Quality or quantity?
I am in the business of researching profitable niches, cranking out niche sites, marketing them until they reach cruise control and then leaving them alone to float in cyberspace and print passive and residual income for me over time.
For any niche site to reach cruise control, it needs a steady flow of significant traffic.
The single best way to ensure that happens is by engaging in effective backlink building.
Recently, I took two brand new niche sites that targeted similar keywords in terms of search demand and competition and applied two different backlink building strategies to measure one’s success over the other.
As a result, I further reinforced my theory on how to build mass back links effectively without appearing as a spammer to the search engine police.
Here is a high level synopsis of the experiment and related results:
Site A
I created 10 unique articles and submitted them to hundreds of article directories using an article spinner software program, with backlinks pointing directly to my site’s home page, as well as 10 different webpages within the website (deep linking approach).
Each article submitted contained two links: one to the home page, and one to a specific webpage within the website.
Both links had two different underlying anchor texts, each of which was relevant and corresponded to the webpage linked to.
After 6 weeks of testing, site A currently ranks on page 14 of Google.
Site B
I created 5 unique articles and submitted them to 5 different article directories online manually with backlinks pointing directly to my site’s home page, as well as 5 other webpages within the website.
Similar to Site A, each article submitted contained two links: one to the home page, and one to a specific webpage within the website.
Similarly, both links had two different underlying anchor texts, each of which was relevant and corresponded to the webpage linked to.
I then created 5 more unique articles and submitted them to hundreds of article directories using the same article spinner software program that I used to market Site A with, with backlinks pointing directly only to the 5 original submissions I had made to the article directories manually.
After 6 weeks of testing, site currently ranks on page 3 of Google.
What are the Niches?
Before I go further, let me address a question you might be thinking about.
Why am I not disclosing the niche?
While there are plenty of niche sites I own I disclose on my blog, there are a few that I keep confidential because:
1) the profitability is significant (ex: high Google Adsense payout on terms) or
2) the niche is narrow enough that one additional competitor can significantly impact its profitability for me.
I am sure you can understand and appreciate that.
The Velocity of Link Building
So why are the results so drastically different after 6 weeks of testing?
My theory is the velocity of backlink building with Site A was far too aggressive relative to the method utilized to promote Site B.
Since both my websites are relatively new, search engines may have found it not so natural for a “baby” site (Site A) to suddenly amass massive quantities of back links brought to it from automated mass submissions (hundreds of sites submitted to and therefore tons of immediate incoming links).
Site B, on the other hand, was a more subtle, natural looking approach.
The initial 5 articles that linked back to Site B were submitted to highly credible and well ranked article directories, thus bringing in 5 unique links from 5 different sources.
However, the mass link building effort using the submission software brought in hundreds of links back to each of those 5 sources rather than directly to my website.
Though I have no further concrete evidence to present at this time, it is my belief that this method appears more natural because it is more so “believable” to search engines that already popular and highly credible article directories and web 2.0 sites (i.e HubPages, Ezine Articles) can generate tons of links immediately when compared to a brand new website that was establish just 6 weeks ago.
This is classic Page Rank Juice Flow at its best.
What are the Long Term Effects?
So will Site A eventually catch up to Site B over time?
Only time will tell, and I will certainly provide updates if I notice anything drastic or worthwhile sharing.
I know that a couple of years back both strategies may have provided equal results.
In fact, Site A may have outranked Site B.
I don’t know why – I am not sure how sophisticated the search engines were back then? But I clearly now know what works today.
Link Building Marketing Takeaway
What’s the lesson to be learned from the experiment?
DO NOT link directly to your website and its webpages aggressively when your website is in its infancy.
Rather, link to it once from a popular source, and then link back aggressively to that source.
This is a very common mistake new internet marketers make, thinking gobs of traffic to their site is just around the corner.
Again, the mechanics of how and why things work the way they do are merely my theory, but the results are clearly evident and such a theory would support those results.
Hope you found this information helpful and practical enough to implement in your internet marketing initiatives.
What do you think of this link building method?
Can you share effective traffic generating strategies that have worked best for you?
All the best,
Sunil
- » Your Ultimate Anchor Text Tutorial - from Basic to Advanced
- » Link Building Tip: How to Get 10 High-Quality Links In 30 Minutes Or Less
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- » Link Building Tip: How to Do It the Smart Way
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A wife to a great husband, a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
{ 138 comments… read them below or add one }
Yep this is actually how the pro internet marketers do it. Plan B is the correct and safe way to build back links to your site. It is also the the most effective in terms of making sure your back links have good “link juice”
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Glad you approve, Sam. LOL
Sunil:
Your theory is what I learned at a paid subscription service WAU so I would confirm your theory (as you’re not the first to recognize this). This is a great post for trafficgenerationcafe.com’s readers and from the looks of the number of comments, you have created quite a stir.
