Article Marketing Robot Causes Link Penalty

1 Comments
December 13  |  Link Building  |   Ryan Clark

Article Marketing Robot is a very popular content “marketing” tool used by a lot of folks, specifically in the affiliate marketing world. I frequent a lot of SEO forums to keep my “ear to the street” as they say, and one particular Blackhat World thread caught my eye. Keep in mind that this person was most likely doing all sorts of junk link building like 2.0 and forum profiles, junk blog comments and other low quality stuff. The message I’m wanting to get across is that the Googly Woogly is cracking down a lot more on poor link building practices.

Short story: a few weeks ago 4 of my sites were penalized and I made a reconsideration request on all 4 of them. Of course they are were rejected so I have written them again with more details. Few days ago they finally replied me (this is the first reply from google in 5 years ).

Here is part of the email I got from them:
“Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank.

To illustrate how these articles could apply to you [they mean google quality guidelines], here are examples of pages that contain inorganic links to your site: [they posted examples from which one is an AMR article]” To illustrate how these articles could apply to you [they mean google quality guidelines], here are examples of pages that contain inorganic links to your site: [they posted examples from which one is an AMR article]”

They tend to be really helpful now. They post links and even the anchor text. I replied them again and they answered within 72h.

I decided not to post a screenshot of this email because I am still trying to recover my rankings and I don’t want them to know that I am sharing this info here.

I know a lot of people say links cannot hurt you but the fact of the matter is they can. I’ve quoted Google’s guide on link schemes so many times my fingers hurt. Pimping low quality content going after certain anchor text is in direct violation and is risky business. We all know it works well so just be careful in how you go about your link building efforts.

I am by no means saying not to game Google. If you have a solid brand backed by wicked awesome content you’ll be able to get away with a lot more. The majority of affiliate sites will rarely ever get linked to and that makes it too easy for Google to spot a link scheme taking place.

Tagged , ,

InfoBarrel Steps Up Local Content Marketing With Easy Google Maps

Comments Off on InfoBarrel Steps Up Local Content Marketing With Easy Google Maps
December 6  |  Inbound Marketing  |   Simon

Our buddies over at InfoBarrel have introduced a new element for their hosted content we’d like to share with you. This one improves their content’s local effectiveness with an easy way to throw in Google Maps. If haven’t used InfoBarrel or stumbled across some of their content on Google, let me fill you in. They’re a popular content hub built on submitted content that’s all human reviewed to keep the quality high. Unlike many automated content hubs that were full of overtly promotional and low quality content that keep taking hits from Panda Updates, InfoBarrel continues to rank high.

With 20% of searches being local, making a quick and easy Google Maps function is a big benefit for InfoBarrel users. Also, 74% of local searches using portals such as Google, they make a solid choice for hosing your content. And if you’re not looking to expand your link profile, don’t forget Infobarrel’s rev share program, so any content you post stands to make extra money through Adsense, Chitika and Amazon.With the success of content marketing depending completely on its value to the reader, InfoBarrel ensures they only host useful or interesting content. This makes it a high-ranking site to share unique content to an active audience, score a relevant backlink and build up your following and a author profile.

We all know we’d rather not spend time searching for an address ourselves, so check out the short Youtube video on using the new feature. And I’ve included a recent infographic below from MDG Advertising on the state of mobile search.

 

Infographic: Local Search Evolved by MDG Advertising
Infographic by MDG Advertising
Tagged , , ,

Building Your Band Brand In A Social World

7 Comments
December 5  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

I thought I’d never see the day I would have a client come in needing promotion for their music. While it’s not at all strange, it was just a unique and refreshing client opportunity that I had to jump at. To make things even more fun, it was a Dubstep artist we’re all a fan of here at work so we were pretty pumped to take it on. With any music niche you’re promoting, social media is most definitely the most powerful tool in the shed. This artist also wanted a strong link profile to boot, so that was something we could most definitely help with. Even though this is a vertical you’re not all going to be engaged in, it should inspire you to work all the angles no matter what niche you’re rocking.

