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More Google Post Panda Testing

Jan 29th, 2012
by Admin.
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Just thought I’d drop a quick update to yesterdays email where I discussed an ongoing case study we were carrying out on some brand new domains and also checking how well the SLS Network was performing at the start of 2012.

OK interim stats are as follows:

1. 15 Domains bought and launched

2. All 15 were indexed and were starting to rank (albeit in a limited manner) within 24 hours.

3. For Narrow match terms, 4 had hit Page 1 in Google within 3 days, 5 had hit Page 2, 1 was on Page3, 1 was on Page 4 whilst the remaining 4 were lost in the mire (sub Page 5 but we’ll get them to where we want them to be ( it’ll just take some more time). So that’s a 60% success rate at Page 2 plus within 3 days.

On one of the sites we carried out more of an in-depth analysis and I am forwarding this video to my small “Peer Group Review Team” to confirm and the results picked up from that were really exciting. OK it was a tightly focused Niche we were after but still in narrow match had 411,000 competing pages and the results we had were as follows:

The time period was as mentioned three days since we bought and registered this domain and we were looking at the following results for one term (our main and keyword targeted term) plus as we had launched a while network of sites there was also some collateral penetration as well in that some of our other sites were also showing up for this term:

1. 5 Places controlled by us on Page1 in Google.

2. 4 Places on Page 2.

3. 5 Places on Page 3 (including Bookmark Directories).

4. 7 Places on Page 4 (including Bookmark Directories).

5. 5 places on Page 5 (including Bookmark Directories).

Plus when we expanded the Search queries it showed on Pages 9 & 10 that we had in some cases 90% of the page tie up for our sites / terms etc when we also took into consideration the member Directories of SLS which had also started to appear.

All we used in this promotion were a couple of items that we discuss in the members area of SLS plus the Bookmark Network using one account to deep link the sites.

So the quick response to does Social Bookmarking still work in 2012 (heck there was a post in the Warrior Forum recently that predicted the “death of…..” yawn) is yes and is alive and kicking.

The key thing that you have to bear in mind and I’ve stated this on countless times over the years, SEO is a constantly moving form of marketing. You have to keep evolving or you are finished and that’s what Simple Leveraging does, it moves constantly with the times and if it seems that in 2012 we are massively different animal to how we were in 2009 when we first emerged then in certain cases we are but in our core methodology? Nope, our principles and approach have stayed the same, just the implementation of them has been slightly “tweaked” that’s all.

If you read nothing else today, read this…these results are that good.

Jan 27th, 2012
by Admin.
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“I love it when a plan comes together” or so said the late great George Peppard as Col “Hannibal” Smith in the A Team (in virtually every episode) and in this case perhaps I should paraphrase the quote to run “I love it when someone pays attention, takes action and then hits the target”.

In this case I mean by taking my recommendation regarding the use of the various Simple Leveraging techniques and getting them to work extremely well.

Literally a few hours after my last email I received this quote in from one of our members who I “talked through the process” of putting this sort of plan together only a few weeks ago.

I won’t embarrass him by giving out his details but his quote ran as follows:

“I ran one press release test on a new site using the PR submission service, followed by your instruction and I followed that with an RSS Submit Submission and nothing else and take a look at the results 48 hrs later. Now this is a pretty none competitive keyword with a number of local modifiers but I’ve never seen this many keyword ranking combinations ranking this fast.

My friend you’re the man. Thank you for sharing with us.

You really over deliver.”

H e enclosed an excel spreadsheet of SERPS that quite frankly if I delivered it to a client without checking I would have basically been laughed at.

It was that good.

Seriously, I mean it.

If you thought yesterdays statistics were mind blowing (and humbly speaking I reckon a 443% increase in traffic ain’t too shabby as they say over here in Northern Ireland) then pick a couple of cushions to soften your fall ‘cos this is going to knock you sideways.

His spreadsheet enclosed (and I kid you not) the following statistics taken over 1200 terms:

Google:

500 Top 5 slots (251 at No 1)

Yahoo:

607 Top 5 slots (343 at No 1)

Bing:

605 Top 5 slots (343 at No 1)

Now this was 6 weeks ago so between a few of us we random checked about 70-80 terms this morning and….yes there had been some slippage but who the heck is going to complain if a few of the terms had slipped from No 1 to………No 2? To balance that in quite a few cases he had tag teamed the No 1 and No 2 slots and this was still 6 weeks after the release!