There are many great posts on this site and I hope readers take this lesson seriously. This is the kind of information you find in paid services.
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Hi sunil,
I never tried article submission method for building link to my sites, I only use commenting for backlink or sometimes I go for guest posting too.. I thinks my process is only for those who have very less sites in their hand
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First, I am so glad to have found Ana’s website. Second, what an interesting article. I have worked very hard to get our website ranked high for about a dozen key words. When “local” search came into being, it made the game different since we have a specific physical location, so now we can rank high in either the local or the organic search but not both depending on which term is searched. I have submitted a few articles to article directories but I almost never see them when I do backlink checks-probably due to the small number of articles submitted to this type of directory. However, I did a guest article on Dentistry Porcelain Veneers for a syndicated website and I have seen it republished on some other websites dealing with Porcelain Veneers and all have a link back to our website. So, your article has given me the idea to submit these URLs to the multiple social websites I belong to, in addition to only submitting our site deep links to these social websites. I also will do some more Article Directory submissions, with idea of using your second method with feeds into them. Thanks for the great idea. I assume this should be a successful method for a well established web site like ours as well as a young site. The following will show what we do with porcelain veneers to change people’s appearance.
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Ah yes, the “money-laundering” linkjuice approach to linkbuilding. I’ve done this in the past and have seen some good results.
lol love the slang. why do you call it that? just curious…
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Exchange Traded Funds, ETF, are the Fastest Growing Investment Types
Hello,
I’m wondering what is the rankings now for site A and B.
By the way, thank you for that case study. I have similar views on this techniques but you tell it in the best possible way.
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Alex,
Both websites have improved in ranking, but the relative rank of one to another is still the same. Thx for the compliment
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Private Domain Registration – Is Domain Masking Appropriate?
So Sunil, how come all links to your website, Extra Money Blog, get the 404. Not one of the links to your site works. What gives?
Hi, Jacee:
Sunil’s site went down - he’s working on restoring it as we speak. Hopefully, won’t be much longer.
I am sure he’d appreciate it if you could come back and check it out a bit later.
I am back online! Thank Goodness…..what a scare.
Ana - thanks for filing in!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Taking a Sabbatical or Time Off from Work to Work on Your Side Business
This looks like a good strategy. I’ve read about this from several other seo experts so I must be a good strategy. Build up the PR of the pages that link to you.
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I think it’s fair to say that appearing natural for new domains is a good idea to avoid being flagged - which is already a given. However, to conclude from this experiment that indirectly linking to site B was the key takeaway and factor - is totally neglecting the other glaring variables that likely contributed to the result:
- Site B used higher quality directories (presumably, with higher Page Rank and domain authority), while Site A did not. For the purposes of ranking, a handful of high quality (high PR + relevant) backlinks trumps hundreds, if not thousands, of low quality backlinks. This could have had a tremendous impact on your result.
- While both sites were similar in concept, the optimization wasn’t for the SAME keywords. The keywords you used, though similar in concept and competition, can still render different SERPs even with an identical optimization strategy.
With that being said, the validity of the experiment is in question. Unless you remove all other variables, you won’t get a reliable result. I haven’t read all of the comments, so my apologies if this has already been said.
Some great points Don. The method is definitely more intricate. Pardon the simplicity - was meant for sake of general discussion
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Taking a Sabbatical or Time Off from Work to Work on Your Side Business
Sunil,
Those are really incredible results! Although I’ve had some pretty good luck with directly linking to sites in the beginning (but I guess for a marketer I’m choosing pretty low-competition keywords, which may make the difference) and ranking in comparable amounts of time.
I’m pretty new to marketing, and I’ve got to say I hear terribly conflicting arguments on whether or not article marketing is worthwhile. Some say it’s totally pointless, some say it’s great.
I used a good-quality article spinner and automated submission tool that supposedly cranked out dozens of articles, but I’m skeptical that they were worth much as not one has ever been indexed by Google-thus if I give articles another go, I’ll definitely try your method of quality versus quantity.
Thanks for the willingness to share your results with others! Much appreciated.
You are most welcome Chris. Because I have not had much success with your methods, I am curious about the specifics involved in what you do. Mind sharing? Would love to learn
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Ups and Downs of Investing in Muni Bonds (Municipal Bonds)
I think i agree with Gustav, and the fact that his client just smiled when he told about this. The author experimented on this one, he has a working proof that his theory is working. Working or not, I will be trying this experiment myself to see if this one will work for me. Thank you for this information.