Photo: Avicii – he was not our client, just used in all the examples

I contacted Jason to do a guest post and thought this topic would make an interesting case study, even though I wouldn’t be able to disclose my client. The campaign was also a huge success and both parties were not ready for the amount of traffic, followers and links that were to come in. If you’re a band/dj/composer then be ready to explore a plethora of marketing avenues.

This post will be chalk full of all the real world examples I can give away because not everyone will be able to abuse these resources. More importantly, you cannot be bringing lame sounds to the table, so you won’t go very far utilising these marketing channels if what you’re producing isn’t good. We learned that one really good track was enough to cripple our clients download servers, blast him with thousands of links and produce a 64% increase in social followers within a week. His record label was more than thrilled with the interest and didn’t mind the excess server bill we caused them.

Build Social Followers & Links While People Listen:

The main goal is to be heard and seen and luckily for you, this isn’t so hard in a social world. There are a boatload of amazing websites that you can actively promote your music and not have to worry about anything else. We’ll take a look at the top few we had a huge success with specifically with this client. These sites are not to be slacked on and will forever push new listeners your way.

Soundcloud.com – I’m sure most of you have been to this site by now, especially those into the electronic music. It’s one amazing platform that allows fans to get music either streaming on their site, or instant download for listening on the go. Their platform is great for promoting your music, especially because you’ll be using their bandwidth. The second best part is you can nab some links to your homepage and other social channels you’re wanting to promote. Since I used a picture of Avicii above, we’ll take his SoundCloud profile as a great example.

The social community at SoundCloud is alive and well. There are also tons of groups on Sound Cloud so make sure you’re in there promoting your tunes. On top of that, you can promote your tour dates quite nicely and we all know that’s where the money is for artists these days. This social music site, in my awesome opinion, is the creme de la creme in music industry.

——————

Last.FM – This is another music social site no band can ignore for promotion, and the links aren’t even close to the best thing about it. I’m a daily user of the site and it has lead me to discover countless artists based off of the ones I love. Last.FM is the total package and provides information on your tour dates, blog entries, fans, ringtones, groups, events and news.

Of course, Last.FM provides links to all your important social profiles and your homepage so you can’t forget to funnel the Last.FM traffic about your social profiles and let the search engines know where you are on the website. How often do you find yourself checking out an artist then following them on Twitter and Facebook? I do for all my favorite artists when I come across their profile on here. Last.FM also does a really great job at marketing the artist in all the areas I mentioned above… I mean, just check out the 360 degree promotion going on here;

————————-

Resident Advisor – While this site is strictly for electronic artists, it’s another great example of an authority niche site you’d want to be linked and mentioned on. This site has been around the longest and provides a wicked cool profile like the other sites mentioned above. It may not be as pretty, but if you’re a DJ, then you know you’ve made it when you have a profile here. Avicii of course has made it so, once again, I can use him as an example for my post here.

———————————–

Discogs – This is definitely on the top 5 must be listed on music sites out there as they help you build your brand, get fans and sell your music! It was also on my target list for a great place to get a link to the client’s homepage and his major social profiles. Our client also saw a pretty hefty jump in music sales from Discogs which is really the end goal here. Most of all the other sites listed above allow the artist to sell as well, but Discogs was quick to show results.

——————————————————-

The buck doesn’t stop there either! There are tons of niche social music sites out there that are worth checking out. You folks know how to use Google(or Bing/Yahoo), so put it to work for you and discover what else exists. For general band branding you’ll be left in the dust if you don’t get your chords wrapped around these musical powerhouses;

Google Music
iTunes
Spotify
PitchFork
Billboard.com
Song Kick
Tune Wiki

Interviews, Radio & Podcasts

Over the 6 months we were marketing this Dubstep artist, one of the main goals was to get some air time. Being a decently well-known artist in the genre, we had an easy time locking down a whole host of juicy publicity. We managed to score the artist all of the above during the 6 months and it made a huge impact on the overall visibility of the music/artist.

