10,000 Links or 100 Links...

[iamrussell]

I recently found a service that says they will give you 10,000 links for $70/month. Here is their explanation of the service:

"All the domains are unique and are even on separate C class IP blocks, with 100 links per domain. When all 100 domains are uploaded, this will mean 10,000 links. And Google - along with other major search engines - will see 10,000 links and treat your site as having such.

The difference is simply that Google can devalue links from one IP after a certain number (I've seen suggestions of 50) - but this doesn't at all mean that multiple links from any site are in the least bit bad, simply that links from as many C class IP blocks as possible are much more preferable - which is precisely what our Link Network provides."

My question is, will Google see this as 10,000 links or 100 links. Because each domain has 100 pages and each page will have a link. There are 100 domains in all. Does google see 100 links from the same domain as 1 link or 100? What about other search engines?

[sharad]

Google counts both how many different domains are linking to you and how many webpages are linking to you. But linking to a webpage doesn't mean that all the webpages of that domain are also linking to you necessarily. Only those pages will be counted which has a link to you, not all pages. Also Not necessarily all the webpages of a domain get indexed into google. Only those pages which have been indexed matters.

[iamrussell]

Do you think it's conceivable that you could get 10,000 links from 100 domains? (if all the sights are indexed)

[iamrussell]

Originally Posted by sharad

linking to a webpage doesn't mean that all the webpages of that domain are also linking to you necessarily.

No, that's the service. He's gonna put up a link to my site on all 100 pages for each of the 100 domains.

[JohnW]

Very strange. First, a very large percentage of all websites are hosted on virtual or shared servers, and share a single IP address with dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other websites. So, Google, Yahoo - all SEs know this and deal with it, generally without penalizing a site for the behavior of an unrelated neighbor. The claim that separate C blocks are somehow needed is extra strange, unless something needs hiding really bad. Not because of the IP, but SEs are likely to devalue links when 100 come from the same domain.

IMHO G/other SEs never devalue links *only* because they come from a single IP or reach some magic number from an IP - unless something else is going on at the same time - like excessive cross linking between the sites or some other banned practice. Speaking of which, in my opinion and based on only your post - whoever is offering you these links is on their way to getting busted and if you join them you will get busted too.

Good luck/

[iamrussell]

Originally Posted by JohnW

in my opinion and based on only your post - whoever is offering you these links is on their way to getting busted and if you join them you will get busted too.

I don't think I could get in trouble for somebody linking to me. If that was the case then you could submit your competitors to get them in trouble. I'm sure this has been discussed here before.

There is no "cross linking" between the 100 domains. All it is, is 100 domains with 100 links per domain, all business oriented sites being linked to. No more than about 15 links on each page.

I think the idea with the "separate C class IP blocks" is that, all the links are basically the same on each page on each domain. I think separating the IP addresses will help conceal this. Or maybe not, I don't know...

[AussieWebmaster]

okay so you pay $70 for 12 months = $840 and there are only 15 links per page (or 15 customers) = $12,600 (but let's minus one a minute) = 11,760
The company sets up 100 domains @ say $600 and 100 cheap IP blocks for 12 months $1000... not a lot of money in it.

The one obviously would be for the them to build PR for themselves.

It is a house of cards. It may work for a while but it is spamming. If they can sell 14 people on the idea a day they have a good business.

[iamrussell]

Yeah, it's definitely spamming. We'll see how it goes...

[seobook]

Originally Posted by iamrussell

Do you think it's conceivable that you could get 10,000 links from 100 domains? (if all the sights are indexed)

yes

Originally Posted by JohnW

Very strange. First, a very large percentage of all websites are hosted on virtual or shared servers, and share a single IP address with dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other websites. So, Google, Yahoo - all SEs know this and deal with it, generally without penalizing a site for the behavior of an unrelated neighbor.

yup

Originally Posted by JohnW

The claim that separate C blocks are somehow needed is extra strange, unless something needs hiding really bad. Not because of the IP, but SEs are likely to devalue links when 100 come from the same domain.

imagine if all of them came from the same IP range...that would mean that a person would only need one multidomain hosting account to have the effect of many hosting accounts.