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Mark — very interested in the results of your experiment. Please come back and share with us
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin to Monetize Your Blog: 123LinkIt.com
Hmm…Sunil…I have my reservations about article marketing even if it’s in the case of Site B’s strategy. I feel like in the end that tank your rankings. I’ve done original content creation for some authoritative sites like SEJ or Entrepreneur.com. Would you recommend me using article marketing to have articles point to those articles.
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This post confirms my tests for new domains, aggressive backlink building is not recommended,is that in life when you are beginner is difficult to pass before the older and “authority”
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Definitely, Alx - older, more established domain can easily take this kind of link building, but newer domains… have to go slow with those.
Thanks for breaking massive link building down. Awesome site with quality information. Moving on to your next articles.
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Hi Sunil,
Thank you for your article. Although I have never massed submitted a new site, I have had good luck with my personal branded site.
I can see the validity of approach B. My question is, when you are referring to putting links in the article is it exclusive to the author bio or with in the article itself?
I contend after reading all the comments and just buying another blogging course, which suggest 200-300 word posts and 1000+ word pillar content, it is like when I was a jeweler. You ask 10 people the same question, you will get ten different answers.
Thank you again for great article,
Jeff Faldalen
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yeah extreme backlinking for an infact site can kill the site..better create some feeder sites and blast the heck out of them
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Hey Sunil,
Great case study. I think everyone needs to have a read on case studies like this to help them compare between two different methods of link building. I’m more inclined to the slow but steady and consistent link building process. The aggressive link building method that I’ve tried just doesn’t seem to work as well no matter how many people use it. I read in the comments section about Pat’s strategy explained in a more detailed way somewhere. Pat’s way is great but I don’t seem to have much success with it either, probably because I’m nowhere as good as him in building links…
Anyway, great post once again, Sunil!
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I think the method can work but if its a competitive niche there is no way that these articles alone with be enough juice to allow for a first page rank. Like anything else though, the more you do it, and the more consistency you do it in the better your odds are for ranking higher in the SERPs. Thats the biggest thing I’ve found, is just to continue to plug away and the results will come with time and patience. In the past when I first started this, I just sat around waiting for results, now I am being more proactive about it, and seeing results.
-Jean
Hey Sunil,
You’ve revealed a precious secret… there are many so-called SEO but I highly doubt if any of them know it.
This technique is quite similar to another approach which is known as link wheel: where you create a wheel structure of links that finally point back to your website. However, there is a subtle difference as in link wheels, one backlink is directed to your web while the other one is directed to another source which then directs to your website.
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Thanks for a good test and very informative post, however, after reading it and almost every post, it seems that there is no one definitive method that works every time. I’ve always said that Google loves to treat every one like a trained monkey so that they can watch us jump through hoops they create for their own enjoyment. I can recall when they decided that reciprocal linking was the cat’s meow, and it didn’t last too long. The lady’s comment above that a site should stand on its own merits ( content and more good content) for placement is the way that it should be. Companies and individuals with deep pockets can hire the best to get them more backlinks that fleas on a dog, and it isn’t fair to the average website owner. I have a client (junior executive) that works for Google and pretty much told him all of the above and he just smiled and said “no comment”. Go figure!
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Go figure indeed! Can’t say I disagree with your sentiments.
Great information. You are right, you must consider the linking velocity to stay out of Google’s radar. I am doing it also for my clients site and I have tested it to be effective. Make constant article submission is one way to get targeted traffic.
Hey Sunil,
I had a similar experiement to yours for a few of my niche sites. For those that have amassed huge number of links within a short time, they don’t rank well at all. But for one that I own and I don’t build too many links at a go, rank so much better. I totally agree with your results and I think the answer is obvious, build links naturally, diversify your links to inner pages (deep linking like you said) and keep building them.
Great case study!
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This is a great great example of the PR Juice flow… it finally is clicking for me. Thanks for the insight, keep it coming!
I never go for article syndication. I just write 25 to 30 unique articles and submit each of them to unique article directory and in two weeks I see my site at second page having moderate competition.
I think that now backlinking with a ton of spun articles is not the favorite thing of Google, that why #2 did better.
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I must accept that this is one of the best experiments i have read on SEO. Amazing work on how the time gap plays an important role in building backlinks. Thumbs up to you man. Keep such experiments coming. It will help the blogosphere a lot.
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Yeah this is true. One of the best writeup I have read.
Very interesting and informative article indeed. I have to admit that I always follow all news about this, so it was quite interesting to read this your post about this subject.
Good “split testing”
it seems that strategy B is getting better results for many bloggers, so let’s go for it!
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Agreed!
This is indeed the right way to go. I kind of tested this myself not long ago my mistake, I forgot to change the links to the web 2.0 properties and all the links went to one of my sites. I must say I got hit hard by that and I’m still working to recover the site from the bottom of the SERPs for the keyword I was aiming for.