Getting our client the gigs was very much the same as link begging, and it even required some of that to boot! The first step we took was to get either an interview or guest mix spot on a related podcast, and there’s a lot of options out there. The best part of this marketing avenue is that it all came with links, brand buzz and a new connection made in the digital music space. Let’s take a look at some of the best places to start to track down podcasts worth building a connection with. Even if you don’t get a guest mix opportunity or an interview, you can still submit your tracks in hopes of getting some air time and a mention.

Dubstep isn’t the most well know genre of music, but it certainly has been the talk of the internet generation in the past few years. We certainly didn’t have a shortage of podcasts to attack in this genre, and as you can see, the results were staggering. We only netted half a dozen guest mixes and interviews in the time we had, but we’ve been asked to proceed down this path again in the new year. Check out the results for dubstep, and just imagine the opportunities for say hip-hop or country music.

Podomatic – This is the go to place to find a whole host of awesome podcasts in all different genres. These podcasts are done for the love of the music and almost every DJ we contacted was more than thrilled to be involved. And why not? Everyone wins in this situation and the two 90 minute long guest mixes each reached over 50,000 downloads!

Podfeed – This is another podcast directory that has been around a long time and will quickly get you what you need.

The best podcasts these days seem to be on their own domain, building their own brand. In my client’s case, Dubstep.FM was the golden egg. A little social networking and getting in touch provided us with some air time of some tunes and an interview. Since our client had a repertoire and a bit of a reputation, it was a match made in bass heaven. Also remember that you can get links and other important information dropped into the podcast episodes information… it’s basically a blog post so don’t forget!

Radio & Industry Connections

We found it wasn’t too hard to get coverage in the media, especially when our clients EP dropped. Most of the coverage came after the tracks were released onto related blogs, but it never hurts to alert the right journalists. There’s no secret in doing this, it just takes some hard work or hiring the right PR firm to utilize their connections. I recommend doing the following;

– make relationships on Twitter with journalists
– utilize services like HARO(Help a Reporter Out)
– put out a press release for tour announcements and releases
– Use the huge reach the folks at http://getinpr.com/

Blogs, Forums & Lyric Sites

I’ll tell you this now, marketing via blogs and forums in the music industry is a blast. Since you have amazing content to share, you’re welcomed almost everywhere you go! If you’re well known, then the music world is your oyster. There are tons of blogs and forums for every music genre and it’s one amazing way to get exposure. Usually people associate the word spam with forum marketing; I like to refer to it as being a part of your community. We’re not here to drop links and disappear, let the world know who you are on the forum and make friends.

Music Blogs – I’d definitely take advantage of Jason’s information posted on link prospecting with SEOQuake in this area of link sniffing. In our case, there were hundreds of high quality dubstep blogs and we took it a step further to the ones that accepted tracks. One good blog can result in insane amounts of listens and downloads, but most importantly, social shares. A few of the posted tracks spread like wildfire throughout forums as well, which was a nice bonus.

Music Forums – I recommend not outsourcing any form of forum participation, but instead go on as the artist. There’s no need to try and be sneaky just for a link or two – that’s not the point of being on a related forum either. Most, if not all, forums related around a genre will have a section for artists to “pimp their track” to the masses, so there ya go. One of the biggest dubstep forums has a few areas for artists to promote and get feedback, no spam needed!

Lyric Sites – These sites are a dime a dozen and some of them provide nice bio’s with link opportunities. Since dubstep is mostly WOMP WOMP WOMP and wobble wobble we could not really make use, but keep these sites in mind if your music does in fact make use of words.

Event & Tour Sites

Almost any established band/DJ is going to be touring at one point, even if its restricted to only your city. This is where people start out and it can be a great asset to your online marketing aspirations as well.
There are almost too many event sites out there, so taking the time to see who syndicates what and who has the most traffic is key here.