Originally Posted by JohnW

IMHO G/other SEs never devalue links *only* because they come from a single IP or reach some magic number from an IP - unless something else is going on at the same time - like excessive cross linking between the sites or some other banned practice.

so are you stating that placing a single sitewide ad on SEW should make me one of the top 20 search engine resources in the world?

effective SEO has a much greater ROI than buying AdWords. effectively profiting from a search engine requires that ads are made to seem cheap and manipulating results is made to be expensive.

requiring more C block IP addresses generally means that:
either more people likely like your resource -or-
you are spending more money to manipulate the search results.

Originally Posted by JohnW

Speaking of which, in my opinion and based on only your post - whoever is offering you these links is on their way to getting busted and if you join them you will get busted too.

there are intelligent and unintelligent ways to do business. they may get in trouble and they may not. all seo practices have some risk to them.

<------- many large sites rent links across their network of sites (Internet.Commerce) etc.

Originally Posted by iamrussell

Yeah, it's definitely spamming. We'll see how it goes...

it may in fact be a somewhat effective technique to take advantage of broken algorithms. keep in mind that there are also associated risks.

[JohnW]

>so are you stating that placing a single sitewide ad on SEW should make me one of the top 20 search engine resources in the world?

Not at all what I said. My comment was actually somewhat in the other direction, basically saying that after a certain number of links from the same domain, the links may stop accumulating additional juice for you.

>effective SEO has a much greater ROI than buying AdWords.

Don't know where Adwords and ROI came into the discussion- I think you are correct but its not a response to what I said.

Trying to circle back around here - it sounds to me like somebody has an aggressive link farm in progess and is looking for customers. I would advise anybody with a long term strategy to not get involved in it. Thats just my opinion - I'm sure that with the great diversity found on this forum, not all will agree ;-)

[Buddha]

Then it usually is.

If their network was so big and strong, they could easily use that to improve rankings of their own sites, which could make much more money than $70/month.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by JohnW

The claim that separate C blocks are somehow needed is extra strange, unless something needs hiding really bad.

I hope I'm not intruding, but - John - haven't you ever read Google's Hilltop and LocalRank papers? Both show an eagerness on the part of Google to devalue links from within the same C class block.

And if we return to iamrussell's question:

My question is, will Google see this as 10,000 links or 100 links.

If a domain contains 100 indexed pages, each containing a certain link, and this is repeated across 100 domains - then would Google count 10,000 total links (100 pages x 100 domains)? Or would Google simply count 1 link per domain, even if there are 100 indexed pages with that links per domain?

I believe that is the question being postulated. And, for what it's worth, I would say Google would certaintly count 10,000 links. However, of course, not all links are going to be weighted equally, though.

[neckbone]

I don't know why there's all the big deal about having to get thousands of backlinks to get ranked. They should just charge a small fee like the telephone Yellow Pages. Everybody pays a fee to get indexed equally and then you duke it out with onpage SEO.

[JohnW]

>Google's Hilltop and LocalRank papers? Both show an eagerness on the part of Google to devalue links from within the same C class block.

You make a very excellent point - My opinions (that’s all they are) are based more on what I see happening than what I read.

I agree that Google devalues links from the same IP whenever there is excessive crosslinking between the sites sharing the IP, or some other *unusual* activity going on within an IP or IP range. But, I think overall G understands virtual hosting pretty well and does not penalize links based on that alone.

>My question is, will Google see this as 10,000 links or 100 links.

No doubt they will *see* all of the links. How they value them is the question.

My thoughts on Localscore is that it is just a secondary "re-ranking" of SERPs from the initial set, and that as part of this secondary ranking it eliminates certain SERP results (pages) based on IP. I don't think that at this point it is looking at the IP address of links but focusing on cleaning up the order of the pages. Does this make sense or do I have it wrong?

I will leave the hilltop issue to the believers ;-)

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by JohnW

I will leave the hilltop issue to the believers ;-)

Heh, my personal position is that good link building doesn't run simply on what search engines are doing now, but what they could do tomorrow.

I was only a hobbyist SEO when Florida struck last November - which means I was close enough to see how it impacted the industry, without being commercially at risk myself.

Now that I run my own company - and am specialising on the link building side - I am at risk: if my clients suffer, so will my business.

Therefore the core approach is to ensure that links built are set up as best as possible against future big shifts in search engine algos - not least with respect to Google, due to its market share.

So covering a large number of C class IP's is just one of many bulwarks set up against search engine upsets - to provide links to not only have value now, but also have value for the future, whatever it holds.

The public patents and papers forewarn us - I figure they also forearm us.