I’m sure I will be making sure I use the right urls for the articles I submit in the future. I must say it is interesting to see that you aim lower quality submission to the article directories too, I used to only use this for the called web 2.0 properties. Do you think it’s best to use article directories like Ezine instead of web 2.0 like Squidoo or Hubpages? Maybe I should mix both of them?
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As far as I am concerned, Ariadna, it’s good to do a mixture of different types of web properties.
When anyone get online by any where he just have to make his profile updated .In order to this kind of changing the people will get informed about you and may be your page rank will be increase in this order
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Very interesting, cheers for that Sunil. What article spinning software do you recommend for that approach?
Am I reading your article correctly that for Site B, the first 5 articles were *not* spun? Just sent to the directories as regular articles?
Thanks.
I think the strategy for site B has been explained more deeply by Pat in his article http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/the-backlinking-strategy-that-works
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Hi Z - Pat’s strategy is sound, and very aggressive compared to mine which limits the submission to a handful of articles. Perhaps in a more competitive niche I might extend coverage to each and every post/page on my site.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Thank you for posting this. It’s going to take me some time to create feeder sites for all my “top shelf” sites but it will protect the money sites from being flagged.
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I have to half-way disagree with the reason Site B outranked Site A. I don’t think it was because Site A gained a lot of links in a short amount of time. For instance, if you build a new site and put something on it that happens to go viral, you are going to get a lot of links fast. I don’t think Google will penalize you. The difference between the viral site and Site A is where the links are coming from. And this is where I agree with you. A viral site won’t have links from a lot of “content farms” like Site A does. As we all found out with the Panda update, Google doesn’t like it when sites have a lot of links from content farms in their backlink profile. Site B will only have 10 links from 5 content farms, while Site A has many more.
I have to agree with Lionel here. I am a little circumspect how directing traffic to article directories will benefit your home site. Obviously, you proved that Site B was winning at the end of the trial stage.
It would be useful to now get a much stronger, easy to rank Site A v/s difficult to rank Site B, and then use the same tests you did here. If you get the same results, we can agree that backlinking to article directories is the best thing to do!
Neeraj.
I love this kind of experiments Ana, thanks for sharing! I new in this bussines and I have to confess that I only have used strategy A….I thought article directories don’t work anymore since the big ezine drop…
This definitely backs up what I have been reading. Google is getting better and better and identifying quality, value, and unnatural link building.
Yes, this is very true.
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Wow, I never really thought about that. The subtle approach seems like it is much more affect and I am definitely going to implement it into my strategy!
This is an awesome post and I really appreciate you sharing it!
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Hey Forrest - Glad I could be of help. All the best
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
That’s a really nice split test Sunil. But don’t you think article spinning can get some sites into trouble ? Like, even if a blog is an year old and you backlink vigorously; then the SE might take that down as a negative point. I guess controlled back link should be the way to go.
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I tried doing something similar a while back. I had a couple of articles that were posted just to ezine, then I spun them to a mass article submitter, linking back to those ezine articles. I saw little to no change in the ezine article’s rankings, and amusingly enough, some of the spun ones with no backlinks to them were ranking higher. Do you recommend abandoning ezine in favor of some others? If so, which would you recommend that haven’t been mauled by the panda?
Rico - that is very interesting. I have experienced the reverse. Ezine has been one of my heavy hitters. In fact, I have a niche site in the same niche you are in and Ezine has helped tremendously with its progress.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Perfect Recipe to a Healthy Financial Life
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Sunil. They are really helpful! Sometimes building effective and non-spammy backlinks really needs some experimentations and patience to succeed.
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You nailed it buddy - experimentation and PATIENCE!!!!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Get Quality Back Links from Directory Submissions – Directory Maximizer Review
This certainly seems to be an esperiment worth trying - and it’s good motivation to get some artilces spread beyong EzineArticles
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Hi Peter - In today’s cyberworld, one should definitely look beyond ezine as well
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil,
Love this type of experiments. I think that the approach to site B looks more natural and if this is done slowly, is the way that Google perceive it.
I believe that article spinning isn’t effective as before for the sake of building links, and the reason is clear: Google want quality not quantity.
There are trillions of spam blogs and they don’t want even more with low quality articles, then getting non- effective backlinks.
Cheers,
Gera
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True Gera. I love your blog - I am a sucker for the stuff you talk about!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil,
Google has made it clear that they frown on new sites with too many spammy links too soon so I am not suprised that Site B outranked Site A. What I wonder though is how Google actually weighs the different links from these article marketing sites.
