Avoid Search Engine Penalties
Over the years I have had an entourage of Spies who really aren’t that subtle about watching what I do (Statcounter is great for spying on the spies) 
In truth I have always encouraged people to pay attention to what I do rather than just what I say and a large group of friends have done just that. In part I can’t always speak about everything openly (G gets persnickety about some things) and in part because I really don’t want to give the malicious saboteurs any ideas or ammo. Having said that I want to clear up a few things now that I have re-entered the MMO sewer as my old friend Splork likes to call it. (Quite an apt description I think.)
Before going any further I’d like you to read a couple of comments that Lorecee and Red left on my last post and then I’ll throw in my reply to them.
RED
Grizz, or anyone else that may know…I’m going to test this out soon, but what does everyone think about getting a strong link to be indexed with from the beginning. Is there a better effect or no effect at all by getting a few links and then a strong one, or having your strong one be your first link to get indexed? Anyone test weather G throws more weight in one way or another? My plan was to build “normal links” and then a month later or so then throw in one that will have considerable weight. I was just curious if anyone knew anything about that. I think I remember reading somewhere(possible MMFB) that its good to get a strong link first, but now that things are changing I might want to go as natural as possible. I think I answered my own question, but if anyone else has any input, it would be greatly appreciated. I love theories on this stuff. They are addicting in their own right.
Lorecee
I think I can help Red with his question:
“I’m going to test this out soon, but what does everyone think about getting a strong link to be indexed with from the beginning.”
I’ve been watching the construction process of Griz’s other two MMO blogs. The cardinal rule of bear watching is “watch what he does more than what he says.” Of course you need to remember that that some things he does may be tests, as in don’t try this at home or you might blow something up.
I’ve been wrong before (or so my BF tells me), but it would be just like Griz to model the construction of a new site from the ground up for those who care to pay attention. True or not, he’s sure got mine.
Glad to see you back, Griz. –Lorecee
RED
I’ve actually been watching what Griz has been doing with internetmarketinglessons.ca. It appears to be heavily bookmarked(scuttle plus) on individual posts. I don’t know if this is Grizz’s doing, or if someone just decided to help him out. I also noticed they are on bookmarking sites that are indexed in G and some have pr2′s or higher on their index page. The anchor text looks to be a mixture of heavily targeted and general related terms. I also noticed not just anyone can register on these bookmarking sites. So either, Grizz owns them or a buddy of his does. Or the third option. I once came across a “service” that allowed you access to a number of scuttle plus sites(with PR) for a fee. I’m not trying to blow the lid off anything your doing Grizz, so if you want to edit my post I understand. That being said I think all of the above is common knowledge with the folks that do this IM stuff. It also looks like he is trying to relate the words “Grizzly” and “Brears” with having to do with Internet Marketing and SEO. I’m not an expert on G, but I assume if it finds Grizzly and Brears on pages related to that stuff, it will start to equate those words with having to do with the niche. How many other people will choose those words for their IM or SEO site? Most likely only Grizzly. I guess it helps with branding. Just a theory, though. It may not work like that at all. By the way Grizz, which site should we watch most. Internetmarketinglessons.ca, Grizzlybrears.com, or this one? I’ve already picked the .ca to closely watch. Am I in the right ballpark er.. golf course?
Red,
Believe it or not – I haven’t built a single link anywhere for any of the three sites you mentioned. In fact, this may surprise most of you – I don’t link build anymore and haven’t in ages – yes I do acquire relevant links from appropriate sites but not for G’s benefit and not in any way that falls afoul of G’s guidelines. (I will talk about this in due course on the IM Lessons site.) The IM.ca site has ranked page 1, position 3 on the Canadian data center for over a month now and page 7 on the US DC. If you are finding links to them then others have been bookmarking – would you believe I have never bookmarked any site – ever.
I have simply created what I consider properly SEO’d on site pages and then wait as the SE’s sort them out. So far they have been indexed quickly (without links) and ranked where they are without experiencing the G dance.
For those watching – the IM.ca site has only two posts. The GB site has 40ish put up rather quickly and then I stopped completely. In both cases G and the other SE’s treated the sites exactly the same – quick indexing and ranking without the usual dancing around.
Why?
Because I don’t manipulate them in any way shape or form. Or to put it another way they mimic a natural progression because they are in fact natural.
Over the past year I have seen this happen over and over again with all the business sites I have built for my clients. No this will not get you to position 1 but that can wait.
My goal with every new site I build is to avoid penalties and gain trust. The easiest way to do this is not to do anything other than introduce optimized content – either slowly or rapidly – makes no difference, just don’t build links. Be patient. Concentrate on optimized long tail related Posts/Pages and the SE’s will send traffic. More content = more long tail traffic. More traffic and surprise, surprise – real links will start to appear on their own or by legit means instigated by you and acceptable by G – in fact G is more than happy to give you a link themselves. (Surely some of you have learned how this is done by now?) If this sounds like just what G is looking for… it is. And it works – at least for legit sites in business niches. I’m just seeing if it will work in the cesspool niche we call IM/MMO.
You know how G has always stated that we should just provide good content and the rest will take care of itself? Well the Algo is actually capable of doing that in the mostly uncompetitive niches these days – I’m interested in seeing the results in a competitive niche. Most (read “all”) of the competition manipulates their rankings and while they may achieve results for a while I believe they will all shoot themselves in the foot sooner or later through penalties. In the end the non manipulated sites should rise to the top for no reason other than they aren’t penalized – it may take a while but once there they will never falter. As I said this has worked well in the not so competitive business niches so I am testing it in this niche now. I have some reservations though – this niche attracts saboteurs and an endless stream of new competition which I don’t see in the Aviation SMS niche or the Shrink Wrap niche or the Timbuktu Equipment Rental niche etc.
So that’s about it for those watching and wondering what I’m doing with these MMO sites. I am simply allowing G to do what it says it can do – weed out quality from the morass of sewage in this niche. Btw – I have no designs on any particular keywords – not interested. I just want to see if these sites acquire trust as quite frankly none of the sites in MMO have it in any meaningful way.
On a side note I linked to a clients site above – shrink wrap – so you can see just how quickly a site can rank without any manipulation in a local niche with moderate competition. Keep in mind that the business is located in Winnipeg and the owners only need to rank well for people searching for their product in Winnipeg. The site was built near the end of Oct. 2010 and within days it was sitting in 3rd position with nothing more than a link from G and a link from a relevant business directory.
Click to Enlarge
And how will this help you make money online?
Well I intend to drag you all out of the sewage niches and put your knowledge to work providing services to people who could use your help and are willing to pay you for it. There is a huge market out there for people with the skills you’ve acquired and you will be surprised at how little competition there really is.
More to come…
Griz
Grizzly,
The direction you are taking is soooo encouraging (I know I have said this before) but it’s such a relief to hear something like this from a seasoned marketer “in this niche”.
I say that because I have rarely or deliberately canvassed, bought, begged for, or built links in my thirteen years.
Even now with so much supporting data, I just can’t get my head around forceably acquiring links when I have seen, first hand, the benefits of quality content, and how it attracts natural links and lands better rankings, without raising flags.
My position, when being paid by others, has always been… invest in great content for that is a bigger, better asset than link building (which can disappear or get you in trouble).
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe links are important, I just think time is better spent creating rich content that pulls in the “right’ links (just as you enforce in this post).
I will say though, it is a harder sell when offering web marketing services because content (in my experience) can (not always) take longer to improve rankings than most people want to wait. That said, most reasonable business people can be persuaded to understand good things don’t happen over night.
And to be honest, if someone is in a real hurry, I think PPC is safer and quicker.
When do you anticipate the first lesson hitting the new blog… just curious?