If you’re in a bigger city, you’re more than likely to find a whole bunch of local sites ready and willing to take your event. You had better make sure that your website has a tour/event data feed of sorts because websites/APIs/scrapers will come for it eventually. We had a huge increase on our clients tour RSS feed after 6 months of hitting the digital streets.

I’d most definitely recommend out sourcing this work mainly because you shouldn’t be focusing on this. But if you’re into the whole guerrilla marketing thing, getting out and submitting your gig is the way to go. Let your friends do all the Facebooking and Tweeting, but make sure your event is getting some exposure.

Social Event Sites – There are dozen of event sites out there in the social realm and I tend to stick to Yahoo Upcoming, Going.com and Eventful for reach. There are tons more you can hunt down as well from the links I’ve posted in this section, so don’t forget to try them all out. You’ll find different ones have amazing partners and syndication, so you never know how far the word will spread.

Local Event Sites – For the extra exposure in your city make sure to use Google to sniff out the many options that await you. Let’s say you lived in Chicago and wanted to submit your event…. what kind of options are out there that are ripe for the picking?


There turned out to be a lot of options going back 10 pages deep in the SERPs! Of course not every option is going to be a match, but there was definitely a lot of local event marketing options just waiting for your content. Any major city is going to be the same and even smaller cities are going to have a couple of opportunities. The one thing I kept finding was opportunities to get links from local newspaper sites, which is always a nice bonus. A lot of local blogs also seemed to have an events section, or were more than willing to write about it if it fit their user base.

Viral Marketing Opportunities

This was best aspect of the 6 month campaign we had the pleasure of doing! Dubstep is pretty hot right now and the viral marketing tactics were a breeze. I’ll talk about a couple of areas we explored that netted our client many millions of video views and sent a hunger through the community for his tracks. If I had to choose from one tactic to stick to, this would have been it without a doubt. The key to success here was of course relationship building and having some damn amazing music to work with. To kick this section off let’s use this video as a perfect example. Sadly this was not my client but you get the idea.

The result? 18 million views and a few reuploads with more millions of views to boot. Both the dancer Marquese Scott and the producer Butch Clancy propelled their careers big time here. They managed to reach our to a lot of new people and the result was nothing less than stellar. The dancer is incredible and the remixed song to dubstep isn’t so bad either.

So what lessons are to be learned from this?

Collaboration! There are so many ways dubstep artists (and other producers/artists) are getting mad exposure from doing something fun and unique with other people. I’ve also mentioned numerous times that your tunes have to be tight, and if they are you’ll have no problem with viral exposure. We explored a few options within our 6 month campaign and only began to scratch the surface of what is possible.

Remixes Are Key – I don’t really have to say much here other than be one of the first artists to remix a pop song that’s trending hard. Keeping on top of this will bring you millions of song listens and downloads. For those who frequent Youtube and dubstep forums for tracks, how often are you listening to remixes? I know I do on a weekly basis and I’m sharing them when they’re hot. Take a look on Youtube to see what’s been done and what worked for other artists.

Be Apart Of The Bass Community – I already mentioned the forums and blogs out there, but don’t forget to come join us on Reddit.com/r/Dubstep and also for the hipsters, Reddit.com/r/Realdubstep. There are tens of thousands of fans here that are well connected and can help launch your career to the next level. This is the beauty of social media! If you’re bringing the goods, you’ll be welcome with open arms from the community at large… you’ll have my upvote!

Random Video Marketing – While this aspect can only come from putting your tunes out there in the wild. When we had a new track out from the client we made sure to fire it off via email, Youtube shares and Twitter to video producers that we had our eyes on. It eventually paid off and a few tracks were used in a few productions which lead to a contact for a commercial.

