Its been a while since I blogged, and during that time with several updates, I have been busy testing out what has been working and what is failing. The single biggest victim of the updates has been High PR blog networks (HPBL) and content farms. I mentioned in my earlier posts that I had my suspicion about HPBL networks, and it seems in the eagerness to full fill demand lots of providers churned out networks and forgot the basics. I personally have bough lost of those packages, however as it stands now I am NOT a subscriber to a SINGLE package. Because in this case its not a matter of IF but WHEN you will get penalized.
With soooo many updates happening, what has been the biggest change? Well the way I see it the biggest change has been devaluing most mass linking options, in search for quality links Google has been coming after these options like a spurned ex lover with an axe to grind. Anyway here is is simple list of what is hot/will be hot and what is not.
What works in 2012
- Variety of anchor text, more so then before. I firmly believe if you are targeting term “blue widget” for a given page, then that term should only be used as anchor text for just under 40% of the total links. My trails has shown that 30% of your links should be or other supporting or misspelled variations. The remaining 30% should be for terms link click here, find our more and some root domain type links.
- Long pages of content, 1000 words+ pages are always ranking higher and that is a fact
- Absolutely unique content, yes its the same old. But I don’t even bookmark my pages on software which auto grab titles etc. I create them manually or have them spun. Uniqueness and relevance is Key
- We all know relevant keywords are important, however I think Google has expanded on that yet again. If your site is about blue widgets and that is how your site seo is done, or at least that is how your site is see by google. Then if you link to a site about purple shoes then that automatically creates a warning filter. Do it enough times and that site will be flagged. Domain relevance is the key, also perhaps more so when anyone does things like blog post submission etc. The fundamentals of it are ignored like, H1 tags pictures with correct alt tags and and On page SEO yes each blog if it contains your keyword in the title page correct meta information etc then links contained thereunder will be considered more relevant right? Well in my case studies If I published and article privately gave it the basic seo treatment then point link from that to another RELEVANT site, my sites ALWAYS increased in ranking.
- Private networks are always harder to detect (specially if big enough)
- Article marketing, yes so many people are frowning upon it but if done correctly it does still pose a valuable resource. Though I find its rarely for mass linking these days, just possibly another tier.
- Press Releases, especially if you get them from reputable places they are a wonderful and legitimate ways of actually increasing your visibility (aulthough there are now reports that major Press Release organization are also being effected)
- Tiers work wonderfully, and the more tiers you have the better. To that end I would like to recommend Link wheel Bandit this litle program is a BEAST. Builds mini nets for you and self heals them as well. If you have Proxies, and Captach balance, then run his program. In one night it created over 16K links to my Level 1 support. The result is a GREAT infrastrucur that leverages authority and links. For all of you woderful readers there is a reoccuring discount for Life if you just type my name in mansoor.
Things to Avoid in SEO and link building in 2012..
- Blog commenting (take it with a pinch of salt) as this can still work however most people will point it to a tier 2, I move it further down the pecking order, tier 5 or 6 even.
- Blog Farms, yes its obvious. Lots of people advertising will say stuff like Panda Proof. No such things if you make a farm public it is NOT google proof there will be a footprint. There are ways of mimimizing footprint, but most or should i say all will never bother as they will entail lot of work and lot ofmoney being spent.
- Wikis, it was great whilst it lasted eh.. I used to have a killer list of wikkis and my own custom software to post to.. Did it for the last two years and in January some douch started to sell this as a service, and knew this was going down the pan. Now Wikis can be useful for some ip divercification however not for anything else. SHAME
- Putting you Keyword at the start of your title. We all know that carries the most weight, however under optmization is now the new optmization. Move you keyword a bit more inside and see you rankings increased.
- Xrummer (No I am joking this bad boy is still the king, and people who think al it does is forum profiles all i have to say is..
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There is going to be a lot of talk abot poor webmasters suffering becuase of the updates. Sure the bar is higher, and people will now find it (Internet Marketing) harder to get into.
I have been tracking big money keywords, for better part of 2 years now, keywords that if google did what they say they are doing would have dropped like a stone, but they are still there.
Why becuase, these networks bans deinexation etc are just public executions Designed to out fear into the general populas.
Why then do i say avoid blog networks, reason is simple sustainability. These kind of techniques allyou are doing is playing catch up ALL the time. Would it not be easier to build something once and KNOW this i will be around for the next 5 years. I never did much with adsence sites so I was never really effectd by the above fold crap..
The biggest issue that exists is SEO and Linkbuilding in general is Earning links based on its own merit, does such a thing exist? If you have asked youself this question then chances are you dont have great content anyway.
Please dont misunderstand, I have sites with amazing conetnt written by field experts, that content needs a push to get he ball rolling. so I dont agree with he G ideology “build it and they will come”. I do belive that great sites are more defendable.
As an example, my SEO Clients know this my actual cost per link is about $130, this is a singular link mind you and I reckon 10+ superchanged relevant links will get most sites/keywords moving. This is unfrotunately where we are at this stage of SEO, and I would also say that I think cost of acquization of good links isnly going to increase as time passes by.
Google becomes much smarter than ever before and that’s the result why its updating frequently and I like this section : Things to Avoid in SEO and link building in 2012.
How do you keep your entire operation running smoothly? I am struggling to maintain my small network of money sites and finding it hard to expand and create a system as such. Most of my traffic is organic, but the more sites I have the harder it is to manage the process.
It’s mainly a combination of expanding and finding the right people at the right time. That is one of the biggest challenges in moving ahead, trusting other to do the work to the standard that you would do, at least that is he way for me.
Any tips on recovering from google Penguin?
My sites have taken a pretty hefty hit.
Hi Mansoor, thanks for sharing your ideas here that Google updates has a big impact in SEO and link building in this year. I actually don’t know about it. Google is getting bigger and smarter every year and we must always aware of this.
Ashleen Moreen recently posted..Timber Sliding Door Hardware
thank your Ashley,
Well if your business is reliant on organic traffic, and its then imperative to actually understand and adopt your strategy.
Regards
yes Google regularly updates and changes its search algorithm. After the Panda update, many website with high rankings, found that the rankings had dropped like a stone.The websites whose rankings dropped were mainly those which had bad HTML, poor SEO and broken links.