Regards,
Ross
Ross,
There is no doubt that links are still important but I want to get people out of the link spam approach as things have changed with the SE’s and quite frankly there are perfectly legitimate links available that won’t come back to bite you in the ass. If you have been working for clients then I know you know what I mean.
The biggest hurdle people face is the desire to make money “now” and patience is throw out the window. This inevitably leads to sloppy work (link building) and temporary results. The best thing that happened to me was forgetting about all the sites I built years ago while I played around with what turned out to be the short term “grab the cash and move on” sites. Because I left the old sites alone I didn’t screw them up and today they reign supreme and basically got there on their own. 5 – 8 years was not too long to wait given the income they produce today and likely will produce for my kids long after I am gone.
I do use PPC and buy direct ads for clients (and for my own sites) when appropriate and when justified but most understand that their businesses are long term and take time to become successful so they have no trouble understanding that search traffic will take time as well. Unfortunately the blogging/mmo niche has flogged the get rich quick crap for so long and so pervasively that people working online have been brainwashed into thinking results must be immediate or else they have failed.
The first lessons will start once my subject sites are finished – another few weeks at most. I’m going to be using real sites (mine and client sites – no more generic Oil filter sites lol) that I have built over the past few months for demonstration purposes. My goal is to simply show people how to make a legitimate income/career online that doesn’t involve any of the crap currently being flogged in this niche.
Really appreciate your comment Ross.
Griz,
I was wondering why you had clients and I still am. I quit my job 2 years ago (thanks to you) and I answer to no one but myself. It couldn’t be better.
Why would you (or I) get clients? Why spend time on other people’s sites when that time could be spent building assets for us?
I understand diversifying income streams and all that and I also understand some people might not be a loner like I am and actually want to get out there and make friends and get business clients.
But it still seems such a waste of time working on things for other people when you could be spending all that time on your own stuff.
Seth,
I do both and my own sites far outnumber my clients. The thing is I have found there are huge benefits to working on client sites; they pay for the testing, they have the contacts in the industry, the knowledge I lack (but soon learn) and they leave me alone. I find out which niches have traffic and what it’s looking for (for free), I get to know the contacts (which become my contacts) and then I create my own sites that compliment theirs while using my monetization models.
In the end the clients get the traffic they are looking for and I make money providing it for them while also making money from the traffic they don’t convert. I will discuss this more in the lessons and no – I do not compete with the clients.
Last but not least – they keep multiplying my business by word of mouth. I created a single site in the Aviation industry for a friend in Winnipeg and am currently putting the finishing touches on my 12th related site for a company in Kelowna BC. I spent not a dime in advertising and the business keeps growing. My income from clients nearly rivals my own network these days. I guess I’m saying – why just run your own sites when you can expand?
Thanks for the reply. I feel I am always a solid 2+ years behind you. That’s not a bad thing but I thought I had closed the gap.
Wait a minute…..how much do you charge? Are you for hire? LOL
Seth….
Noooooooo!
Since mentioning the clients I have several dozen readers requesting my services and waiting patiently for me to get back to them. Unfortunately most will be disappointed because they are looking for help in all the usual IM niches that I hate – just have to break it to them. Oh maybe I just did.
Sounds like you are practicing what those of us at TKA like to call the (edited by request). In fact, I believe he lives in Canada as well. What is up with all you Canucks becoming prolific IMers? LOL
Shaun,
I’m afraid I haven’t been by TKA for a while – please fill me in… “(Edited by Request) Method?”
(If you can publicly that is)
As for us Canucks… we have very looooong winters to get through and bashing the keyboard is a great way to while away the time while the rest of you are outside surfing or kicking “soccer” balls around.
(Edit) is a prominent member of the TKA community who has made a very good living with his website (removed by request – Griz). He originally became well known at TKA because he never builds any external links. All of his links are either internal site links or natural links, due to the quality content and authority. He also prefers targeting low-competition long tail traffic. He has become one of the most knowledgeable and helpful members of the community.
I hear you about the long winters. I live in Minnesota, so I’m no stranger to Old Man Winter.
Thanks Shaun – sounds like a man after my own heart.
Minnesota huh – will you guys win the super bowl fer chris’ sakes already. You’re the closest thing we Winnipegers have to a NFL team and you’re killin’ us!
This year has been BRUTAL for us Vikings fans. Even Mother Nature got sick of it, so she sent us two feet of snow and collapsed our stadium lol. Maybe we will finally get past the NFC Championship game when we quit hiring terrible coaches like Dennis Green and Brad Childress.
Hey Shaun, there’s a discussion going on over at TKA regarding TMI in your post above. Griz, would you be willing to do a bit of editing on Shaun’s well-intentioned but unwanted outing (including my post below?).
Maybe there is something to this global warming – Winnipeg is statistically the coldest city on Earth (there is some dinky mining town in Siberia with colder averages) and yet we have had little snow and mild temps this winter while it seems everyone from England to Orlando is cursing the weather. I have property for sale for those interested in moving…
Go Vikings Go!
Grizz is a Vikings fan? That is awesome news! I’m rooting for an outdoor stadium, watching the Vikes outdoors was an awesome experience even though they didn’t do so well that game and it was a little chilly. Maybe they’ll just cut off the top of the dome for next year or knock it down and play on the parking lot…
Hey Grizz, you mentioned not all links are bad… would you still publish content on other people’s sites (ezine, postrunner, etc?) for a link (and promotional purposes)? Would you say link exchanges when relevant and appropriate both in content and off content are okay?
Personally I have kind of decided to move more towards a one (sometimes even two) post on page and then one post off page for a link. My thinking is, this way you still get a strong link, every post will get recognized by Google (I know eventually Google will crawl your site and find them all SOME day, but not getting at least one link to each page seems to me like it would only be done by people who don’t take their website all that seriously-am I wrong?) This is rather than your site being an island, and it seems like a very efficient way to build a lot of posts and content on a lot of subjects as opposed to several quality links to each page. Not everyone has clients like you so we don’t know all of the good niches, but if a business were to get started from scratch without connections, it would have to branch out. The idea isn’t really to build rankings, but instead to cast a wide net, get the most content on multiple subjects posted, build authority on a subject and once you have a large site, check your google analytics and rankings and figure out where the traffic and clicks are coming from. Then build more content on those subjects on your site and link among your articles internally. At that point, the traffic is there and the links will come, but THEN it would actually make sense for a business to actively promote articles whether for SEO purposes or not, especially if the rankings are there (page 1 or 2 but you’re not #1). Then you can maybe send another round of links to every article after 100-200 or so posts after working on your top traffic terms for awhile. If links come before traffic, seems like a big red flag for many reasons. If they come after traffic, and they are legit links created through legit means (published on someone’s site)… Links are needed, but don’t force the issue, treat this like a business and you will get recognized… I hope
In the back of my mind I worry that you’re saying the standard party line to appease google, or even that you’re Matt Cutts claiming to be Grizz and he’s hostage somewhere! lol.
I probably should just get 3 sites. One where I do exactly what I am doing. 1 where I build 1 post and a ton of links (legit). 1 where I build only content and only internal links that share a common keyword. That probably would at least give me peace of mind, and the ability to shift my methods, but I’m too stubborn about finishing all the tasks I have set up to work on first. One of these days I will figure it out! In the meantime I might as well do my best to build a site that is going to be something that Google is going to be proud to have listed #1.
Mike,
Whew… lots of questions so forgive me if I miss the particulars and just say this about links. Forget about G for a minute and think in terms of promotion/traffic sources. This is easy to do when promoting a site that deals with a particular business but a little foggy when it comes to affiliate marketing niches.
I have a client that repairs Aircraft. I am not trying to get him ranked number 1 in G – I am trying to find him customers. To do this I approach his suppliers and ask them to add his site to their site – in fact I have my client write a small blurb endorsing their products and have the supplier post it on their site. This is good for both parties and the link may or may not help his rankings but that isn’t the purpose of it. The purpose is strictly promotional between one related business and another.
