Ron Paul SEO lessons! Get Ron Ranked for all "keywords"!

[Madsci30]

I will be placing many lessons in this thread. It is not my intent to get responses or comments. I have been studying SEO for some time now and want to educate Ron Paul supporters in proper SEO techniques.

With the number of supporters we have out their and the number of sites that keep popping up we have quite a huge power in our hands. I can tell by looking at the official RP site that something is not right or his rankings would be through the roof and google and yahoo would be trying to combat our moves.

My goal is to assist the many supporters in some sort of organized nationwide/worldwide SEO strategy. We will put Ron on the first results page for all the key terms searched if not #1 for all keywords including other candidates names.

Please don't post on this thread. Start other threads instead and questions and other techniques can be discussed there. This should be strictly for reading.

[Madsci30]

So... What Does Google Really Want?

Like it or not, search engine optimization plays an important part for any online business, and more so for new and small businesses. On cash-strapped budgets, we don't have the deep pockets to buy expensive links on high-traffic websites, and extensive PPC spending (I'm talking about over $100 a day) is beyond us, at least at the start.

So the rest of us are, in the end, left with getting traffic the (free) cheap way – building links, regularly adding content, optimizing our pages and trawling through SEO forums for that next big breakthrough in SEO strategies that will give us the edge over our competition.

In other words, we are all caught up in the SEO rat race. And there seems to be no end in sight.

At times like these, it's a good idea to step back and look at the situation from a more “detached” perspective. Forget about your website, forget about your online business, forget about making money from the Internet while sitting at home and sleeping in on Mondays.

Instead, I want you to have only one thought, just four words in your mind:

What does Google really want?


Why Google, you ask? What a stupid question, you might also ask. Well, let me explain myself. However, while I do so, keep this question in mind and try to answer it alongside me.

Now…when you reduce search engine marketing to its basics, it is all about doing what is necessary (and acceptable by the search engines) in order to get a high ranking in search engine results (SERPs). So our SEO strategies depend directly on what works best in the search engines.

Now, let's take that thought a bit further – how do you know what works best? Well, the search engines keep their ranking algorithm secret, and no one really understands how rankings “really” work. Sure, we can all approximate, and some of us have made (and will continue to make) millions by getting it “right”. But in the absence of cold and hard facts from the people running the search engine traffic, there's no way to know for sure.

What the search engines do tell us is pretty vague – your website content must be unique, useful, and should be fresh. Targeting your website to a particular industry helps as well. Links? Search engines sure like them. In fact, search engines like them quite a lot. But hey, that's not all to search engines, is it? What about quality content?

The truth is that in the age of super-instant gratification (ever met a cliché you liked? ), links are your “easy” ticket into search engine rankings. In face of the “simplicity” of getting other websites to link to yours (made even easier by SEO tools), good content takes a VERY distant second place.

The search engines can be blamed for placing too much emphasis on links, although in the last year or so, led by Google, the search engines have gradually moved away from giving links too much importance and have started looking at relevance and user feedback (read personalized search) Even then, SEO campaigns takes a familiar shape:

Do some keyword research and build a master list of keywords.
Write “keyword optimized” articles for the search engines.
Build links to your website using keywords in the anchor text (and choosing link partners in the same niche (to win on the relevance factor).
Tip: Use a tool like SEO Elite to build links quickly. See demo video by clicking here.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

In that formula, somehow, somewhere, people started taking shortcuts. First, there was link spamming to trick search engines into ranking their websites higher. Then, there were “content-generating” scripts – the poor man's version of obscene levels of keyword stuffing carried out only for manipulating search engines.

Maybe it's unfair to call this tactics trickery or manipulation. After all, there is a system, there's a way of cracking it and getting to the top of it without much effort, so why not take the quick and dirty shortcut and move on?

On the surface, the debate seems to be between “ethical” and “unethical” methods (or, as they like to say, between white hats and black hats) of SEO. In reality, your morality, or the color of your headgear, does not matter. At all.