All in all we found that 75-85% of his results still stood so extrapolate that over 1200 terms and you get the picture as to why he was so excited and why the hard-bitten SOB’s (OK guys not really) in our ClientSEO Team were so impressed.

And we thought our results were mind blowing.

Listen boys and girls, there is so much…..how can I put it, but think of the smelly stuff that comes out of the rear end of a cow, flying around being sold nowadays that it is nice when something that is so achievable and practical appears that sometimes it is very easy to overlook it.

In this case it is the execution and implementation of the process that brings about the results here.

So, before we get tooooo carried away with everything let’s put in place some caveats here to bring about a dose of reality to the situation.

Yes as he said, a lot of his terms were very very Long tail..but in most cases (90% of the terms we checked) they had adverts running alongside the SERPS so someone was bidding on the traffic so that confirms to me that yes the majority of these terms had traffic (albeit small amounts but traffic nonetheless).

Does this technique work 100% all the time, every time?

I wish I could say yes and claim 100% perfection but to be honest I failed those exams at school so I’ll settle for a slightly “grubby” 75-85% hit rate which is still well above the average and in a lot of cases delivers results that most folks out there only fantasize about.

Hmnn that’s about it really.

Too many folks have come back now with amazing results for this not to be genuine. As I’ve said, it might not hit the target absolutely 100% all of the time but the strike rate is too convincing now for it not to be included within everyone’s’ armory.

Now those of you who have been receiving emails and newsletters from me for some time will testify that we don’t go down the conventional “Guru, churn and burn” route i.e. I very rarely send out emails promoting other peoples products purely just to create affiliate income. I know there hundreds out there who do but I don’t as I will only promote something that sits alongside our Simple Leveraging methodology and also something that we have tried out, tested and found to work on our clients first.

As an organization, we don’t exist purely on earning our income via affiliate sales in fact affiliate income accounts for less than 1% of our turnover so if we do send information out about another product or service (and I think we’ve done it 3-4 times in the past 2 years) then it’s because we think it will help your service.

Also because we feel so strongly that you should be using this we are quite prepared to waive potentially $480 worth of affiliate income per user, as a way of saying “Thank You” and also to act as an incentive for you to get hustling and do something.

If you or a client are working on a project and you absolutely have to deliver on something quickly then this is the road down which you should go, even allowing for the pre Christmas rush.

When you are promoting something for either yourself or a client then you have to make one of two decisions regarding SEO.

Firstly, how quickly can I get the target page into position in the SERPS to start the traffic flowing and how much of a fight is it going to entail and also how much budget do I have?

Secondly, if I can’t get my target page onto Page 1 quickly then I absolutely have to get either a Press Release or some form of associate page there to at least get into “the action” and deliver some sort of ROI.

Press Releases, designed, implemented and submitted correctly fit the bill here. Put it together with our SLS methodology and Bookmarking Network and you really have the weapons with which to carry the fight forward towards the achievements of your goals.

If you are a member of SLS and not using this technique then the first thing you should do after reading this email is to email me by return and I’ll get you set up with our discount link and get you up and running.

$480 worth of savings is not to be sniffed at, especially in these times of hardship and recession.

Only Google could do it? Plus another Volume of Back Links Heaven released

Jan 11th, 2012
by Admin.
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You have to ask yourself the question, given the resources it has at its disposal, the seemingly limitless funds and general marketing & personnel clout that it can throw at a situation, how come Google so often seem to open their mouths to change their feet?

How can such an organization that prides itself on the quality of its staff and resources engaged employ such a bunch of idiots to actually go out and do what they do at times?

First there was last year’s little escapade over the serious emergence of their new Social Media Promotional angles when they said that certain types of Link and Referral data was being withheld for…wait for it……Data protection issues. Then they were found to be selling, yes you’ve guessed it, that same Data to Adwords Buyers if they paid the right fees. The whole exercise was then blown wide apart when most observers rightly (in my opinion) highlighted the whole incident as the opening shots in driving the free version of Webmaster Tools under and the emergence of a Premium version of Webmaster Tools.

Now they’ve gone and done it again in another “hello Mr Foot please meet Mr Mouth” incident over paid Linking Campaigns.