I then search out related industry directories/magazines/government regulatory agencies etc and place a listing for his business on those sites or buy advertising or work out a contra agreement where possible. Again this has nothing to do with G – I am simply finding sites that have the type of traffic that are interested in the product my client offers. If I do my job properly I will generate targeted traffic for him without G ever sending a single visitor. The truth of the matter is that when you build links in this way G ends up ranking you well but this is a byproduct of good marketing – not the goal.
Now if you can take the same concept and apply it to selling weight loss pills online then you won’t have to worry about G and will in time dominate that niche in the rankings as well. The thing is – are you really promoting your business using postrunner or BMD? Try advertising on weightwatchers and see the difference – even no-followed. Try and think in terms of promotion (good links) as compared to manipulation (bad links). Yes bad links may boost your rank for a while especially when every one in the niche is doing it but I guarantee you that the people with the budget and patience that stick to promotional links/ads on relevant and complimentary sites will eventually take over the market if they haven’t already. And they will never be penalized.
I haven’t mentioned content in these examples because the content for an aircraft repair site isn’t going to be something that generates much in the way of backlinks – the companies goodwill will however. He has lots of happy customers (airlines he has worked for). Like suppliers – I contact customers and ask for recommendations on their sites. Again – this is promotional.
That in a nutshell is a very rudimentary system for promoting a business online that just happens to also meet with G’s approval and this may surprise you – you will rank well with very few links. Unlike the IM niche where you need a constant supply of links (hundreds, thousands) I have found that business sites can dominate with a few dozen or less. The reason? Every link is relevant and comes from a trusted site. Two HUGE factors in how G ranks sites.
How you achieve this with non business sites is up to you but the closer you can come to following the model I just laid out the more successful you will be. As for following the standard party line to appease G – not at all. I simply do what ever is most likely going to bring traffic to my clients without using G at all. The irony is that it just happens to meet with G’s approval because G’s algo is based on best marketing practices. G is simply rewarding those who market their products properly. They have just gotten a lot better at recognizing proper marketing techniques and ignoring poor marketing techniques.
Grizz, that’s probably the most helpful thing I’ve read in a long time. that makes a lot of sense I will have to put some thought into it. I am following TKA at the moment, my biz and many other TKAers is information publishing. I allow others to post so I guess someone with SEO software might advertise my sites home page, but individually there would have to be promotional efforts for individual posts and identify ways to promote articles to the right readers. Makes it a bit more challenging but I suppose that is why it works with everyone trying to find the magic pill one size fits all method… TKA is about having general article directory sites. So if I understand right I should ask, “who benefits from this content and where can I get that traffic? So for readers in general…Magazine companies? News sites? directories? And for each post I need niche specific content… For publishers and writers I can look at forums and clubs where people love to write, and also certain publications. Would have to treat each category and niche within the site differently? Am I starting to understand this right?
Griz, could you either edit or delete all of our references to (Edit) please? I didn’t realize I was divulging info that wasn’t meant to be public.
Note – to my readers who wondered why I edited out a name and site in the comments. The person in question prefers to remain anonymous outside of the Keyword Academy and I can respect that. Nothing nefarious going on. – Griz
Griz,
(Edit) has a super site that he builds no links for but has people adding content everyday to produce a very nice income.
I just wanted to mention in reference to the last paragraph that I saw the same opportunity that you see and have started a new company with partners in my local area to take advantage of it. It is only going to get bigger with smart phones leading the way on the amount of searches. Launching next week with 3 sales rep, will let you know how it pans out.
Oh, and with Google and Bing announcing that they use social media (twitter) as a ranking factor, technically your new love of tweets might count as link building.
Daniel
Daniel…
First – great to hear from you!
Second – sorry for the edit.
Third – I will never have a “love” of tweets! lol I’ll use em’ but I don’t like em’.
Thanks for the update and please let me know how it pans out.
Griz, thanks for the response and for the link. My MMO site doesn’t get a lot of work from me these days for the same reasons you mention–I got sick of the sleaze–but it still steers a few people to the Keyword Academy every month, where they’re in good hands. Occasionally an SBI devotee finds me from Lissie’s epic post, mad as hell, which is good for some entertainment.
(edit) at KWA has a huge, high traffic that he doesn’t backlink to. It’s more than 10 years old, has thousands of pages of content, and has more trust than the rock of Gibralter, all from unsolicited backlinks. His motto can be summed up as build a site about something you’re interested in, but use keyword targeted posts to do it. Look in the KWA forums to see how much money he makes.
I’m looking forward to your local SEO posts. Have been feeling a bit uneasy about my current monetization models–the sky’s not falling, but nothing lasts forever in this business, and I’m looking to diversify. Thanks for continuing to teach and share.
Lorecee,
Your welcome – for what it’s worth I always like to help an old friend when I can. I have noticed (happily I might add) that most of the old gang has moved on from the Blogging/MMO sleaze and putting their talents to better use. Sounds like I need to drop by TKA – have always been reluctant as I don’t want to interfere with Court, Mark and crew.
Interesting post Grizz.
I’ve been using a similar business model for the past couple of years myself – Affiliate marketing along with seo client work and the first thing I discovered is that seo for AM and seo for clients are two very different things…
A lot of the things we do on our own sites will get a client site penalized or worse, as you mentioned, because the link velocity in some of these niches is a lot slower then what we’re accustomed to.
Anyhow after I got my first clients site penalized I started to spend a lot of time reading up on the foundations and basics of seo like information architecture and information retrieval and I started checking out search engine patents and it’s pretty amazing actually what the search engines can accomplish.
These days I almost exclusively focus on good site architecture, great content and acquiring only the highest quality links out there. I think it’s the only way forward as Google’s algorithms in particular have gotten so much better at recognizing manipulation.
Oh and one of the things I love about working for some of my larger clients is they have the budget and resources to compete in much larger and more competitive niches that you would never be able to touch on your own. Very exciting working in some of these niches and seeing how some national level companies are approaching seo and the information gleaned from the process is invaluable.
Dan,
I couldn’t agree more. I’ll mention that one of the first jobs I took was for one of the major media networks who were trying to cash in on the Tiger Woods scandal last year. One of the editors turned out to be a MMOFB reader and asked for help converting traffic (they primarily use Adsense) which was huge but was ad blind. It was the first taste I had had “playing” with 7 figure traffic and I was terrified of making a mistake – as you said, “seo for AM and seo for clients are two very different things” – it worked out well in the end but believe me I put a lot of thought into what I did and didn’t do and this was just On Site SEO – nothing to do with links.
The budget and resources were huge as you mentioned but equally so was the clout this outfit has online – didn’t matter what we posted or how often – it immediately had top billing on not just the SE’s but on every other news outlet and aggregation site as well – hundreds of thousands of hits in minutes and more backlinks than you could count. Blew my mind and made me realize just how small my reach online really is. Humbling but I want more…
How long do you think it would take to build that type of reputation? How old is the site, or doesn’t that even matter?
People always follow news — except me… A colleague at work even follows a media network here in WI and he can check traffic, weather, etc., etc., etc…
It has to be an awesome experience! And to admit fear is the least I would describe it as. Could you imagine breaking something? lol
Scott,
Well having a newspaper that has been around a hundred years or more would help. Although the HuffPo has done it and Drudge I wouldn’t want to try unless I had some really deep pockets. Of course if my pockets were that deep I’d just buy that Aircraft carrier I have mentioned and throw away my laptop.
dearest Griz
would you mind deleting the name of (Edit) site and possibly his late name. He’s mentioned on TKA a few times that he shares that info freely within tka but to not leave tka. I don’t think shaun realized.
then i’ll come back and leave a real comment
Griz,
can you please remove the mention of (edit) website from Ross’s comment. (Edit) has mentioned several times that he would like to keep his site and method private for the TKA community
Griz,
You are damm hard to keep up! I had your 2 new sites on my igoogle but then forgot to add this one. Then I come here to find 4 new posts, Arghhh!!