 

Others Avenues Of Social Sharing – After getting the video marketing aspect out of the way we found a few other interesting areas to explore. We gave away tracks to ringtone and royalty free music websites. It’s perhaps not the most explosive marketing opportunity, but you never know where it will lead. I’m all for more branding and exposure so it might be worth looking at. Sadly I don’t have much in the way of ROI so I’ll let you experiment on your own.

Resources & Your Thoughts

I always close my posts asking to hear from people who’ve had experience to help us learn from your expertise. There are so many online marketing avenues to pursue when it comes to music, so let’s hear what has worked well for you. I hope we hear from more artists to get us to help with their marketing, so don’t be scared to get in touch.

Reputation Management Case And Lesson Learned

Comments Off on Reputation Management Case And Lesson Learned
November 28  |  Reputation Management  |   Ryan Clark

I was browsing the SEO section of Reddit today and came across a really interesting, and real world example of why you’ll eventually need reputation management. There are a lot of ways of going about it, but when it comes to out ranking some solid SERPs, you’re going to need some solid links. This case as rather interesting and more personal than corporate, but the results will drastically effect this person’s credibility if searched for. Imagine your future employer finding out something you’d never want them to see…it’s not a fun situation and by the sounds of it this guys is going to have some work cut out for him.

The problem is that a close friend of mine had an incident a couple of years ago. He went through a real nasty divorce which went through court and it really took it’s toll on him. One time during the court hearings he failed to show up and the judge convicted him on contempt of court. So he got arrested and was brought to the hearing. A mugshot was taken.

Now a couple of years ago the state he resides in made all arrest records public and websites like mugshot.com started to sprout. Now when you google his name the mugshot is usually the #1 or #2 link.

I do realize he made a mistake by not showing up, but that’s a different story. I have tried everything I can think of to try and make websites/profiles/blogs with his name but the mugshot site is always on Page 1 on Google. Other search engines (Yahoo and sometimes Bing) aren’t a problem, they show his mugshot profile on page 2-3.

You can ask the website to remove the mugshot but it’s really expensive because the site basically charges lawyer fees for it. Do you guys have any ideas or is this a lost fight? What I’m trying to accomplish is to move the mugshot website to maybe page 2-3 on Google.

Not a happy place! See original thread here.

The options for removal are up to you, and you can pay to have it removed from Mugshots.com. It’s a really dirty business in my opinion but all is fair in business and war. The OP got a handful of advice, some solid and some questionable so you really have to be careful in how you proceed in a situation like this. If you’re in a bind, then just paying to have something like this removed is worth the effort. For the rest of us, a little link building and leveraging authoritative social networks should do the trick.

We had a similar situation with a CEO of a company needing to get a certain results pushed off the first couple of pages in Google. For us, we utilised his personal blog, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Scribd, Youtube, Pinterest and other sites to build a strong network of profiles. In a case like with Mugshots.com, they have a weak link profile so it shouldn’t take too much work to over run it. Take note of what social platforms are ranking well and make good use of them. Properly done profiles will go a long way, and interlink where you can to juice the others you’re building up. Make sure each profile has a lot of unique content…I cannot stress this enough.

What tips do our readers have for the rest of us, I want to hear below!

Tagged

My Trip To #SanDiego

2 Comments
November 24  |  News  |   Ryan Clark

I had the pleasure of going down to the beautiful city of San Diego to meet with a good friend of mine and now business associate. I tend to do a lot of on-site work around the world and was pleased when I got the call to get yanked down to the best state in America. I snapped a bunch of pictures for everyone here just in case you wanted to get a little more personal with me and our brand. I wish I had more than four days to lounge around, take in some more sun and a bite out of the local food scene.

I was a young lad the first time I visited this great city and it has changed quite a bit (for the good). The weather was much better than what we get up here in British Columbia this time of year – and I even had some rain. How else could you make a Vancouverite feel more welcome than sending some rain my way? My new venture will be bringing me out there quite a bit so do get in touch if you ever want to grab a beer and some grub!