Now for those who have only just entered this fun packed little Industry of ours, Google have developed, over the years, quite a negative stance (understatement here) on the whole concept of paid links. They don’t like them, they don’t like the practice of it and if they catch sites doing it then they basically consign them to the “nether regions of on-line hell” (or certainly below No 500 in the index or ban entirely) or so the theory goes.

Imagine the hilarity then when the Big G themselves get caught out a few days ago, supposedly engaged in a paid Link Building Campaign for their Chrome Browser but when challenged about it, suddenly develop a sense of moral outrage that “yes the Campaign was ours but it was not what we signed up for!”.

Really?

As they say over here in Ireland, “Do they think we’re not wise?”

Anyway back to the point, this whole episode highlights a great many things.

Firstly Google are going to do what Google want, for the interests of Google and not anyone else and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise?

Secondly they are not above making waves and delivering changes that come completely out of the blue as with yesterdays “Search, plus your World” announcement.

Now this has to be as clear an indication that they have finally decided to come out of the closet and take on FaceBook head on in the Social Arena with a beefed up “Google Plus” program.

Now my opinions of Google Plus in the early stages were very undecided and were very much powered by my distrust of all things Google and I still have some of the reservations but I do think that Google Plus could be “where it’s at in 2012″ and that 2012 could be the first year that FaceBook “catches a cold” (albeit not a major one).

We need to study at greater length the Google “Search, plus your World” concept further and we’ll write about in the days and weeks ahead as this could be something that it is essential to keep on the right side of with regards to Google but let me finish this with one last  warning.

If in your or your client’s Campaigns you are indulging in anything even remotely, how can I put this, slightly greyish/leading to Black Hat then steer clear of Google Plus by a country mile.

The downside of Google Plus is that because they call the shots as you can only take part if you have a Google controlled account, this means that if a Grey Squirrel as much as breaks wind in Southern Spain then the boffins at the Googleplex in California will know about it. I know this might sound as if I am an apologist for the likes of George Orwell et all but Google plus could possibly turn out to be the most potentially Orwellian of online marketing tools in that it really is a case of Google playing the role of Big Brother.

They do know what you are up to so keep it smart and stay safe.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t indulge in the odd piece of “cute” marketing as that would be boring but just don’t do it with any user logins or profiles that you use for Google Plus.

Now a newsletter / email like this wouldn’t be the same without a “shameless wee plug” for one of our ongoing promotions and Volume 3 of Back Links Heaven has just been released and in this edition we cover the Forum software punBB and how we can use sites using punBB for our needs when it comes to placing links.

As with other editions of Back Links Heaven this version is available from us here at Backlinks Heaven (http://backlinksheaven.com ) and so far we have covered the following formats in Vols 1-3:

1.       Vol  1 –  UseBB +10k Assorted Forums

2.       Vol  2 – AEForums + 10K Assorted Forums

3.       Vol  3 – punBB + 10K Assorted Forums

Basically this whole Series will encompass over 500,000 assorted Forum Domain Urls spread over nearly 50 different Platforms that will, when finally published amount to arguably the largest and most comprehensive resource on Forum Marketing there is.

Each volume is available for $ 16 but there are a few limited slots still available for the Series Subscription which is $160 and represents a saving of over $640 over the entire Series.

If anyone is interested in this then get in touch and I can get you set up on the system.

SEO, whatever you do in this game, you have to evolve.

Dec 23rd, 2011
by Admin.
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I was talking to one of my valued friends amongst the SLS Community today and the subject came round to what we both felt was working for our respective business operations and especially with regards to current practices and the conversation swiftly moved round to the “why and how”?

The answer to this was obvious and it was this. Simply put, Simple Leveraging has evolved considerably over the past two and half years of its existence and it helps explain why the practices and methodology taught remains at the forefront of current SEO and Internet Marketing in general.

Now my philosophy behind this again is quite simple, you have to evolve in this game or you soon cease to exist in any meaningful manner and hence the reason for the constant exploration for new tools, techniques and utilities that make SLS still pack the punch it does.

Nowhere is this more so that in the area of taking SLS and really scoring with the use of Press Releases.

Now those of you who remember the various Skype Webinars we carried out in late summer will probably wonder what happened to the end product.

Well the initial studies of the project into the success of SLS and Press Releases made some pretty bold (but backed by fact) claims in that we did go through the nuts and bolts of a Campaign that went on to generate over $240,000 in four days.