: )
Anyway, always nice to see you posting. Wouldn’t have made the income I have made without you lifting the veils off my eyes.
Happy a great 2011 and I look forward to you telling us how to make 100k in a month!
Aaron,
What? You don’t follow my tweets? Harrumph!
Hi Griz,
Although I’ve known exactly what you were doing from the beginning, it’s refreshing to hear you admit it.
Other than link directories, I’ve given up on generating my own backlinks. My attempts at being social brings in more than I need for most of my sites. 100% natural with no additives or preservatives.
Hey RT.
Yeah, I figured if I was going to come back then I best get people on track with what I’ve been doing – we’ve all had enough of the mmo crap.
RT and Griz:
I have both of you to thank for more things than I could possibly say in a reasonable amount of words…
I’m burnt-out on chasing through 20-30 MMO sites, trying to compete with a gazillion others. Besides, I enjoy working with clients who I can talk to, visit, and help grow in their market…
@RT: I finally finished tweaking that css.print sheet so it works… Made a coupon page to save myself a lot of grief too!
The (Edit) method is more of a “never fear, wait a year” method that focuses on on-site SEO and cranking out high quality content. Its more focused on internal linking and letting Google determine where you rank. Its identical to the stuff you’re working on right now Grizz and identical to the stuff I’m doing now. After my “hit it and quit it” sites flames out last year, I’ve started over and am focusing on building authority sites like you and (Edit). Looking forward to your lessons as I want to make sure I am doing things the right way.
Griz:
Excellent post!
Care if I make some observations about the shrink wrap site? Presuming you would have said yes (so I don’t have to wait for your response).
I will sum it up in five words
The business listing is “claimed”
There’s gold in them there hills!
I’ve got to say that your absolutely right. While I do have a site that I’m constantly trying to push up the serps, the one that I don’t really try at all is pulling 11,000+ visitors a month and I didn’t really even link build the article. I’ve gotten natural links from the overseas version of MSN.com news. Keep in mind, these anchored links weren’t really ideally targeted(the link was a sentence that wasn’t in english), but the content around them was related. Its also not a money site either. I haven’t made a dime from it and I have no idea how I could, because it’s more of an entertainment/tech article. I’m kind of hoping to let it just grow to see what happens with it. The only advice I can say to anyone out there is to use related pictures in your article. Especially if you critique things. That seems to me what helps people want to link to it(especially other webmasters that use image search). I’ve had an extremely high ranked site rip one of the graphics out to use for the main homepage image as a link to the article on their site. Do I care? Not really, I got a link in the article which outweighs anything else that I could do. Griz as always, good stuff. I was actually really confused about seeing the whole scuttle site links, I know you mentioned on the old blog about never bothering with that. I guess someone else did that on their own and is actually using a scuttle site as a ::gasp:: place for their own bookmarks and not SE links.
Sorry about all the hubbub Griz. Thanks for doing that.
Even you are having a more mild winter than us? I have a friend in Anchorage, Alaska who says the weather is more mild up there too. If I didn’t want to move out of Minnesota before, I certainly do now haha.
No problem Shaun – hope you still have some skin left on TKA. Hey, honest mistakes happen.
Lots of room here – just hang a right at Fargo.
Ok, I’m dying of curiosity. You mentioned that you can get Google to give you a link. How do you do that?
I showed you Cathy – check the screenshot in the post.
Ok so I guess this would only work for local businesses, right? You submit their site in local search?
Cathy,
Local, National or International Business – doesn’t matter. The point is to submit an address to them and have them verify you – G will text your mobile with a pin and once you respond they add you to the system. The reason this is advisable, aside from the exposure in the serps is that G regards you as legit right off the bat – no sandboxing, no dancing. And they seem to boost your rankings if you register. No proof of that – just appears that way with all the sites I’ve applied with.
Thanks for telling me that! I just assumed it was for local Brick and mortar businesses. I’m going to try this.
One more question and then I promise I’ll leave you alone.
Where do I go in google to submit the website?
Cathy and Darrell
Just go to Google Places (in which ever Google acct you have for a particular site) and follow the directions. Pretty simple and quick if you have a mobile phone – if not you will have to wait for a pin in the mail.
Hey Griz
How do you actually submit an address and what are you submitting to G to verify? Sorry, but I have not done that before. Maybe you could just lay out the steps or a link for your readers.
Thanks
Even after all the editing, regarding the TKA member who should not be mentioned (:-)) – as I type, there is still one instance of the name on this page. Do a control-F search to find it …
Liz
Thanks Liz – I think I found it a few minutes ago. If not please let me know.
Here’s what I’ve found in this area.
First of all, if people like what you’re saying, they’ll link to it. It may be their blog, social bookmarking, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, a forum or whatever else there is out there. Amazing isn’t it?
Next, if people don’t like what you’re saying, they’ll link to it, especially if they’re non-IM’ers and aren’t otherwise SEO savvy. Even the New York Times linked to the guy who was scamming and abusing customers (until somebody pointed out that this wasn’t a good thing for them to do). People who don’t like you linking to you, who would have thought that?
Another thing that happens is that people will link to your site because you rank well in Google/Yahoo/Bing (remember Asia’h Epperson). Some people equate ranking well to your site being an authority, especially if you look like one. They may link to you to serve as a reference to their argument on a forum, a resource for a blog article or even as a reference on Wikipedia or a major news site article. Who would think that happening to your “web sewer” site?
Lastly, people might link to your site because a link to one of their sites is on your site.
Hey Frank,
Yeah, DecorMyEyes.com if I remember had a lot of hate links. G claims they fixed the algo to stop that but I think that’s just PR BS. I checked and all they did was manually remove his backlinks from the index. The NYT backed G in a corner and I kind of enjoyed seeing the mother ship have to respond to criticism for a change. It also demonstrated how little the big sites (NYT) understand seo – as you said they helped the very site they were complaining about. Brilliant! lol
Your summation of link acquisition is spot on – even I have to admit I get the odd “social” link from time to time. (Ouch!)
Grizz, hope you are having a great holiday with your family!
I have been experiencing much of the same results that you have, with some of my older sites. I have just been adding better content and giving more value and Google has been improving my sites ranking naturally without me manipulating a thing. I thought that perhaps I was just finally getting a break. I find the way I am doing my sites now way more enjoyable and less stressful.
I haven’t even touched my MMO blogs cause I am not sure where I plan to go with these. Plus my other sites are making me the income I have been trying to force create on those MMO sites.
I am excited to hear about your local marketing ideas. There has been so much chatter about this stuff lately. So many people trying to make a quick buck out of selling their concepts. I felt this was just the shiny new object to dangle in front of hungry marketers. But if there is an honorable way to do this I would be interested in finding out how.
We are having a warm spell as well along the lake shore of Michigan. Can’t even get out to snowshoe are sled. But driving is surely nice.
Denise
You know my opinion on people “selling their concepts” – if its worth the virtual paper its written on then use it to make a living and don’t sell it. If they are selling it they ain’t using it and it sure won’t work for the buyer.
Local marketing is certainly not new but because of all the changes G has instituted it has become a whole lot easier to target and succeed in – especially without all the linking that used to be necessary. My intention is to lay out what I’ve been working on and let you folks decide for yourselves if it appeals to you – some will grasp it and some will stick to selling clickbank products on sewage sites but at least the option will be available and nobody will have to open a wallet.
Great having you stop in. I’m not sure I like the mild winters – bloody car is a mess. Wash it and its covered in muck by the time I get home. It stays clean at 30 below zero!