[Juan Lam]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Heh, my personal position is that good link building doesn't run simply on what search engines are doing now, but what they could do tomorrow.

Words of wisdom.

Ok, now that we know we are talking about your services and it picks my curiosity. Let's discuss this 10,000/100 offering, because regardless of how Google may see it . . . if you buy into this service and then get banned in the future, then what's the point for me to establish by brand on the web.

So, please tell us a little bit more about your "built-in expert system". You also mention "pages useful for human users, too!" however in your Link-Building FAQ's you say:

Q4: Will I get much human traffic through my link-building campaign?

A4: All link-building is performed only with search engines and search engine rankings in mind, and is not targeted at human traffic. Because our link pages are so low key, your traffic should come from your search engine rankings, rather than our pages. None of our pages are promoted in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

You also don't mention what type PageRank quality these domains have (are they all PR 0 or PR #?) or how their external inbound linking performs well or not in your 100 domains.

The way I see it, you could either have diamond gem in your hands or a garden rock if this is just your own little network of sites and words of wisdom can be just simply pure AIR.

[I, Brian]

Hi Juan, and thank you for the questions.

Originally Posted by Juan Lam

if you buy into this service and then get banned in the future, then what's the point for me to establish by brand on the web

I very much doubt there would be a precedent of sites being banned for who links to them - otherwise I would be an instant millionaire as people pay for their competitors to be linked to and banned.

Originally Posted by Juan Lam

So, please tell us a little bit more about your "built-in expert system". You also mention "pages useful for human users, too!" however in your Link-Building FAQ's you say...

"Expert system" is a reference to the "expert look-up" and "expert documents" of the Hilltop paper. Useful for human users means that pages are not constructed to look like the general random generated keyword-stuffed garbage you sometimes see in certain SERPs.

Originally Posted by Juan Lam

You also don't mention what type PageRank quality these domains have (are they all PR 0 or PR #?)

PageRank simply isn't an issue. If people want to buy PageRank they are welcome to take up Text Link Advertising on various established high PR pages/sites. I personally wouldn't want to be part of the crowd that deals in PR.

The Britecorp Link Network is simply small-scale dealing in anchor text, not PageRank. Let Google distribute that as they see fit.

Originally Posted by Juan Lam

The way I see it, you could either have diamond gem in your hands or a garden rock if this is just your own little network of sites and words of wisdom can be just simply pure AIR.

Absolutely true. Could just be air - that's why it's a case of watching for results. I wouldn't call it a diamond, though. 10,000 links isn't actually very many. It's really very small-scale link building. For real commercial power you'd have to be able to offer hundreds of thousands of links - even millions - but I would rather sit upon a comfortable little niche, than be a king upon a mighty precipice. The aims of Britecorp are modest indeed.

But, anyway...all this skirts uncomfortably close to self-advertising, and I would rather not be banned here.

Perhaps the original question is best returned to - presuming that it hasn't already been more properly addressed here:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000870.html

[Nacho]

Welcome to SearchEngineWatch Forums Juan! I wonder what internet connection speed you've got down in the Mariana Trench?? Any way, great post #1 for you.

I think you might have just solved our mystery here . . . where are the links coming from???

Since this question was not answered:

Originally Posted by Juan Lam

or how their external inbound linking performs well or not in your 100 domains.

. . . it picked my own little curiosity to check around.

I'm not implying that you are doing the following strategy, but let's say you you belong to 100 different FORUMS and create 100 different memberships. You make 100 posts from each membership (1 member X 100 posts X 100 forums = 10,000), and in these forums you are allowed a changeable signature controled in your profile by a sig_file on the code that allows you to update with your link controlled by anchor text. These 100 forums could have many many topics or themes as you say within one forum (for example a shopping forum). So, the client pays the $70 and you go into your 100 profiles and change your signature link.

I believe I saw this technique for the first time in the nigritude ultramarine contest, which I found it to be very clever.

Again, not saying this is your strategy, but when I check the backlinks using the GoogleAPI to britecorp.co.uk I can see that you have something that suggest to me something similar . . . perhaps I'm wrong?

Let's imagine that you are not using this strategy, but this strategy can get you the same result. Just for argument sake, let's look into just a few elements of the Google algorithm as an example:

• Age in links.
• The speed or time frame that links are acquired.
• Topical outbound links and Outbound links to topically related sites.
• Keyword text surrounding outgoing link text.
• Position on the page.
• Links from authority sites.