Pretty bold huh? But nonetheless fact.

Well what I wanted to do was to take this approach and run it across various Client Campaigns over the past few months and see overall how it worked. These Campaigns were run during some of the busiest periods of the online year and I must confess the results were pretty amazing.

The first Campaign took place in the run up to Halloween and involved a Client in the Catering and Food Industry and using the techniques and practices we discussed, our Client saw an uptick in Traffic levels of 127% on last year with the Organic Search sector of their activities seeing a jump of 197%.

Using the same Client, we then analysed their promotional activities over Thanksgiving and the corresponding results were pretty amazing. Overall their traffic was up 192% on last year with the Organic Search sector of their promotional activities seeing a colossal increase of 440%.

Finally we analysed the first sector of their Christmas activities and again the results bear very interesting reading. So far with regards to overall activity, their traffic levels are up by 163% and again in Organic Search terms they are 443% up on last year.

As they say, the Jury is well and truly back in on this one and it is working with a vengeance.

Now I bring this subject up because one of the core components was linked to being able to produce and distribute a fair amount of Press Releases and this, if you are not very careful, costs.

However with our colleagues at Mass MediaSEO we are able to pass on to our SLS Members savings that if taken correctly will save them at least $480 over the next 12 months.

What you have to do to qualify these savings is to send me your membership details and I will pass these onto Dennis and his team and together we’ll get you sorted out and up and running.

Now what we’ve done is effectively waive our commissions on this Service with the aim of passing these savings directly onto you. It’s another way of us being able to say to you, “Thank You” for being one of our loyal members.

The Importance of a widespread IP base for Back Links

Dec 13th, 2011
by Admin.
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IP Diversity and Link Diversity are two often misunderstood terms in conventional Link Building methodology.

First up, when you ask most folks as to what exactly an IP is they look at you with an expression that roughly translates to “ask me one about last night’s football?”

What exactly is an IP address?

Well to quote Wikipedia it is as follows:

An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.[1] An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. Its role has been characterized as follows: “A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.“[2]

For more information about IP Addresses see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address

For our purposes the “name of the game” here is to get your back links for any of your target Urls from as wide an IP spread as possible. Google want to see (and if Google want to see something then show them, don’t be stupid, don’t fight them) your Back Links come from as many Internet Users and Sources as possible, spread over as many parts of the globe as is humanly possible.

‘Nuff said really.

Using Multi Combinations to get No 1 slots in Google within days

Nov 11th, 2011
by Admin.
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Hi Gang,

I’ve been writing recently about the success we’ve been getting over the past few Months with combining the twin power of good Press Releases and then hitting them hard with associated support practices chief amongst whom are SLS.

The process goes in this order:

1.    Keyword Research. In our case this is fairly tightly focused and widespread as to be honest we don’t want to spend too much time fighting a variety of battles so we want Niches that we can get into fairly fast. By fast I mean hours rather than days if possible

2.    Drafting the Press Release. Now as far as our main aim is to get into Niches quickly we also want to make sure that wherever possible our Chosen key phrase is right at the beginning of the body text. This is because at the moment Google is sourcing its Meta Data (i.e. the data it uses as part of its ranking algorithm) from the first 300 Characters of the Body Text. Now when you take into account that this also includes the beginning information:

(EMAILWIRE.COM October 17, 2011) – sample date

then basically you are down to the first 145-155 Characters so our technique is put your Key phrase in first and then we usually close it with a question mark to make it isolated.

3.    Press Release Submission. Now the Service we use and one that we’ve run Webinars over is this one: http://www.warriorplus.com/linkwso/5lmj33/368 and yes this is an affiliate link but then I have to keep the present Mrs Morgan as happy as I can :-) . The real reason we use and recommend this Service is that quite simply, we’ve found Dennis and Eric to be the best suppliers and have the best after sales and support going. For unlimited Press Releases the current rate (whatever that is) is vastly under priced but as I say, it’s the fact that they deliver every time with the Press Releases and deliver promptly. At the moment we have anywhere between 1-2 per day going through per day and by and large without any issues at all. If there are any issues and there very rarely are (I think I’ve had one problem release) the after sales support is so good they by and large tell you there is a problem before you have any chance of finding out.