Nope! It’s still here. Search for these words “at KWA has a huge”. You’ll find the name just before it.
Liz
Liz,
Damn! Alright – it’s nuked.
Hi Griz
Good insights and something that I have already started awhile back with authority sites. Adding lots of content and not touching it for awhile. Like a fine Wine, let it age.
Like you, I had a bunch of MMO sites several years ago because that was all the rage, but I recently had zero interest in promoting them and came to the conclusion I didn’t even want to re-use them anymore. They only had a few articles but I simply let them go and didn’t pay for the registration. I have a couple left, but I really have zero interest in that particular area.
I do like IM and will do some very limited stuff. But, most of my sites are not related to IM or MMO at all. In fact, my 2011 is to reduce the number of sites I have and only focus on a handful of authority sites and continue beefing them up with excellent and keyword rich content.
At some point in more competitive niches, I do believe based on my own experience you will eventually have to get back links to rank number 1. One of the things that I do that is natural is press releases. Ya, many are no follow, but that OK because no follows are a natural part and I believe they still pass some juice onto my sites. But one press release I had one done about 2 1/2 months ago and its still showing up in approx 20k results from over 2 months ago now. So, it has some staying power and went viral. How much more natural can you get than people picking your press release up and posting it on their own sites?
Cheers and happy new years
Darrell,
Press releases are perfectly fine – as I mentioned in another comment – if its something you would do to legitimately promote your site/product/business then have at it. If its not promotional then its probably manipulative and those links can bite you in the ass eventually.
Hi Griz,
Sorry about the global warming up there. I was going to ask if I could arrange a trade of some of our Florida sunshine for some of your snow, so we can cool down our neck of the woods. But it looks like you don’t have any to spare.
I love this trend toward understanding the benefits of good content. To me, one of the greatest things about solid content (besides the fact that I don’t have to feel embarrassed by it) is that it naturally brings traffic from referring sites, in addition to from G and the other engines. As an example, I actually make a *lot* more $ from sites and blogs that refer to my HubPages hubs than I do from Google traffic. I get a significant amount of Google traffic but the referring sites produce much more income.
It may sound corny, but I also love being able to feel proud of what I’ve built. The IM cesspool wasn’t for me. For a long time I thought I just wasn’t tough enough to handle it, but maybe I just had good instincts.
Carla,
Hey, missed ya’ – so nice to hear from you!
This is the first year in ages we didn’t get to Florida over the holidays – wanted to but the kids are involved in all sorts of stuff now that we live in the civilized world and quite frankly wasn’t sure I wanted to be x-rayed and prodded at the terminal.
Did you ever sell the house?
I hear you and completely agree – its nice to be proud of your work. Aside from the MFA sites I never had a problem with my content but I’ve still given them all an overhaul. The MFA sites have been dumped outright with the exception of a few high traffic sites that I revamped for leads. If nothing else I can let my mother look at them now. lol
Nothing corny about you and we both know you always had good instincts. Enjoy your sunshine – haven’t seen much this winter. It’s only sunny when it gets cold – strange huh? It was great to hear from you Carla and I hope all is well.
Hi Griz,
Thanks for the warm reception.
No, we haven’t sold the house yet, but Dave swears we’ll be out of South Florida by June 1 — even if he has to give the house to charity! Last summer’s extended record heat was the tipping point for both of us. But we couldn’t have moved too much sooner anyway, because we were caring for Dave’s mom part-time in our house. She had Lou Gehrig’s, which isn’t a fun disease. She passed on about 10 months ago and the sale of her condo is closing next week. So at least that will be out of the way when we move.
As for life generally, I’m doing well. Thanks to you, I’ve learned to make money with my creativity. So I’m having a blast designing all kinds of things (scrapbook papers, invitations and other party printables) and making money off them. It was always my dream to create images and market them, but I had totally forgotten about that until I started blogging. Now everything has come full circle and I’m doing exactly what I want to do. The only bad thing about it is that I’m starting to sprout roots into my computer chair. I have to keep reminding myself to get up and have a life offline. LOL
I hope you and your family have a wonderful 2011. I think it’s going to be a great one!
I’ve only just come across your name as it was mentioned on the TKA webinar just now. I am interested to hear about this : “There is a huge market out there for people with the skills you’ve acquired and you will be surprised at how little competition there really is.” Where do I get to read what you have to say on this subject? Is it here or do you have a private membership site?
Liz
Hi Liz,
Nice to meet you – I have been laying low for the last year or so – I’ll let your fellow TKAers fill you in on what I used to do. I don’t have a membership site but will be outlining my current IM methods on internetmarketinglessons.ca in short order. The site is up but not ready yet – it was outed a while back by a friend (Tracey) of mine before I was ready to start the lessons. (should you drop in and think wtf?)
Btw… another Liz in IM? Oh this has to be good!
Ah – thank you for pointing out internetmarketinglessons.ca – actually I did go there. But I didn’t think “wtf” because I reserve that type of language for when I’m pissed off! I just thought this Grizzly Bear character is only human, (if furry), and hasn’t quite started it yet.
Yeah – another Liz. Heck.
Liz
I love the other Liz so you have a natural advantage already with me. Just please don’t tell me you also live upside down (Oz) and like to dance?
I’m just a reader and not a friend? Griz I’m hurt
t
Tracey… my humblest apologies – my error has been fixed. Forgive me?
Hi Griz,
I’m a huge fan, infrequent commenter and fellow cannuck. While I haven’t turned what I’ve learned from you into a high recurring income, I do credit the knowledge I gained from you for helping me transition into a much better job in the online publishing field where I get to continue to expand on what I’ve learned.
I’m glad that you’re back sharing your knowledge again. I never could stomach the endless link building end of things, and am glad that I acted out of inspiration years ago and now have a site aged well over 3 years that is pulling in better than 100 visits a day. It’s a humble accomplishment, but one that at one time seemed unreachable. I’m also on the verge of finally breaking my Adsense minimum threshold of $100 and am about $70 towards my first Amazon cheque. I feel blessed to see that my actions are beginning to bare fruit after all this time.
I’ve also been looking to helping out local clients with what I’ve learned. I think you hinted at this years ago when you suggested selling batteries for golf carts or something like that. I’ve been working with some acquaintances that have businesses and have had some minor successes but I’m not at the point where I feel comfortable charging them – not even sure what to charge yet.
Can’t wait to hear more about how you help local clients!
Hi Mike
I’m glad you dropped in – infrequent or not. Yes I posted about Golf cart batteries a few years back in relation to lead generation. That was the beginning of my shift away from IM/MMO niches into leads and what I spend my time on now – best described as business promotion. I haven’t found a standard pricing structure for clients as each niche has its own hurdles but I tend to work out a set fee for building the site (cheap) and then work up from there depending on the amount of work it takes to drive traffic. I’ll talk more about this in the lessons.
Hi Griz,
Great post! and although I’m a bit confused right now but since you have a hell lot of experiences and equipped with a five dimension brain or something (don’t know what else to call it
lol) I’ll take your advice right now.
But again as you said the reason why blinks were introduced was to use them as a way of measuring the sites that search engines crawl and index. So the more competition there is the harder it is for the search engines to evaluate (big words huh.. trying to keep up with you
) the quality of the sites.
So if you’re in a competitive sector (yikes
who said you can always write and build sites about what you liked 
right? ) the links will still have a major role to play (if I understand you correctly).
And as a final note (of course you know this but just gonna write it…. ) I also saw the .ca site of yours going up and up in the SERP’s and one thing was clear to me griz, it is not a good thing to just observe that sites’s SERP launch
and jump into conclusions.