What DOES matter is the question I asked you earlier. What does Google want?

In fact, replace Google with the search engine of your choice. Take Yahoo. Msn. IceRocket if fancy strikes you, but the point remains the same.

Whar are the search engines really looking for?


Search engines, believe it or not, are looking to keep their visitors.

Surprised? Shoot, why not, it makes sense, doesn't it? Search is as much a business as selling widgets or owning a roadside café, and in a business, getting and keeping your customers (searchers) is your top priority. No searchers = no money, and that's the bottom line.

So how do the search engines get, and keep, their visitors? Once you start thinking of search engines as being businesses, everything falls into place. Building customer loyalty is a crucial factor for any successful business.

Be the best at what they do


For search engines, this means being the best at what they do, and to offer the most complimentary services. Leaving SE accessories (like Yahoo's portal or Google's various services) aside, the only way search engines can get and bring back searchers is by giving them what they want.

Searchers (much like you and me) want information. They want it to get to it fast. They want it to be right. Most importantly, they want it be right the first time around. That's a difficult ask for the search engines (isn't that an understatement), and they are bound to screw things up along the way.

Now, it suddenly becomes clear (it will to you as well, just hang on). It doesn't matter what “algorithm” a search engine is using, or what particular SEO tactic seems to be working best this month (or week). In the end, search engines will always be working towards providing users “better” results – where better invariably translates into useful and updated information for the searcher. You can go through ten thousand search engine updates, but the end goal remains the same.

This is certainly no revelation. Search engines (and many SEO gurus) have been saying this all this time. Quality content is the best way to build search engine rankings – it is the only guarantee towards an organic linking campaign, and along with user feedback (personalized search) it has fast become the focus of search engine “updates”.

That's not to say that link building does not work – in fact, link building still remains the easiest way to get search engine rankings. However, quality content (and the $5 an article that most webmasters pay on RentACoder is not quality , no matter what your standards) serves your business in so many different ways that it seems almost foolish, and certainly short-sighted, of webmasters to not invest in it.

Fact


Quality content helps with conversions – people will buy more from you if you help them in their quest for knowledge, and they will come back for more if they like what you are telling them.
Quality content does wonders in search engines – despite the fact that search engine rankings are automated, good writing is written for the readers and thus not over-optimised – over-optimization is a big problem for webmasters and it's something that search engines have been penalizing for a while now.
Quality content is your surest guarantee for building links organically, or naturally – someone comes to your website and likes your website so much that they link to it on their blog, resources page or anywhere else on their website (it happens all the time).
Quality content is also the best bet to get one-way links in your link building campaigns without having to pay for them – webmasters are more likely to link to a website that is actually useful than just for the sake of building their links page.
Finally, and most importantly, quality content is what searchers are looking for. It's what search engines are trying to provide (to their users). In short, that's what the search engines are looking for: quality content.

Makes sense to do what the search engines are looking for, and THEN build your SEO strategy around that, doesn't it?

So the next time you're stuck in a rut, and are despairing about your search engine rankings, stop what you are doing, take a step back and ask yourself this simple question:

“What DOES Google want?”

[Madsci30]

It's easier to get high rankings on Google with older websites than it is with new websites. Why is this so and what can you do to get high rankings on Google if you have a brand new website?

Why is it easier to get high rankings with older websites?

Brand new domain names are often used by spammers to make a quick buck. These spammers buy hundreds of domains, fill them with automatically created scraper content and hope to make some money with the ads that appear on these sites.

In addition, some webmasters use new domains to test new search engine spamming techniques.

As it is difficult for Google to find out whether a new domain can be trusted or not, Google invented a set of filters that downranks new websites until Google thinks that they can be trusted.

What can you do to overcome Google's filters for new websites?