4.    Promoting the Clippings Report. Usually a few days after the Press Release has emerged and been submitted they issue a clippings report. Now I have prepared a few videos covering this but will edit them all into one master video but the basics of the process is this. The Clippings report contains about 50-60 Urls of where you can find your Press Release. Take these Urls and using any one of a number of services, mash these Urls into one RSS Feed and then submit this RSS Feed into Yahoo Pipes and then run the pipe. Take the Pipes RSS Feed and submit via your favourite RSS Submitter and hey presto, you have Yahoo all over your links like a rash and also via redirects; you have links to all of your individual clippings from Yahoo. Not bad eh?

Next up you can repeat this exercise with Google Reader and suddenly you have links to your clippings from Google. Finally we take the RSS feed that we’ve created and then submit it through SLS as well as a number of the key Clippings Urls (the ones where the master site has a domain rank of over 5) and then promote as per normal. We usually only hit about 6-7 of the Urls as this is enough to make sure that these PR Urls have enough grunt behind them to dip in and out of Page 1 in Google usually very quickly.

I’ve just recorded a Client Case Study video that shows us submitting a Press Release on November 7th and by November 10th (less than 3 days later) we had notched up 2 No 1 slots for the clients inner page, one No 2 and the rest were 5, 6 and 7 slots. All six terms were on Page 1 and the Press Releases in this case hit Page 1 on five out of the six occasions and on the sixth the PR was at No 12.

I can’t reveal the niche or Key phrase at present but once I’ve got the client permission to do so (and I expect this in a few weeks time) then I will release the videos free of charge to members as a case study exercise. You can appreciate that we have to respect the Client wishes first and foremost and once they feel that their Campaigns will no longer be compromised then we will be able to proceed.

To back up and support these claims, I’ve shown a limited number of the videos to certain select SLS Members and their confirmations supporting our assertions can be found here: http://simpleleveraging.com/slschat/index.php/topic,190.0.html

There are additional aspects to this type of promotion that make it so successful and I’ll cover these in later newsletters but the key thing to it all is that taking these Press Releases and using SLS and a combination of other factors really means that you can get into niches very quickly.

Usual deal, if anyone has any questions then by all means post in the Forum or just email me by return and I’ll try and work my way through as many as I can as quickly as I can.

How to own 95% of Google in Under 24 hours?

Nov 1st, 2011
by Admin.
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Yes you read it right correctly, this is how we took a particular term that was OK a very tightly focused niche term, but one that had adverts running as far as Page 2 in Google and therefore was making money (or so Google thought so) and we ended up “owning” 95% of Google in under 24 hours.

Actually astute viewers of the video when it comes out will spot that we actually did this in just less than 13 hours!

So what did we do?

First in broad match our Press Release for the Client hit the No 2 slot out of 309 million pages in 13 hours and in narrow match we ended up with our Press Release taking 19 out of the top 20 slots in Google in the same period

Now the video, though having been recorded, is not going to appear for another 14 days or so as we are live in the midst of the Campaign for the Client and to be blunt, I don’t want any enterprising folks out there “nicking our niche” but the video proof is there and when I deem it safe the video will come out to our members only download area.

So how was this done?

  1. Careful Keyword Research.
  2. Timing
  3. Proper and planned use of META Data

Firstly as Myra and I discussed in our recent Web Discussion, it was all down to careful Keyword Research for the right term for the client. Secondly as this particular Season Campaign has just got underway I guess our timing was pretty hot in that we hit the tracks running just before the previous Seasonal campaign had actually ended. Thirdly and last of all we made sure that our MEAT Data for the Keyword Research was included right up at the front of the Press Release.

Now astute Google watchers will know that Google have fine-tuned their algorithm recently and for the time being seem to be using for the Meta Inserts in the SERPS, the first 300 Characters of the main body copy of the piece you are trying to optimise for.

Now the Golden Rule here is to try and make sure you get your main Key phrase inserted right there at the start of your piece. Now this is not new and has been standard SEO practice for years but it did seem to have gone slightly out of fashion recently but now appears to have come back to the fore in Campaigns or so our research has shown.

So given the fact that in Press Releases our distributor automatically assigns the first 300 characters to the Meta description and this includes the beginning information, for example:

(EMAILWIRE.COM, October 17, 2011)

This means it shortens your ability to use the keywords in the first 145-155 characters in the meta description that Google displays before it truncates. So make use of your keywords in the Meta description early on, ideally right in the first part of the first sentence.