The reason I say this is, almost all the other sites that I read (who are your followers btw) they all have given you home page Backlinks and I’m pretty sure the rest have done the same. So this has to be of the main reasons behind that SERP thingie
But in a onsite SEO perspective I’ll always follow you, but I don’t think as a newbie (talking about me here lol) it’s not a good idea to just grab ideas based upon the fact that the reason for that site’s high SERP rank is purely based upon the onsite SEO (including that “natural” backlinks).
Or maybe all I wrote above is pure rubbish since I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about
Hope you’d have few mins to answer my questions. Thanks Griz.
S-Gayan (hey can I drop my “S” from now on?? ).
Happy New Year!.
Gayan,
I haven’t checked the links for IMlessons but no doubt you are right – some readers have probably linked to it. (I haven’t set up a G alert for it as I don’t track links – don’t care) If they have then it didn’t make much difference to the sites position in the CA data center – it has been number 3 since before anyone knew about it. I didn’t check the US data center till much later and its position is likely the result of the links. Keep in mind I picked a very uncompetitive term for the URL and expected it to rank well (in Canada with the .ca TLD) with nothing more than optimized on page terms. It did. If it moves up in the US data center over time then yes it will be because of links – yes they are still very important and more so as the competition increases.
Just so there is no confusion – I’m not saying links aren’t important – they are and will continue to be until G comes up with a better measuring stick – I’m just saying that there is a safer and more productive way of obtaining links. Good content is obviously one catalyst and when that isn’t possible, stick to niche specific marketing practices.
And yes… drop the “S”
(Btw – you were in the spam folder – better talk to akismet)
Aaah got it finally ( I think
lol). Thanks Griz!.
I’ve been a member of TKA for over a year now. The stuff that Court and Mark teach really works.
Having said that, I’ve always been bothered by the technique of posting all kinds of thin articles around the net to build links. I know it works but I don’t like adding to all the useless noise on the web.
What’s going to happen to the mining of the micro-niches turned up by keyword research tools with this approach? That’s sort of the core of what many of us have been taught up until now.
Mark at TKA just hosted a webinar today that hinted at this approach. That’s where I heard that you were back in public again. Interestingly, Mark hadn’t heard about your new tack, so lots of compasses are swinging in the same direction independently of each other.
Glad you’re back in any case.
Glenn,
I don’t think the days of micro niches or mini sites or niche marketing is going away – it will just be dominated by the smart players – most likely the TKA crowd. I took a peek at the thread in the forum and the usual misconception seems to appear. I’m not saying and never have that there is only one way to do anything online. I am simply presenting an alternative method for making a living as an internet marketer. It will appeal to some and others will find that niche marketing is their cup of tea.
Ultimately there are many tact’s one can take to make a living online – if they keep up with the times and adjust their practices as the market and technologies change. One of the main reasons I stopped writing about the MMO/IM systems I discussed in the past is that TKA made it redundant and people could learn everything they needed from Mark and Court – still can for that matter. I hope the members understand that I am not saying do things my way or you’ll be sorry – hell no. It is nothing more than an alternative. If Mark and Court are dabbling with new methods then I for one am not surprised – the guys are the real deal, they know their stuff and understand that you have to keep testing and investigating other methods and systems. IM is not static.
Thanks for dropping in Glenn
It’s okay to say my name. And it’s okay to talk about my methods. What I don’t want is my methods getting back to my competitors, so don’t mention my site here, and we’re good.
Fraser… oh sure after I wore out my edit button!
slightly off topic but maybe relevant
if i do a hook up with a related trade magazine and the link it sends me is a do follow and i send it a no follow link – what is that counted as – a one way link trade win for me? or a simple standard reciprocal link with less google benefit.
Brix,
Quit thinking about G – if you find a related site that can send you targeted traffic in its own right then you win – you don’t need G. If they want you to send them traffic back then do it based on what is good for you – if you find that you get little traffic from them but are sending them a lot then probably not a good deal. If all things appear equal then it probably is a good move to trade links – do or no follow. G doesn’t enter the picture. At worst G either indexes the link or links or it doesn’t. If all your links are with related industry sites you will likely find that G has no problem with them but it won’t matter anyway as you should be producing targeted traffic without them.
Grizz, I’ve got a quick question not related to the subject of the post (if you don’t mind): do you use different c-class IPs for your sites, and does it really matters to have different c-class IPs? Just for an example, let’s assume, I have a site that is on a shared hosting, and I share IP with some trusted sites in my niche (sites are not mine), so when I get links from them, will the links’ value be diminished due to the same shared IP? I mean, probably not all the trusted sites have dedicated or c-class IPs, right? Or I’m wrong here?
Atma, I’d like to answer part of those questions. Of course, I have no idea if Griz has everything on different class-c IP addresses.
I have all of my public sites on the same class IP address — on a VPS. I also have other trusted sites on the same IP address, which don’t belong to me. When I get a link from those other trusted sites to any of my trusted sites, guess what happens? The linked posts rise in the SERPS.
This is the same thing that happens when I get links from other class-c IP addresses. As far as I can tell, the old class-c IP address trick is only good nowadays when you’re trying to hide your own network. Griz can kick me with one of his bear claws if I’m wrong.
Atma,
It’s not something you need to worry about unless you are a spammer and all or a huge portion of your backlinks are coming from the same server. Any normal site will have links coming from a wide variety of servers (sources). If you do have all your sites on one C-Class IP and have linked them all together then make sure they are relevant and that you also have a lot of links coming from elsewhere. This of course (as RT noted) hints at link networks and if you are doing this – beware. I’d rather stay clear of the topic.
Ouch, forgot to use ‘reply’ to thank RT for the comment.
Thanks for the clarification, Griz. No, I don’t do spamming nor do I have any huge networks. I just noticed that Ben, Dave and Tracey (not sure should I remove the names here?) advocate usage of reseller hosting accounts to host sites on different IPs. So I thought would it benefit my sites in terms of ranking if I move them to different IPs? I just had a doubt about that, since obviously lots of sites out there have shared IPs and do pretty well and have a trust in G’s eyes. That is where my question came from.
OMG! I completely forgot! Happy New Year to All of You!
[...] for new sites. If you're someone that does this (or are thinking about it), you should read: A Huge Tip for New Sites along with the previous two articles on that [...]
Great post Griz. I have been kicking myself for the last month, because this was the approach I wanted to take with my main site, which was starting to acquire natural links and rank easily for new posts. But against my better judgement I got a bit greedy did some link building (1-2 links per day) for it in an effort to boost a few specific posts.
I think I must have over-optimised the anchor text, and in early December was hit with what looks like a penalty, where all my ranking posts were knocked down 100-400 places for their keywords, or they disappeared from the top 1000 completely. The pages are all still indexed, but rank so poorly that I don’t get any Google search traffic at all, except for image searches. I must say I’m a bit suprised that this happened, as I was only sending a couple of in-post links per day, not bombarding the site with 1000s of profile links or anything like that.
I don’t want to give up on this site. Do you think it would be best to just keep adding content and not build any new links at all? Or might it help to send some non-optimised links (site name, ‘click here’, full urls etc) to balance things out a little?
Thanks as always.
Cat,
Yours is an all too familiar story these days. I can’t give you a definitive answer as you may or may not be able to save the site. In the past I have used penalized sites as test sites and basically gone back and eliminated the links or changed the anchors to target the brand rather than the keywords. In some cases I successfully restored ranking but many times it was to no avail. In principle an automated penalty can be fixed by eliminating the offending links – ie. if you link to a bad site you will see an immediate drop in your sites ranking – remove the bad link and your site will return to its former position within a few days.
Incoming links are another matter as G claims that such links can’t hurt you. The truth is they certainly can. If G has simply de-indexed or ignored the sites linking to you then you may see a drop in your rankings as you have lost juice – not a penalty. Continue on and as your site developes new links you should climb back up the serps.