It's very difficult to get high rankings before Google trusts your website. For that reason, do things that make your website trustworthy:

Start with the right keywords

It's not possible to get a top 10 ranking for highly competitive general search term such as "cars" for a new website. However, it is possible to get high rankings for terms such as "used car dealer atlanta".

It's not just easier to get high rankings for more specific search terms, these terms are also much more likely to convert to sales. Take some time to find the right keywords for your site.


Get links to your website

It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without good incoming links. Try to get as many links from related websites as possible. If the right websites link to your site then Google will trust your website more quickly.


Optimize your web pages

While more links to your website greatly increase your chance of getting high search engine rankings, you must also tell search engines for which search terms you want to have high rankings. Optimize the content of your web pages to make sure that Google lists your website for the right search terms.

Search engines should be able to parse the content of your web pages easily. Consider this when creating a new website from scratch.


Wait

A website that has been online for several years is much less likely to game Google's ranking algorithms than newer sites. For that reason, your Google rankings will also increase just by waiting (given that you followed the steps 1 to 3).
If you do it correctly, getting high search engine rankings for brand new websites is possible. It's important that you do the right things in the right order

[Madsci30]

Content - Regular, frequent and high quality content produced by people with knowledge in the field, or people that you can trust to do their homework before jumping headfirst into writing it. This is crucial both at the search engine algo level and the PPC campaign design level. And its not just a fresh article once a month. If you examine your log files you will see how often the SERP’s comeback to visit. Once you are in good with them, they hit your site 1-3+ times a day. It will only do this if it sees fresh content, via your navigation. There is a point at which the bots will and won’t come back and crawl. They won’t if they don’t see fresh content. They will come back to your index (homepage) to find the fresh content, if they don’t find it they will leave. If they do find fresh content they will continue to navigate throughout your site via the ‘proper’ navigation mentioned in this list below. Fresh content throughout your entire site is costly and time-consuming, but will separate you and elevate you from the rest.

Inbound links to your site from relevant and trusted sites – Links from trusted sites; links from pages with a higher PR(4+) and less than 50 outbound links; links from pages with a lower PR and less than 10-25 outbound links (Keyword-rich anchor text as well). Preferably forums and blogs (or Viral Marketing) are some of the strongest referrers. This needs to be a permanent, ongoing project, and the links should be in place for at least 12-18 months for optimal effect. Getting 50 or 1000 this month, then dropping to just a few next month is a huge red flag for all the SE’s. A steady link building scheme is required to earn top rankings. This means no link farm’s. Let me quickly explain about link farms and the way that the SE's see them. If you are actively and voluntarily participating in a linking scheme you are trying to manipulate their results. They value natural linking in their algorithms highly so they do not look link farms kindly now, or anytime in the future. It is one of the possible methods they have to value a website. This is why you hear so many of the pros say "content is king". One way or the other you need to attract traffic natuarally or the least make it look like you have.

Individual Title and Descriptions - The argument is alive and well, and continuing as it has and will for several years. Title tags are how the SE’s identify the relevancy of your page (compared to the end-users search query), not just in Organic ranking but in Paid Placement as well. Descriptions are how (organically) the SE’s place a relevancy rating on your page.

Site Architecture/Navigation – This includes menus, all the way to how each section on a site’s pages are interlinked with each other.

Keyword Terminology - In your content, use 2 or 3 word keyword phrases that are likely to be searched for by users. Don’t over-do-it, but be sure everything is in line and included - Keyword Title; Keyword phrase in description (1st line); Internal navigation keyword links; Fresh keyword rich content.

Universal XML Sitemaps - Providing an XML sitemap is one of the easiest things you can do to help search engines traverse your site. Google, Yahoo and MSN have all adopted this “standardized” tool. Having a sitemap and then submitting it through WEBMASTER Central will tell you not only when the crawl (usually 1-2 days) is complete, but also if there are any errors that the bots found.