Photo: Heading off from YVR


Photo: Settled in first class, gotta love it!


Photo: Lobby for the Grand Hyatt Manchester


Photo: Great view from my room @ the Hyatt


Photo: Shot of the hotel towers from the San Diego harbour


Photo: WW2 memorial in the harbour


Photo: Aircraft Carrier just outside The Hyatt in the harbour..massive!


Photo:My travel ritual…always get a double Glenlivet on the rocks!


Photo:Delicious meal from the fine folks at The Burger Lounge


Photo: Best American beer I’ve had to date from Mission Brewery

Tagged

Google Sends Warning For Article Marketing

6 Comments
November 24  |  Link Building  |   Ryan Clark

Are you link building via article marketing for your main source of links? You might not be as safe as you think. While I’m aware I’m spouting and promoting fear a little bit here, I do have my ear to the ground when it comes to this topic. Clearly the majority of companies out there are pumping out ultra low quality content. That’s not the only problem though, everyone is also gaming anchor text and that’s what Google hates…a lot.

I like the fact that Google would discourage this because too many sites are way too shitty to deserve a top ranking spot. Google’s guidelines when it comes to links makes it pretty clear that link schemes are going to cause you trouble, and most article marketing falls under their definition.

You might remember the violation emails Google sent out regarding unnatural links detected pointing to a site. While it’s a very rare occurrence, the possibility is a reality and something you’ll see pop up in Google’s webmaster help central. I just came back from a trip and while catching up on the latest posts on my trip, I discovered this instance that caught my eye.

Meanwhile I submitted a reconsideration request for my other sites that had the same -50 filter, some which had zero inorganic links. In the E-mail I received I was told that I needed to remove any “inorganic links” that I could and if I couldn’t remove them I needed to create a list of the links I couldn’t remove.

It’s important to keep in mind that this person is most likely running a bunch of thin affiliate sites and they were also doing user profile spam. A lot of people think that links can never have a negative effect on your rankings, but those people haven’t been around long enough. Even the link schemes definition from Google clearly states that “This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results“. That alone should end the debate.

If the post is true, it’s still a rare case and, in my ninja opinion, pretty difficult to get in trouble with links. Pretty much every top niche is dominated by unethical link building practices and it has been that way for the last decade. We, of course, do a lot of high quality content marketing and I’m not claiming to be pure by any means, just be careful out there. That statement is also for those companies who are just blind hiring an SEO to get mass links.

Tagged , ,

Interactive Infographics: The Future of Advanced Link Baiting?

5 Comments
November 21  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Elijah Vieau

Link Bait TechniquesIn the web space, infographics are still one of the best and most cost-effective marketing strategies to build hundreds, even thousands of links to your website. It’s actually quite amazing how viral a well-designed piece of information can become – especially on platforms like Twitter.

Over the last 12 months or so, I’ve watched web agencies (particularly small to mid-sized firms) explode into the industry spotlight all because of a clever infographic that was shared and reposted by the right kind of people i.e. information design junkies like Mashable.

Obviously, nothing stays “bling bling” forever and exploitation will eventually become the demise of this link building buzz tactic. So in the tradition of pushing boundaries combined with absolute curiosity, I find myself wondering what’s next. Then it came to me:

Infographics as we currently know them are static, just like the web used to be. Naturally this means it’s only a matter of time before designers and savvy marketers start to move towards newer technologies to further enhance the viral potential and “linkability”.

Interactive infographics… That’s insane… Or is it?

Enter HTML5 and CSS3

Don’t start panicking; I’m not going to write a guest post on Linkbuildr.com about web design best practices because that wouldn’t be very relevant, but as an Internet marketer and avid blogger, if there’s a new way to spread content that users go bonkers for  – I need to know about it.

HTML5 InfographicsAfter a few searches on Google I didn’t find much, and then I stumbled upon a very short but descriptive “challenge” of sorts posted by Mozilla developer and overall cool dude, Paul Rouget, where he asked his blog audience to design an infographic using HTML5 and CSS3.