However, if your site shows a discernibly unnatural link profile then you have probably been penalized and not the sites linking to you. You can attempt to fix this by changing your link profile so that it resembles a natural pattern.
The problem with all of this is that you may not really know why you’ve been penalized and end up compounding the problem by attempting to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place. You may think you’ve been penalized because of the incoming links when in reality you may have done something on your site – keyword stuffing, a bad link or links pointing out, too many dead links on site, re-editing old posts, changing the site architecture etc. The point is it is a long and tedious process trying to discern what the problem is.
My best advice is to start with on site changes you have made and work backwards – eventually looking at incoming links after you have eliminated all on site factors. Remember that this will be slow as you may fix the problem and not know it for quite some time as it takes a while for the algo to restore you to your former position. If you aren’t patient then chances are you will continue to fix things right up to the point that you’ve buggered things up again. Confusing? Yes. Basically make a change and wait until you are sure that it didn’t help and then make another change and wait and so on.
I’m going to be playing the guessing game here, but I think that if you change a webpage, the penalty may be timed. I’ve seen sites where I updated a page with information or changed a link around take a hit and then slowly start to climb back as the weeks go by. Keep in mind, it’s a slow process that appears to take a month or two or three. My guess is that they are waiting to see if you change it again. If you keep changing, then something is not right and you will keep taking hits. If you don’t change at all and possibly even get a few more links to the page it will rebound, but it won’t rebound instantly. I guess G may think that if you changed it and its staying, its for the reader’s benefit. If you keep fiddling with things, then you are most likely trying to see how you can benefit. That’s my guess. I have a site that is going through that process right now. It started to climb like 10 places after it took a hit of like 30 or so. Its like watching paint dry.
One more thing, a problem I have with competitors is that they will sometimes copy the text on pages that link to a site of mine. They then go out and get a few links to their copied text and then the site that originally linked to me gets hit with not showing up as relevant in G. Then I end up taking a hit in the serps because the original link either is discounted completely or is not counted as much. You can always fight this off later by just adding more links to the page linking to you, but it’s a pain. Most of the people end up being your competitors are running all kinds of automated software, the thing is that they usually don’t go back and manually look at things. They do a set and forget type deal. The fact that you are a person who has to think can help you out greatly.
Thanks Red, that’s interesting. I can only think of a couple of pages that I’ve made changes to just before my site took a hit, and they were the ‘resources’ pages that I mentioned in my other comment. I couldn’t decide if I should no-follow the links or not, so I changed my mind & edited the posts a couple of times (they’re all nofollow now). It would seem pretty harsh to slap an entire site just for that though.
As for competitors sabotaging your links – ugh, I don’t have the stomach for dealing with people like that. I don’t understand the mentality of people who want to mess things up for others, rather than just building their own business. I guess that’s one more reason why natural links are better, rather than trying to control it all ourselves.
Thanks Griz, that’s helpful. Yes, it’s frustrating not to know exactly what’s happened. I’ve been afraid to do anything really, for fear of screwing things up even more!
I think the most likely cause is the links I built (mainly postrunner links pointing to 4 or 5 pages). The reason I think this is that the page I was linking to the most dropped out of the rankings a couple of days before all the rest. So there seems to be some connection between what I was doing, and what happened.
As far as on-site factors go, I don’t think any of my pages are keyword stuffed (I never even think about kw density, beyond putting it in the title and once or twice in the body), and I haven’t made any major changes in the site structure – but I do have a few recent ‘resources’-type posts with a lot of external links. Most of these are no-followed, although I’m not sure if no-follow would protect me if I accidentally linked to a bad neighbourhood? I’d never intentionally link to a dodgy site, but sites do sometimes change for the worse, so I think it’s a bit unreasonable of Google to expect people to keep tabs on every single site they ever link out to. Still, I’ll go through & check them again.
Other than that, I think I’ll focus on just making new posts for the next few months. Unfortunately I can’t easily edit or delete the links I’ve already built, and I feel safer not building new ones right now, in case I make things worse. I suppose I could eventually try a reconsideration request as a last resort if it doesn’t come back. Luckily the site wasn’t yet a big earner, so I can afford to wait it out & see what happens (not that I have much choice). But this whole experience has made me want to learn more about other types of traffic generation, and not be at the mercy of the search engines.
I do really appreciate your answer, RT! I had a guess about that but was not sure. My question arose from the trend (old, though) on some MMO blogs about having a reseller hosting account and placing each site on a different c-class IP address. Just wanted to know about justification of this practice. Thanks again, RT!
I just read several of Splork’s articles. That man has a gift. I literally laughed out loud on several occasions. My son came running out of his room because he wanted to see what funny YouTube video I was watching. Of course, then he was all bummed out because I interrupted one of his marathon videogaming sessions.
Anyway, I will no longer be able to get “guberus” or “web sewer” or “whatever in the mist” out of my head.
RT,
Splork is a gifted writer wasted in the sewers – he has coined more phrases than anyone I know. My favorite is his description of niche/MFA sites – “Frankensites”. He should really look at a site like The Salty Droid and spend his time lambasting the crap out of the “guberus”…
A word of advise re: Google Places.
As a legitimate at home business owner who happened to change residence 5 months ago, I am experiencing great difficulty in getting my business to come back up when doing a search query in Google like Griz depicts in the illustration above. It does come up in searches on their map, but not in a general search… This really sucks! I’m not certain how long it takes them to update (According to the site they do “Places” updates every 4 days or so) but obviously there is something wrong somewhere? As such, if your planning to move in the near future it may be a good idea wait before you “register and/or claim your business in Google Places.
Today I edited the “Map” page on my site by re-loading the custom map, and I added my address info, as well as a link to my Google Places business page. Maybe this will work, maybe it won’t…
Good point Scott. One of my clients has changed locations and on a hunch I told them that we will wait before changing their listing – from experience I know G frowns on changes especially when done shortly after an initial indexing. You have confirmed my suspicions.
It’s a bummer… However, I think that another attributing problem is all of the local ads that I didn’t update. Some of those listing have the Google Places map in it as well, and I’m certain that conflicting messages to G from these resources is not a good thing…
Oh, boy. Lot’s of updates! Thank goodness for LastPass!
Good luck Scott. I couldn’t work online without “lastpass” – one of the best addons I’ve found for FF
can you make a lesson that talks about monetizing a community site such as a forum?
I could but as I have never owned a forum or monetized one I would be guessing. Perhaps you should ask Ben or maybe some of the readers have experience in this area.
Hey Grizz,
Good to see you back in the mix
I have been experiencing the same thing with several of my older sites. I just continue to put up good, relevant content and the SERP ranking improves…especially for long tail keywords.
Enjoy your mild winter. Last time I was up in Ontario they told me it was one of the warmest winters on record…because the bay hadn’t completely frozen and there was only two feet of snow on the ground! To an AZ boy like me that ain’t warm
Cheers.
Larry,
It’s definitely relative – it’s only 20 below zero today and I don’t consider it cold till it hits 30 below. Even then I don’t curtail my activities till it starts pushing 40 below. I find heat more debilitating than the cold. I was in AZ once when it hit 117 – yikes – couldn’t do a damn thing but sit in an air conditioned room at the hotel and sweat in my undies… you folks do know you’re living in the middle of a desert right?
You’re thinking about this all wrong Grizz…you have to remember it’s a dry heat
Guess I need to put my MBA in marketing to use and begin to apply real business prinicples to my online businesses…bummer.
I do think folks need to have the long game in mind when they enter this business. The key (as you have always said) is to build relevant sites with solid content. Google won’t always be on top of this industry. When they are replaced, my solidly built sites will simply end up at the top of the SERPs on the next big SE.