Rich Media – Or concentrating on utilising video, image and audio search. Google is and I believe Yahoo and MSN will be offering big incentives to move into these areas, provided you can utilize this according to your current ad structure, demographics and product or service. Flash builders are a dime-a-dozen. Utilize them to create interactive ads.

Web 2.0 - Utilising blogs and forums more to improve search such as www.flickr.com , www.myspace.com , www.technorati.com, www.simpy.com, and others. Also put these “public bookmarks” buttons (AddMe to Google) in your site and your articles.

Mobile Web - Google, Yahoo and MSN mobile are nearing and making your site accessible to all mobile web browsers is increasingly important. Remember when Firefox and Opera came out and everything didn’t work or look right? (kinda like today on a much smaller scale). That’s all there is to becoming mobile compliant.

Content Relevancy - ensuring everything is neat and relevant across a site. Irrelevant links and content could be detrimental. Map your entire site in a hand-written tree and link them accordingly. Then use this to create a sitemap, and add a link to it to your homepage, and/or your navigation.

Constant Monitoring of Paid and Organic Analytical Information - Re-evaluation and improvements based on user stats and new industry changes. Having an expert in this field is vital. (e.g. If you have a PPC account with a few thousand keywords that are working for you that is proving successful, great job. If you want to double the traffic whilst cutting your costs in half, then you’ll need an expert to know what these analytics mean)

Become a More Trusted Site – Links are great but links from trusted sites are KING. If you need to work 10 times as long writing articles, creating Charitable Ebay auctions, endorsing a football team or a fraternity, do whatever you have to do to get links such as from a .edu or .gov. This will almost instantly boost your trust and especially your organic rankings. Other potential trust issues include GeoTrust and HackerSafe certifications or even going to a secure server.

A Word About Website Popularity - Yes, this is measured by all the search engines, and always has been. (Remember when you open your Google PPC account and it asked you about providing behaviorally statistical information?) Whether you use analytical and tracking tools or not, all the SE’s do. This is part of the method they used to use before the more advanced algorithms of today. Unfortunately, you can’t directly control this, but with the rest of these tips you can definitely improve it.

[Madsci30]

1) The anchor text or title or keyword, whatever you prefer to call it. Must have the keyword you want to rank for, not your website address.



Again here is an example of how it is suppose to look. Let’s say you want to rank for health care.



On the website your link should look like this



Title(link): health care



Description(text): Healthcare problems solved by republican candidate in 2008.

URL: www.mydomain.com



As you can see when I tell people to link to my website, I don’t tell them to link to www.mydomain.com, I tell them to link to my website with the word health care. This way with enough link exchanges, I will rank for health care.



2) You will not get ranked overnight. This is a process that needs to be done daily. The way I do it is I spend about 30 minutes per day using SEO Elite. Let’s start in the morning, I will launch SEO Elite to find link partners (May take 10-40 minutes) I usually leave it running and leave the computer. At night when I get home, I will email all the link partners SEO Elite found from morning time (email process may take a minute). Then before I go to sleep, I will launch SEO Elite again to search for link partners. When I woke up in the morning, I will email all my link partners SEO Elite found from the other night and start all over again.



This should be a lot easier since we already have a huge supply of sites with good content to link with.



3) A lot of people try to rank for really competitive keywords. Like general words such as Auto Parts or Car Accessories. Let me explain that to rank for a keyword that has extremely high competition (over 10 million) as example could be Car Accessories, is something not worth doing unless it’s really worth. Let’s put it this way, to rank top 5 for term Car Accessories you need about 250 or more successful link partners recognized by Google. This will take you a year minimum doing SEO Elite daily. It would make more sense to compete against a semi competitive keyword (under 2 million) or a non competitive keyword in the hundred thousands.

Most of the RP keywords will be easy for us to rank for!


4) Again, make this your daily habit to do link exchange. If you can ensure 3 successful link exchanges per day you are on the right path. If you have extra time, it may be a good idea to actually find good ranking link partners, contact them by phone and email to ensure the link exchange is done.