Age in Links - Google sees these 10,000 posts (I mean links) today and it comes back and sees something else on the same position of previous links. Flag #1.

The speed or time frame that links are acquired. - Unless you take your time uploading them in say 6 months, then most likely this will be flag #2.

Topical outbound links and Outbound links to topically related sites. Since you do not control your client's websites, then it could raise another flag #3.

Keyword text surrounding outgoing link text. I would imagine that you could add in your signature profile maybe 4 text links and all 4 are different topics in anchor text. Also, if the forum is about "dogs" and your anchor text of the link is about "seo link building" then it could trigger one more flag #4.

Position on the page. Is the post number one at the top of the page or number seventeen at the very bottom? Maybe not flag #5 but it can not count towards the 10,000, specially if Google stopped indexing the page half way.

Links from authority sites. Again, if your forum is about "dogs" with DOG authority sites linking inbound, but you are linking outbound to "seo link building", it can definetly raise flag #6.

In my own opinion, and I could be totally wrong, but I would not outsource my link building to a 3rd party using this strategy because there is a VERY HIGH RISK that one day the search engines could find that when these 6 flags come together . . . G Dance . . . bang! and you banned! and my clients would turn back to me since I hold the liability. Otherwise, Google or any SE could modify their algorithm to say "let's drop all links from FORUMS" and my client looks at his back links go from 10,100 to 100. Therefore, your product offering in "your traffic should come from your search engine rankings" from your FAQ #4 can be at risk.

I, Brian, I really hope you are using a different strategy.

[I, Brian]

Hi Nacho -

And, no, it's not a signature network.

I have participated on many online communities - at one point, there was around 100 forums I would periodically visit. Nowadays, I'm rarely about more than a handful.

Signature links can be useful in terms of linking - but I find their value is extremely limited. And I do not at all believe that a policy of using signature links for SEO is a sound foundation to build from. That I would certainly agree with.

Would Google ban a site for using signature links to connect unrelated sites? By my own experience, no, I would not at all agree that Google does.

And sudden large scale linking, rather than leading to a ban, seems to lead to a sandbox.

However, I do believe that Google devalues links from at least the same domain (probably C class block) to any particular site. Therefore the thousands of posts - and constituent signature links - from any individual forum I've been a regular on, I consider to be of extremely limited value.

I used to believe in signature links for search engine purposes - now I do not, and simply take part in communities for the general community spirit. Any advantages signature links may have for search engine rankings I consider a bonus, but not essential.

However, signature links can be very good for human traffic - often better than traffic from many search engines.

Does it therefore rest your mind at ease that I am not so amateur as you feared?

[Dodger]

I would think that if a link is considered to be a "vote" for your site by another site, then 100 links from one site would be considered stuffing the ballot box. If I were a search engine, I would take that into account. There has to be a saturation point where enough is enough.

The timing, as Nacho pointed out is critical too. In the beginning, to be effective you would need to have those 100 links initially. There is a delay factor built in for those pages to get spidered. After a certain time period elapses, one should scale back the number of links on that site to avoid the flags.

My feeling is that a text-link is more effective if not overly mentioned on a site. It has more meaning -- repetitive links are the opposite and dilute that meaning. It is akin to telling your children over and over not to do something, if you harp on it, they will not listen to you anymore -- thus if your text-link is repeated over and over again on a site, so will the SE's start to ignore and think of it as something else -- un-natural linking.

On the Class III IP issue. If you have 100 domains on the same IP or block of IPs that are linking out to one site with the same anchor text, then you are wasting your time and money. They are going to spot that a mile away. Spreading it over 10 Class III blocks will probably fly under the radar for a while, but as the links start to be found and indexed -- you will run into the repetiveness factor again.

Randomized anchor text would probably work to your advantage however. Given that you will have 100 links on any particular site -- randomizing 5 different text strings for that anchor will give you 5 X 20 links (this is not the same as 100 links ... is it???) or 5 X 2000 links network site-wise. This would roll under the radar I believe, plus the next visit to one of those pages will have a different anchor text on that visit.

Still, I would rather take that $70 and put it into two well established Directories with good PR that will last me the entire year. At $70 a month, it would be easy to have 24 directories by year-end. At least the PR will help with my site to attract long-term quality linking partnerships and would be a better investment.