4 ms·

I really wonder how effective these link networks are at SEO nowadays. Obviously it's a short term strategy either way, but can you get to first page of google

I really wonder how effective these link networks are at SEO nowadays. Obviously it's a short term strategy either way, but can you get to first page of google for competitive terms by doing this stuff?

trevin 11y ago
In a word, yes. Spend some time Googling around and analyzing backlink profiles in high spam areas (designer goods, pharma, etc) and you'll see tons of pages propped up by link spam ranking highly. If you are smart about it some automated link building tactics still work very well. It's not sustainable but most people take a "churn and burn" approach and just move on to a new domain if it gets torched by Google.
- johnward 11y ago
  Usually the linking scheme is more creative then what this article shows though. More tiers and not just linking to every site from every other site. For super competitive terms this still seems like a short term strategy but for less competitive it may still be viable. I think google has taken steps to stop this from an algorithm stand point but really I think most of there attempts are more marketing based. IE trying to scare people into not doing it anymore. It also doesn't take exploiting sites to do it. You can just buy some aged domains and throw up wordpress.
paxtonab 11y ago
This is 100% not effective anymore. This is just a slightly more malicious version of the the spam bots that post back links in wordpress comments, except in this case they were adding entire html pages to the sites. This is a violation of Google's duplicate content rules and if anything would be viewed negatively by Google. The efficacy of this hack is nil as the "money domains" that were profiting from these backlinks had little domain authority or relevant traffic according to the author's article. The only only way that linking strategies are viable anymore are gaining links from domains with authority or huge numbers of links. Maybe if the hacker would have created tens of thousands of back links from vulnerable fashion blogs (same category of site as the money sites) they would've gotten some SEO juice.
- patrickfl 11y ago
  I agree, I didn't think it was really that effective for the amount of time and effort they had to put forth. Not to mention the fact that I got 2 follow up emails (1 on the NYSE) really angry going after them legally.
  - paxtonab 11y ago
    Not to diminish your analysis though which was very entertaining to read!
    - patrickfl 11y ago
      none taken :) I was a tad worried when I saw this got submitted on HN. Honestly it was a bucket list of mine to write a post worthy enough to be appreciated on HN without artificially boosting it of course.
- etcet 11y ago
  I work in webhosting so I get to see a lot of this shit. What's interesting is seeing how backlinking has changed. These days, I think that it hurts your ranking to have a bunch of junk backlinks. This doesn't mean it's not effective for SEO though. If I'm on page 2 of a search and I want to get into that precious top 10 I can spam the site which is ranking above me until I'm there. Or I can threaten to do a really shitty job trying to blackhat SEO optimize someones site unless they pay me $x. We often get abuse@ emails from people who have their link spammed on one of our clients domains and want it removed. We just link them to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main and wish them luck. In some cases these people paid for that 'service' in the past and now regret it.
  - rcarrigan87 11y ago
    I have a friend who worked in coupons and the first part of his day, every day, was to sit and go through their backlinks and basically disavow everything. Coupons is so competitive literally everyone is link-bombing each other trying to trigger a Google penalty.
IndianAstronaut 11y ago
A bigger worry is all tye autogenerated SEO content out there. Try and search any SEO related terms and a lot of the time you get spammy articles.

trevin 11y ago

In a word, yes. Spend some time Googling around and analyzing backlink profiles in high spam areas (designer goods, pharma, etc) and you'll see tons of pages propped up by link spam ranking highly. If you are smart about it some automated link building tactics still work very well. It's not sustainable but most people take a "churn and burn" approach and just move on to a new domain if it gets torched by Google.

johnward 11y ago
Usually the linking scheme is more creative then what this article shows though. More tiers and not just linking to every site from every other site. For super competitive terms this still seems like a short term strategy but for less competitive it may still be viable. I think google has taken steps to stop this from an algorithm stand point but really I think most of there attempts are more marketing based. IE trying to scare people into not doing it anymore. It also doesn't take exploiting sites to do it. You can just buy some aged domains and throw up wordpress.

paxtonab 11y ago

This is 100% not effective anymore. This is just a slightly more malicious version of the the spam bots that post back links in wordpress comments, except in this case they were adding entire html pages to the sites. This is a violation of Google's duplicate content rules and if anything would be viewed negatively by Google. The efficacy of this hack is nil as the "money domains" that were profiting from these backlinks had little domain authority or relevant traffic according to the author's article. The only only way that linking strategies are viable anymore are gaining links from domains with authority or huge numbers of links. Maybe if the hacker would have created tens of thousands of back links from vulnerable fashion blogs (same category of site as the money sites) they would've gotten some SEO juice.

patrickfl 11y ago
I agree, I didn't think it was really that effective for the amount of time and effort they had to put forth. Not to mention the fact that I got 2 follow up emails (1 on the NYSE) really angry going after them legally.
- paxtonab 11y ago
  Not to diminish your analysis though which was very entertaining to read!
  - patrickfl 11y ago
    none taken :) I was a tad worried when I saw this got submitted on HN. Honestly it was a bucket list of mine to write a post worthy enough to be appreciated on HN without artificially boosting it of course.
etcet 11y ago
I work in webhosting so I get to see a lot of this shit. What's interesting is seeing how backlinking has changed. These days, I think that it hurts your ranking to have a bunch of junk backlinks. This doesn't mean it's not effective for SEO though. If I'm on page 2 of a search and I want to get into that precious top 10 I can spam the site which is ranking above me until I'm there. Or I can threaten to do a really shitty job trying to blackhat SEO optimize someones site unless they pay me $x. We often get abuse@ emails from people who have their link spammed on one of our clients domains and want it removed. We just link them to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main and wish them luck. In some cases these people paid for that 'service' in the past and now regret it.
- rcarrigan87 11y ago
  I have a friend who worked in coupons and the first part of his day, every day, was to sit and go through their backlinks and basically disavow everything. Coupons is so competitive literally everyone is link-bombing each other trying to trigger a Google penalty.

IndianAstronaut 11y ago

A bigger worry is all tye autogenerated SEO content out there. Try and search any SEO related terms and a lot of the time you get spammy articles.