I recently submitted an article to GoArticles only to see that an auto-blog has scraped the content from GoArticles and actually outranks my site and GoArticles for the keyword! Now that’s very encouraging, isn’t it? If Google cannot tell that the article was on GoArticles first, then why do we even bother with these article submissions? I think Google is overwhelmed by all these links coming off article directories to websites and these may even not be part of the algorithm anymore but they don’t want to make this public.
I say this because the exact page on my site that I submitted the GoArticle for ranked on page 2 for the keyword as soon as it was indexed. I am sure this is because the content is unique and has about 2000 words. I have not built a single backlink to the page at the time and the whole site is new so no domain age advantage.
That said, there may also be other reasons your Site B outranks Site A such as content. Did you spin the contents of Site A to get the contents of Site B and vice versa? Since they are both based on the same keywords, this would be the most practical thing to do. Depending on the niche, the difference between page 3 and page 14 of SERPs may not be much if Pgs 1 and 2 are where the tough competition is. So one link from a dofollow blog may push your site a few pages in SERPs. And another thing is you may have created links to these sites by commenting on blogs.
It goes without saying that building backlinks is the toughest part of owning a site. So when will the search engines do away with this back link part of the SERPs algorithm and judge websites based on the quality of content and how long people stay on the site?
That’s a rhetorical question btw.
Good luck with bringing Site B to the first page of SERPs. You don’t need the luck for Site A, do you? as it is only a control specimen.
Flo | Create Your Own Website invites you to read: Free 3 Column Website Template
“It goes without saying that building backlinks is the toughest part of owning a site.”
So true, by the way a very nice assessment of this post, I agree with mostly everything.
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Thank you, Gregory!
Glad you like it Gregory
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Flo,
What a thoughtful piece, thank you very much for that. I’ll answer the easy Question first - No to Site A.
On to the spot you put me on . . .
Yes the contents were spun, thus creating a “new” piece for each submission. Your point on the niche is well taken and I totally agree. However I did not do any blog commenting.
You make a very good point. When is Google going to ignore link building efforts and focus on quality sites / content. Whenever they do so, folks who own and profit from niche websites (like me) will be hurt badly. Like you said, the way to rebound would be by focusing on quality content, which I continue to believe more and more is predicated on the length of each post. 2,000 words is solid, and more is even more so. We may see websites with never ending webpages, each a story book end to end…oh my
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Get Quality Back Links from Directory Submissions – Directory Maximizer Review
Hi Sunil,
“Whenever they do so, folks who own and profit from niche websites (like me) will be hurt badly”
Maybe not. If all the strong competitors have similar backlink strategies, when they stop using backlinks, it will be back to status quo. Everyone will go back to the drawing board and the one who wins will be the one with good content and better on-site engagement.
“2,000 words is solid, and more is even more so. We may see websites with never ending webpages, each a story book end to end…oh my”
I understand your fear but my site is a tutorial site and most times it takes an average of 2000 words to complete one tutorial. I don’t like unnecessary paginations and I have read Matt Cutts somewhere that Google prefers a one-page story . What I do is to improve the usability of the site by placing “Jump to” links above the fold so that people can go to the appropriate section if they don’t want to read everything. Most people who visit my site actually want to LEARN how to do what they are searching for and if it takes 2000 words to adequately explain it to them, they don’t mind. This I know from the amount of time they spend on my site.
So never fear
the 2000-word essay is not the usual blog post where people want to quickly skim the content so that they can leave a comment. 
Flo | Create Your Own Website invites you to read: Create RSS Feeds for Static Websites
You are absolutely right Flo, 2000+ words content is good and the people reading it to the end are actually our real targeted readers that will stay with us for long time and will eventually become our customers (or better, leads).
On the other side, as you said that Google might have excluded the weightage of links from article directories, I totally disagree. I have been following a similar technique (which Sunil mentioned with Site B) on my niche sites and they have proved too beneficial. Infact I landed one of my niche site to the first position og google for its main keyword yesterday (and the interesting thing is, I bought the domain and started the process 10 days ago). So, I am quite sure this technique works. And moreover, I write 1500+ words content for my sites so I am safe from all sides
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excellent point, we all rise together, and we all fall together - i see where you are going. brilliant point!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Sorry I meant to address my last comment to Sunil. I saw Sunil responding to comments, but for some reason I just didn’t put two and two together….
Thanks for sharing your test, Sunil!
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Hi Ana,
Thanks for sharing your test. B ranking over A, the way you described, is exactly what I would expect it to happen. So it was nice to see someone actually test and record it.
BTW - if you don’t mind sharing, what article spinner software did you use?
Thanks.
Sunil - Nice write up on an interesting experiment. However, the fact that you only got up to page 3 of the SERPs seems to indicate that article spinning by itself may not be a particularly productive tactic. My best guess is that the tactic you have identified works best if a site already has a few quality links. and then you add the article spinning links to the mix. However, without more information on how competitive the terms you were targeting are, it’s challenging to jump to conclusions.