Anyway enough of this. I’ll get the video put into the Members only support area of the Forum within the next 14 days or so but to further add proof to the fact that we’re not sensationalising this, I’ve released the video to a couple of SLS members to get them to verify that we’re not making this up. I’ll get them to add their comments to back up our claims.

New Training Video and Press Release and SLS Case Study posted

Oct 14th, 2011
by Admin.
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Just wanted to update members on yet another Training Video / Case Study we’ve just posted live in the Simple Leveraging YouTube Channel.The video covers the subject of Press Releases and SLS and covers the Halloween Niche. We show a live case study of a Blog / domain that had some Press Releases released on October 1st and two weeks later both the Press Releases and site Urls have gone from nowhere to not only Page 1 in Google but are oscillating between positions No 1 and No 4!.

The video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqugRxgFHxg

Secondly, we have some rather neat lists of some EDU Blog Urls for commenting – in fact in total we have over 5,800 EDU Urls that are available for commenting and are all above PR2.

Because of the size of the total list we have broken them up into chunks and they can be purchased in the following packets:

180 PR 5 &6 Urls spread over 48 Domains – $60

926 PR 4 Urls spread over 148 Domains – $60

2647 PR 3 Urls spread over 265 Domains – $60

2141 PR 2 EDU Urls spread over 278 Domains – $50

If any of you are interested in these then the Buy It Now Buttons can be found here: http://simpleleveraging.com/bonuses/highpredublogs111013.html

If there is anyone out there who would be interested in the entire package of these Urls then the entire package can be bought $180. Get in touch via the form above  and I’ll send out the Urls directly.

Delivery is immediately after purchase via e-junkie.com

New Video live about Tagging and Best Practices etc

Oct 12th, 2011
by Admin.
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Just wanted to update members on a new training video we’ve just posted live in the Simple Leveraging YouTube Channel.

The video covers the subject of Tagging and how correct tagging can double or even triple your effectiveness for bookmarking. We show a live case study of a Blog / domain that was bought less than a week ago on 6th October and how through just usage of SLS has been taken to cover the top 3 slots in Google for its chosen niche with narrow match search out of 2,800 competition and for Broad match it is No 38 out 6.2 million competing pages.

All in under a week but the real story lies here. This Blog was bought, created, crawled, indexed and ranked in under 12 hours from start to finish and all through just promotion via SLS. In fact the video recorded shows that for the narrow match search that the various SLS Bookmarking Directories are also indexed and ranked as well.

The reason for the power of the network is explained in the video and the video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-e9sbwyUEM

Secondly, there are still some of the High Page Rank Blog Link Packets still available from below for those who might have missed it yesterday. The details are as follows:

A supplier of ours has come to us with a fairly neat list of 2,500 High PR Blog Urls that we can offer to our members for $30. Amongst these Urls is at least one PR6 (there are about 5-6 PR6 Urls) EDU and all the Urls are PR2 or above. The majority are manual approve but then if you want a link on a Blog that is not going to end up rat infested then manual approve Blogs are the way forward.

The link for these Blog Urls is here:

http://simpleleveraging.com/bonuses/2500highprblogurls.html

Delivery is immediate via e-junkie.com.

 

Panda 2.2, Trust Rank and 50 EDU Properties to place your own copy and Links

Jul 1st, 2011
by Admin.
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Recently I wrote about some information we had gleaned about the latest Panda Update and touched upon the concept of “Trust rank” and as such have had quite a few emails asking could I elaborate on this further?

Well the story behind Trust Rank is this.

As a concept it has been researched by two separate organisations, Google and Yahoo. As a concept behind the scenes it had been around for some time in the Google camp but it was actually Yahoo who first went public about it really when one of their researchers alongside some research personnel from Stanford in 2004 put together a Paper entitled: “Combating Web Spam with TrustRank”. For those who want to pursue this matter further the paper has been retrieved and put online and can be found here:

http://www.vldb.org/conf/2004/RS15P3.PDF

Apparently at the same time Google had been doing some behind the scenes work on a similar concept called Trust Rank and registered the Trademark “Trustrank” as Matt Cutts (the public face of Google) explains here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8mUXQzwEvs

Now where all of this falls into place with my feelings in my last Newsletter are this. Google has been searching for some time to further provide more background analysis on the “worthiness” of Web Sites and how they stack up.