This is exactly what I’m talking about!

Though there were only about 9 direct responses to his challenge via the blog post, I could already see the potential.

Just imagine how many more people would want to share awesome infographics if they were animated and interactive! The link building possibilities would be staggering.

Enter Live Data Feeds

Companies are fetching live data and using it all over the web, so why not take things a step further and fuse this functionality into traditional information design and create an attractive, viral piece of info-driven content where the data changes as time goes by. Not only would the content be highly engaging and attractive (thanks to HTML5 and CSS3) but it will also be up to date – constantly.

I know you’re probably thinking I’m insane, and the fact of the matter is that I wouldn’t even know where to begin to create my own Interactive Infographic, but from a marketer’s prospective more user engagement means more sharing – and this is what excites me.

What do you think? Too far off the edge or crazy linking potential?

Tagged , , ,

Only The Links Google Trusts Count x Matt Cutts

13 Comments
November 13  |  Link Building  |   Ryan Clark

At Pubcon this week Matt Cutts said something pretty interesting about links and it’s a perfect topic for us to sit and think on here. A lot of people are doing different things when it comes to building links, and it is usually dependant on what they know or their industry. One thing’s for sure, a lot of folks are blasting thousands of links with spam tools because it’s TOO easy. One thing’s for sure, the way Google views links needs a shaking up and I’m a big believer that it’s a coming.

Q. Everyone says I need more links. How do links improve the quality of the site? I don’t want to play this game and I don’t want to do this.

A: What matters is bottom line. Links are a part of search – they represent online reputation. Although there are many tools that report links, none of the tools can tell you which links are trusted by Google (not even Google’s tools). While the link structure looks bad from the outside, the actual linkgraph that Google uses/trusts looks much better. When the New York Times complained about a site with 10,000 spammy links, Google investigated the site and not a single link had slipped through Google’s filter. Only the links Google trusts count.

Now a lot of webmasters and marketers are going to scratch their heads at that last thing mentioned by Mr Cutts. I certainly did because the SERPs do not reflect this statement at all and it doesn’t take long or much effort to disprove it either. I don’t know if toxic links + a sound website make a difference, but my first search query gave me the results I needed for this post.

A quick search for “bad credit loan quotes” from my end brought me the first ten results, and the first one’s link profile was just what I suspected. Not only that, but the page ranking has 0 unique content on it and it’s basically just a push into their affiliate program. While my query is looking for a “quote”, I’d still be more comfortable from a big brand or more reputable site.

The entire site has low quality content that’s only made for the search engines and it’s basically a thin affiliate site. I hate to use Alexa but since April the site has done nothing but grow, and with a site that should have been swept up in one of the Panda updates it should have been knocked down. So we of course have to suspect the links are artificially boosting this site for now? Ranking for all sorts of loan keywords is going to take a lot of links because it’s one of the most competitive niches online. As I suspected this is what their profile looks like;

No surprise there eh? The only way a low quality site can rank so well is anchor text abuse and this is Google’s biggest flaw in their algorithm. I should mention that this will most likely not keep them ranking high forever, but it’ll be long enough for them to make some serious bank. In some of the niches we work for clients in, we have seen these types of links holding up for years now so I’m not sure what to expect any more.

So what type of links are driving the great results for this site? Well, as suspected again, they’re a mix of junk directories, site-wide paid links, blog comment and forum profile spam. But I thought we’re supposed to build great content and the links and rankings will follow? For the most part, that’s been nothing but bullhooey and I see low quality links outdoing great sites at every turn.

You’d think Google would be better at filtering out links aimed at gaming their algorithm. The offending sites top links all come from sites with junk like this;

That’s all I really have to say. To see for yourself just do any semi competitive search query and you’ll find the top 10 results riddled with this problem.

Tagged , ,