All great points Sir. Both keywords have global search demand in the 25k range. I will give it more time before the links can simmer and establish a foundation. I have seen a natural progression to the top in the past. Search engines take a long time to work sometimes.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Get Quality Back Links from Directory Submissions – Directory Maximizer Review
Hi, Sunil,
What a practical experiment…to me site B will obviously rank better than A on the ground that B will look natural before almighty google. Great lesson to learn from. But am not surprise to know that you’re guest writer carefully chosen to write for a blog like this, owned by a renowned writer…Ana.
Thank You!
Hi, Sunil,
What a practical experiment…to me site B will obviously rank better than A on the ground that B will look natural before almighty google. Great lesson to learn from. But am not surprise to know that you’re guest writer carefully chosen to write for a blog like this, owned by a renownned writer…Ana.
Thank You!
“Almighty Google” - Love it Alphonsus. Glad you enjoyed the article.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Perfect Recipe to a Healthy Financial Life
Sunil -
This is really great advice on link building, thanks! I feel like I learned a lot from this guest post - glad I stumbled upon it. Love the picture, too!
Laurie
I am glad I could add value Laurie. The picture however is all Ana - she’s good like that
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
Sunil,
Great Article. I too look forward to hearing more about this experiment. I am a big believer in link building naturally. Your article provides great enlightenment as there is a lot of confusion and misconceptions on the web about how to properly build backlinks. Thanks!
There is a lot of information indeed, and I have seen different approaches work for different individuals. I think there is a specific way for each purposes. Example, if you merely want a webpage indexed, a simple article submission will do. If you want to rank on page 1 spot 1, a more aggressive strategy might work (i.e. wheels and linking to links).
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil,
Great results and a well organized experiment!
These results confirm my suspicion that Google ultimately figures out these so-called shortcuts to getting more backlinks and reduces their effectiveness. It didn’t surprise me that your more natural approach won out, particularly with a new site.
I have tried all the spinning software and ways to “beat the system”. In the end, I’ve decided that the natural way is the most effective long-term.
Thanks for the great information, Sunil. Bookmarked and shared!
Most appreciated Dr. The Natural way is always preferred - the saturation online makes it challenging however. That said, what are some of the natural approaches you have employed that have worked best?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hey Sunil,
I think your conclusion is right on. Google will always penalize you for aggressive link building to a brand new site. I think that you strategy of using 5 web 2.0 properties to build links to your webpage and then using articles sites to build links to those web 2.0 properties is solid, as long as you don’t build a link wheel. Link wheels used to work, but google has caught on and will penalize you for it now.
One thing to add to it though. Once you have published an original article to your blog and get it indexed by google. You are then allowed to submit it to Ezine Articles, without spinning it. Since you are the writer, they will not consider it to be plagiarism and will accept it.
Thanks for sharing Sunil and have a great day!
Ian Belanger invites you to read: How Important Is It For You To Join A Blog Network
Thanks for a great tip Ian! Did not consider the Ezine thing. Question for you - say I have 10 pages on my niche site, when I submit all 10 to Ezine, do I get 10 quality do follow back links? Or just one since all links go to one website (mine)? Thoughts?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil,
I believe as long as the url’s are different for each page. Each one would give you a a do follow backlink, actually 2, because you can put 2 links in your resource box.
Whenever I submit an article to ezine, I always put a link to the page I want the backlink for and also one to my home page.
But, remember, your original post must be indexed by google first. Otherwise they will consider it to be duplicate content and ezine will reject it and even if you resubmit it after it is indexed, they still won’t accept it.
Hope this helps.
Ian Belanger invites you to read: Free Traffic Tips Part 1 | How To Get More Free Traffic To Your Website
this is a great point and a BIG reason why many websites end up in the dog house. part of the waiting game is to ensure your pages have the opportunity to get indexed on engines.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Perfect Recipe to a Healthy Financial Life
WHOAAA! Ana! When did you start publishing articles like this?!? LOL!
Welcome to the dark side…;) Just kidding.
With respect to the techniques discussed in the article…I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day about indirect linking.
Each step away from your money site allows one shade darker in terms of you link building efforts…
Mark
Mark invites you to read: How To Set Up Product And Affiliate Landing Pages In A Way That Google Cannot Resist
Mark - don’t be mistaken. Ana is still on the light side. It was me who ran the experiment. We can welcome Ana if and when she decides to join us. Any comments Ana
?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
This is a great tips. It make sense, site B will rank higher than site A because it looks natural with search engine. Thanks for sharing.
My pleasure, Alan.
