. (http://examp.com as opposed to http://www.examp.com) I thought they were the same!
I did some research, found the 301... did a little more research, found out how to do it, directed all the non www. links to the www and then... boom. Dropped from 8th place to 52nd. Overnight. :( lol.
I didn't even realize G reacted that fast. I hadn't even touched the site for two months so i find it hard to think it was coincidental with something else...
Thanks everyone...
It's funny that I expect "everyone" to answer faster than Grizz and to know as much as he might... teacher good.
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