Hey Griz,
Like you, I have been doing some sideline online consulting for local businesses in Memphis and I have to say, when you are working with real companies who are just trying to churn out new leads and all the while stay legitimate, it really opens your eyes up to what is more real in terms of marketing and even organic search.
I kind of liken it to this- If you are a stripper, your view of the world is going to be tainted by the things you surround yourself with. So a stripper is going to have a completely different view of the world and it will likely be “weird” to regular people who don’t live in that world.
Internet marketers who surround themselves with the jargon of the MMO world live in a completely different universe than regular businesses and do things that most legitimate businesses would fire you over because they aren’t dealing with personas and aliases. We view it as a normal way to rank because of what we surround ourselves with. It isn’t. Never has been and it is really a shame that so much stuff is spoken as the law.
I personally believe that marketing online or off is all the same. While most IMers live in the shadows, creating fluff that is never meant to see the light but for some hope for that “link juice”, they are really missing the point. A link should have “value” beyond some sort of juice…it should give authority…real authority…it should push the business’ credibility…and if, at all possible, there should be real traffic or “leads” that come from it. That is an ideal perspective but one that I have really zoned in on since initially starting consulting for businesses.
This is primarily the reason (I think) why social traffic can “score” big yet the social marketing gurus still miss the point and think of it in a short term bid for whatever.
Anyway, I am glad you are going in this direction. It is refreshing and I bet a lot of this has come from being able to step away from your own sites and live in another businesses shoes for a second. It a different perspective, ain’t it?
Leo,
As always, nicely put. It’s a totally different perspective and one that I have been able to use with my sites as well – not all but certainly the niches that fall outside the typical IM sphere.
You mentioned “social marketing” and I have to say that the whole field still alludes me to some degree – I use it but only as a means of communication. What I see from others is little more than a game of faux popularity and used as a means of spam. What is the point of having 100k followers and following 100k back – and then sending out an endless stream of tweets selling (insert product) that people ignore (I assume – does this actually work?) I agree that businesses should have and pretty much need to have a social presence but they use it to keep clients/customers (who really are following because they really do have an interest) updated or informed about their products etc or to get feedback (quickly) from their users. That makes sense. The IM model that everyone else has adopted doesn’t make sense – a huge time sink on what amounts to new age spamming. I’m sure there are niches that this works in but overall it boggles my mind.
In any event thanks for your thoughts – as articulate and insightful as always.
Hi, just a quick SEO question for ya Grizz. I notice that you no longer link your latest post to the previous as you taught back in the day. Is this no longer a good idea?
Fishhound,
Inner linking or deep linking is still useful. I am not concerned with ranking this site for anything in particular – been there and done that and have no desire to do it again in this niche. This site is for the benefit of my friends and those who happen by. I’m not selling anything and don’t need the search traffic.
Who knew that a person could shrink wrap Canada? Truly stunning. My gosh, just imagine what’s involved to wrap all o’ Canada. Zowie! When they say big or small we wrap it all, they’re not kidding, are they? This totally rocks.
I’m kinda confused, tho, despite having made my way through the comments. I can’t say I really understand all things Canadian at all. Different traditions, I guess. Sigh. So here’s my question– What kind of sport exactly is Contact Wrap-All ??? (I’m thinking it’s not touch football, but maybe more like rugby? Is that right?)
Sorry if I’m slow, I do apologize in advance. So far, I gather it involves shrink wrap on a boat, and a stripper, I guess (per Leo).
And here I was thinking that the official sport of this blog was golf. Is that still true???
Jo…
Lol. The official “summer” sport of this site is Golf. As it is now “winter” we have switched to Curling! (look it up)
Quite an elegant Olympic sport, I’ve always thought. Still waiting for ice fishing to hit that Winter games spotlight.
Creating optimized content is able to be manipulated. Aged sites can be manipulated by buying them.
The more Google favors content, the less money they will make. What content flies off the shelves in real life? Do you see a lot of fitness magazines talking about the top 10 ways to discourage adipogenic differentiation of stem cells? The type of content that sells magazines is Justin Bieber tilting his head sideways and then next issue he has his hair styled in a slightly different way.
You said it in your credit card post about making money online. Google can’t favor people writing 1,000 page authority sites about how evil credit card companies are. It wouldn’t favor the target user(the one who spends money).
Hi Griz,
It sure is good to see you posting again. As for me, here I am just in time to be comment number 106 or something like that, which goes to show that I am still my typically slow self. The good news is, late as I am, I am the first to comment here in 2011.
Since I see you as the pick of the litter in the internet marketing world, I will be following you closely on your internetmarketinglessons.ca blog, as you develop your lesson plan for us wannabes.
Oh, and about hot versus cold weather; I don’t favor either all that much. Warm is more to my liking, but I can’t seem to find a place in the U.S. where the weather is perennially warm outside of Orange and San Diego counties in southern California, where I used to live. I, like many other have finally found out that the weather there wasn’t worth the hassle, cost, and loneliness of living there. Yip, it is a crowded, lonely place.
Anyway, slow as I am on the uptake in this online marketing business, I have just begun to move in the direction you appear to be heading in. So far I am still not to making a lot of money at it–fact is I make almost none–but I can already see that I am finally heading in the right direction.
Dang! It is good that you are back and still way ahead of the pack in building out a well-appointed map of the ways to give something of value online and be rewarded for it, and feel good about being rewarded for it.
I have been unable to move ahead much in my online endeavors over the past couple of years due to some personal matters. But I am in the throws of getting up and running again now, so it is a delight to see that, just as I am coming to life, you are coming back to help the lesser lights like me become better online marketers—and help some of the brighter ones, too, for that matter.
Meanwhile I have found that Court and Mark at The Keyword Academy (TKA) are good people, who give great value for a very reasonable reward from each of their students. I would recommend TKA for anyone who wants to learn the ropes of online marketing in a regimented, serious, yet enjoyable atmosphere. I would have been far ahead of the game had I been in a position to put into practice what they teach.
Now I am ready to go and so are you. Now that is good!
Hi Grizz,
Looks like G is getting better and better at achieving their ultimate goal – for the better I say.
That said, the flip side of all this penalizing of manipulated backlinking ultimately means that you could simply spam your competitors’ sites with perfectly anchored backlinks to destroy their trust with G?
I’m not sure if that’s something you can publically discuss given what happened to the old site… but that was one aspect which bothered me.
Personally I still think properly anchored backlinks will play into the algo. Content will help to build authority for a site, but how will G determine who has more authority for a specific phrase? I think this is where backlinks will still figure into the equation. If you are a thin site, with no real content or depth and no authority it will be much harder for you to rank for keywords when competing against other sites that have the type of authority that Grizz is talking about.
Just my two cents.
Sam, I think G would simply just not count those links just as it would not really count links if someone did it too fast for their site. Not sure though.
Hey Griz,
Funny you mention branching out and teaching others in different niches – I have just recently started doing that as well as considered taking on local clients to help them with their exposure online. Am I pretty safe in drafting lessons around the info you had on MMOFB paired with TKA knowledge or will these lessons that we’re all anticipating be completely revamped approaches? (I know you hinted to some of it here and I’d rather move ahead with the knowledge I have than wait patiently)
Well, the only downsides to you being back are that now I have a lot of blinks to go update and I am already beginning to feel information overload symptoms ;o)
[...] are a few quotes: Griz – A Huge Tip for New Sites – “Believe it or not – I haven’t built a single link anywhere for any of the three sites [...]
Great post Griz. Really looking forward to the lessons, but you’ve given me so many ideas with this post (and your older one about lead generation), that I think I’m gonna forge ahead and see what I can do locally. We’ve got a lot of local manufacturers that have either no website or worse a crap website that nobody ever sees. Gonna start building and funneling and see what happens.
I found it interesting how you, Mark B, Leo, etc. all came out with a post or webinar all more or less saying the same thing … at the same time. lol.