That is a very interesting experiment you did. I always thought that article submission isn’t that effective now. But I can see that your site is having a huge progress. I like your suggestion about infant sites not being too aggressive, it is true that Google will notice such action and be suspicious. Making things natural is the best thing to do, I think posting articles at least every three days is normal enough.
William invites you to read: how to flirt with a girl
Sure thing. Too much of a good thing is not always good.
William, either approach A and B sends a rush of back links to a website - you are right in that indirect linking to sites already popular is more “natural” relative to the other approach. Both approaches however do send a rush
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Anna
I also try to make my link building look more organic so that it seems more natural and believable.
Do you have a list of article directories that you can recommend based on your experiences with them so far?
thanks
Hi Palisade,
In the experiment that I ran, I used UAW to submit to the article directories that are part of the software program. They provide you with each prior to syndicating so you know where your articles are going. You also get a confirmation when submitted and live.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil
Sorry, I didn’t see that it was a guest post until after I got your reply, otherwise I would have addressed the question to you.
Thanks for the recomendation.
I love experiments - thank you Sunil.
I wish approach A worked better. You clearly thought or at least hoped it would work because it was one of the methods you tested. I guess it was the control group. Method B is more complex and often called backlinking the backlinks.
I suppose that this just proves that you have go slowly with new sites. maybe if the sites were 3 months old both methods would work equally well?
That’s a great question Alex. I have not been able to narrow in on how old is old enough. An experiment worthwhile running?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Like your strategy very much as this is the only way inorder to get up in ranking in search engine and the way is White Hat techniques which is most liked by search engine.
As I am also always prefer to do this way only and as a results all my keywords are at first page and many are at top 3 position.
Thanks a lot for sharing this important post.
You’re welcome Meg, and congratulations on your success
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hi Sunil,
I prefer strategy B, and I always prefer none aggressive strategies
I have a questions for you though. Is article marketing a better way to build quality backlinks than blog comments or guest posts? Or does it depend on the quality of the site?
Thanks
Jens
Jens P. Berget invites you to read: I Expect People Will Open My Emails When I Use This Trick
Hi Jens - personally I’d rank them as follows:
Guest Blogging - high quality, diverse link profile and also helps with building followership
Article Marketing - guaranteed to build links
Commenting - this is great for building a followership, but hit or miss in terms of link building
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Thanks a lot Sunil
Jens
Jens P. Berget invites you to read: I Expect People Will Open My Emails When I Use This Trick
Hey Sunil,
Explained precisely. Thanks.
Going a little further with Jens question and your response.
What if the comment was left on a commentluv and keywordluv site?
(Like this one!) Would that raise it above either of the other two?
Rob invites you to read: How to Get Anything You Want Out of Life?
Great Article Ana! I believe having link building diversity really helps your site move up in the ranks.
I have been able to reach page 1 with many niche sites without using article marketing at all but other sources.
Only recently have I started using Article Marketing by Aquiring Article Samurai
Joshua the ZamuraiBlogger
Joshua invites you to read: How Much Is the Kinect For Xbox 360
Great stuff, Joshua. Well done on those #1 pages.
Joshua - congratulations. Mind sharing some other alternatives that have worked for you?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Hey Suni,
I use quite a few different strategies. I love having a wide variety. here are just a few
1. Social Bookmarking
2. Blog Commenting
3. Link Directories
4. Classified Ad Sites
5. Member profiles
6. Member Blogs
7. Forums
For one niche site I was actually able to one of my competing sites on page 1 to do a blog roll link exchange whichi was pretty cool.
All I did was send him an email and he agreed.
Hope this helps.
I will be sharing a lot of how to’s on my blog (ZamuraiBlogger
) when it comes to backlinking
I think the most important piece to how I backlink is always keeping track of where I drop a link and every time I want to rank a new page I go back through my excel sheet.
Joshua invites you to read: Chris Mentor Me Review: What’s Included?
that really depends.
I heard a lot that if you’ve a very few but handsome backlinks they can work well then many useless one, so its better to get less then a lot of spam.
Usman, strictly speaking from a marketing / link building perspective, I have experienced that aggressive article marketing is necessary, especially if you are in a competitive niche. I have tried the approach you suggest with minimal success. I wished it wasn’t true.
I certainly don’t recommend creating useless or low value content for article marketing purposes. Though the piece will be syndicated to multiple websites, one must still ensure the piece provides value.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
Thanks for sharing your experiment on this. I have to say that I prefer the method you used for Site B.
Hi Justin - Strategy B has definitely been good to me, logically and practically.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
I think that you are really onto something Ana. Way too often people think they need to send the site hundreds of links immediately but we’re better to do it over time.
I have a question for you though. Did you interlink your backlink articles a la linkwheel style (I prefer open linkwheels if I use them - not connected at either end) at all in either A or B? If not, do you think that would have improved performance? or no?