Initially this was to be provided by using data from their Page Rank analysis but since Page Rank has been generally accepted to have been on the slide for the past few years (Google themselves downgraded it from being the “jewel in the Crown” in the Search Algorithm now to being “one of 200 other ranking factors” – bit of a drop in emphasis I think you’ll agree?) they have had to look further afield.

They then decided to expand the Trust Rank concept further in 2009 when as well as having the Trademark registered they registered the Patent as well. Now things were getting really serious and it is only now some 2 -2 ½ years later that we are starting to see the true manifestation in this with the Panda Update.

Looking round for methods to try and help them get some sort of handle on the generally accepted worthiness of a site, they hit upon the idea of seeing how a site was viewed by virtue of how a site was viewed by its peers hence the appearance of the “+1” concept. Now this, as in all things, can be gerrymandered such is the good and bad side of human endeavour but it goes some way to showing where they are going.

The other parts of the Trust rank concept lie in an old view of “you are known by the Company that you keep” or who links to you. Now we know also that Google tried to control this with the much vaunted “rel=nofollow” attribute but once again this has now also turned into a dead duck so where does this all lead us?

Well as I said in one of the newsletters of a month ago that I felt that with Panda, Google were turning back the clock to almost the days of the late Nineties with their views on inbound links etc.

Now my views on this are as follows. I think that there are certain aspects of Linking that Google are trying to downplay in the algorithm but with the absence of any credible alternative they cannot nor ever will truly be able to remove data from Link Building entirely. So the upshot of that being is that for the time being we are all safe there folks as far as our Back Link building efforts are concerned but what I think Google are placing more emphasis now than perhaps they have done before, is the nature of the IP spread of those links.

Whereas in the past, conventional wisdom was that with a few PR5 – PR 6+ links from a couple of websites you could drive a site up the serps, now that is no longer true in the same way. What Google now want to see are links, but instead of a few folks voting i.e. just one or two sites they want to see loads more and those votes need to come from as wide a section of the Internet population than before.

So the upshot of all of this is that you need to have your links coming from a much wider variety of sites than before.

So what about Authority and Trust?

Now to further this and aid the overall Trust and Respect for a site, if you can throw as many links to your site from as many different types of sites as possible – so much the better especially if those links are from perceived trusted domains such as .Govs and .EDU’s.

Google’s love affair with .EDU’s and .Govs lies not as most folks think, in a fixation with the domain suffix but rather with the nature of the sites themselves. Indeed we have found in our own research that a great many Education / Academic sites that are not .EDU’s for instance are just as powerful if not more so at times.

For instance in the UK, the domain suffix .EDU doesn’t exist rather the academic suffix is .ac.uk and this is a the case in a great many other territories worldwide so as we have seen the power and authority doesn’t necessarily stem from the suffix, rather the nature of the site itself and that fact that these sites (as Matt Cutts himself has been quoted) tend to have loads of authority links pointing at them as well so this in turn gives their outbound links out more power.

So where does this leave rel=nofollow links from .EDU’s?

Exactly as where it left them before to be blunt. Just as powerful but with a different dimension i.e. the fact they originate from where they do carries a different set of weight rather than any PR juice that folks think they might not be able to impart.

For your own back links profile and authority status the fact that you might be able to count as many quality EDU links in your profile goes a long way to help confer “trust status” as far as the Search Engines are concerned.

To further this we have been running an associate program to our main Bookmarking Program and this has been centred round locating development spaces within various EDU properties where you can insert your own content under your own editorial control. Called the Lost Art of Conversation we have now reached Module 4 and in Module 4 we now have 50 EDU properties that you can insert your own Links and copy. Now these properties include a mixture of DoFollow and NoFollow links but as has now been conclusively proved for Trust and Authority status the NoFollow attribute is by and large of no consequence.

As with before we will only be releasing limited copies of this Module to the general public and I wanted to notify members of my Newsletter first. The uptake of previous Modules was such that they never actually made it to public release as they were all snapped up by readers of this newsletter and members of Simple Leveraging. The cost of Module 4 of The Lost Art will be $75 and if anyone is interested then send the $75 to info@simpleleveraging.com and I’ll forward the zip file with the contents through to you straight away.

 

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