Danielle McGaw invites you to read: 10 Ways to Build a Killer Web Presence Without Social Networking
Hi Danielle, Sunil here - no I have not interlinked the articles. There are theories on whether interlinking (closed or open loop) is more effective, and if so how much. I am in the process of running that very same experiment on another one of my niche sites and will carefully monitor how it pans out relatively speaking.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
Ooops - so sorry Sunil. I knew it wasn’t Ana that had written this and that it was your guest post but by the time I got to the comment portion I forgot! LOL I think I’ve been working too hard today.
Anyway, I’ll be very interested to see how your next experiment works out.
Danielle McGaw invites you to read: 10 Ways to Build a Killer Web Presence Without Social Networking
Danielle - happens to the best. Take a break and relax this evening!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: I Have Debt, But I Preach Getting Out of It and Getting Ahead in Life
No can do Sunil! I’m in a blogging contest and for the next week I’m living and breath blog marketing and promotions!
Well, I might stop to sleep. LOL
Danielle McGaw invites you to read: 10 Ways to Build a Killer Web Presence Without Social Networking
Off to check out your blog and the contests you are in. Don’t forget to breathe - because I want to hear from you again!
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Perfect Recipe to a Healthy Financial Life
I do agree with you, Ana, that a natural organic approach is best. I have yet to find a decent article spinner software though. Recently, I read a spin that changed ‘dedicated server’ into ‘dyed-in-the-wool server. ‘
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Steve - that is hilarious (not the part of not being able to find a reliable spinner). UAW has worked best for me and that’s what I used in this experiment.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Reinvesting Your Online Earnings Back Into Your Business is the Smart Thing to Do
Thank you for the great tips. This is something I myself have been thinking about. Too much traffic too soon for a new website can really hurt your rankings.
Agreed, David. Thanks for stopping by.
True David - but what I still have not figured out is the exact time frame. Anyone with input from experience?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
What i notice with one of my affiliate blog is that it was ranking #3 for a keyword and now it is #7.
Why?
Because just a few days ago i bought a Xrummer Blast for the site and the ranking is down now.
Bilal Ahmad invites you to read: The Impact of the iPad in Dentistry
Oh no. Sorry to hear that!
tragic indeed - but hopefully just the Google dance before things settle? come back and update us in a few weeks?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Generating Positive Cash Flow from Rental Properties
Yes sure Sunil i will update about the ranking.
I prefer the site B method clearly over A. In a way, the method in A could be eventually deemed as “spammy” specially if the site is in its infancy. It has been known that Google does not look with good eyes, new sites that get a very big spike in backlinks, particularly if there is no corresponding content to spread the links and also if the domain is relatively new. Site B is a very good method of link building in my view and and like you said, this might just e a theory.. a theory that proves itself t work. Now, if I understood this correctly.. are you recommending the use of this method for niche sites only? I mean, should we steer away of doing this in our “main” sites?
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Francisco - good question. Personally I do not market my main blog in this way, perhaps the reason for its relatively slow organic growth compared to my niche sites. The reason is that both strategy A and B involve degrees of “spamming”, and there might come a day when search engine algos figure out how to battle deliberate link building approaches. I know many who successfully market their main sites through article marketing and it’s serving them very well.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: The Perfect Recipe to a Healthy Financial Life
These are the ways I tackle all of my niche sites and pages. This allows me to gain great links at a regular pace. Remember to go after quality links if you want better rankings.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
TrafficColeman invites you to read: Why Are All You People Following Me?
TC - How do you suggest we go after those quality links? Also, what do you define as quality within the article marketing scope?
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: Get Quality Back Links from Directory Submissions – Directory Maximizer Review
I think that using article spinners to submit to directories is not white hat. It could only be a matter of time before Google starts to discredit quality articles in quality directories which are made more popular by the article spinning approach.
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Jon,
Great point and one that is not made as often as it should. Instead, we marketers find a way to justify our behavior. Your comment is precisely the reason why I have not used this approach to market my main website. While the approach works 100% today, I am not sure how long it will sustain its effectiveness. Great point man - loved it.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: How Do You Know If a Get Paid To Program Really Pays?
This goes to show that Google usually rewards patience and just by having patience and by adding more links in natural way to a website, your site can already pass many websites in your niche who do not have patience and try to get a massive amount of links in a short period of time.
Andreas,
Either approach does take a lot of patience indeed. In fact the steps involved alone can be overwhelming enough for one to not even attempt this approach. That said, it clearly works for those who are willing to sweat it out.
Sunil | The Extra Money Blog invites you to read: I Have Debt, But I Preach Getting Out of It and Getting Ahead in Life