Let me give you an example in basic English language of how this works. When you drive a car from CA to NY, you don’t see yourself getting there in a minute, you don’t know how you will get there. You just know one thing, that you can get there and if you follow the right directions you will get there. You will simply take 1 second at a time and 1 foot at a time of driving down the road. Following the right directions the road will bring you to NY from CA.



This is the same situation. SEO Elite is your vehicle. I am your map and you do the driving. Your goal is to get your website from no where to be found to #1 on Google. Now use the tools that I teach you to ensure your success.



5) Make sure to save the contact list of your link partners. Next time you start a new website you can rely on your old link partners to trade links with your new website(s). You will simply be able to email all of them and tell them that they are already link partners with one of your websites and to link to your new website.

[Madsci30]

With great power comes great responsibility... and the weblog community is only now beginning to come to terms with a new application that subverts the very technology that powers Google, the world's favorite search engine.

Yes, we're referring to the Google Bomb.

What's a Google Bomb?

Google Bombs were conceived last April as part of a brilliant gag by Adam Mathes. In his own words:

Google is unique among search engines in that while it almost always shows you pages that have the exact keywords you are looking for, occasionally it will show you pages that don't have those keywords, but other pages linked to that page with those words.

I first discovered this when searching for internet rockstar, which turned up Ben's page. [editor: Adam is referring to internet rockstar Ben Brown] At the time though, he did not actually have that phrase on his page however the legions of teeny-bopper blogger morons who linked to him always used that phrase in their links.

Adam identified a critical loophole in Google's algorithm. This article I'm writing may be about Google Bombs... but if enough sites linked to it using the phrase "Aunt Jemima," then this article might come up as the first search result for "Aunt Jemima." In other words, the linker can impact the Google Rank of the linkee.

And thus was born the Google Bomb. As Adam notes:

[S]imply having tons of the same links with the same phrase on a single page will do nothing. It requires a multitude of pages to have that link with specific link text. But this power can be harnessed with a concentrated group effort.

So a single Google Bomb isn't enough... you need an army of bloggers throwing Google Bombs into their weblogs.

Adam lobbed the first Google Bomb as a joke, aimed squarely at a friend of his: Andy "Talentless Hack" Pressman. Amazingly, a year later, Adam's Google Bomb demonstrates tremendous staying power, as Andy's website is still the number one search result for "Talentless Hack":



Adam's Google Bomb may have been a joke, but since then the practice of Google Bombing has begun to spread throughout the blogging community. Which begs the question:

Why Do People Google Bomb?

Here at Microcontent News headquarters, we identified four top reasons why people bomb Google:

Humor
Ego
Money
Justice
Let's take a look at each of these

1. Humor Bombs

Admit it... it's pretty funny to see your friend come up in Google as the #1 Talentless Hack in the whole world. Granted you have to find search keywords that don't get a lot of traffic, but that shouldn't be too hard.

2. Ego Bombs

It's become fashionable to be the top search result for your first name (or barring that, your full name). David Gallagher - freelance writer for the New York Times - provided one such example on his personal blog:

I've decided that I want to be the most famous David Gallagher on the Internet, and if you have a Web site, you can help. How? Link to this site like so: David Gallagher.

As of March 1st, he's ranked number 3 in Google... not too shabby, David.

3. Money Bombs

Of course, it's only a matter of time before someone starts making Google Bombs for profit.

As far as we know, this has yet to come to pass... but once Money Bombs become a possibility, they pose a real threat to Google. Brig over at Eatonweb floated the idea just a few days ago:

02.27.02

reading why google loves weblogs got me thinking about google bombing. specifically, in regard to keyword searches. take, for example, my dad. he would be in heaven if his site came up #1 on a search for santa cruz real estate. he would be willing to pay for that.

Brig, Microcontent News will Google Bomb your dad's site for free: santa cruz real estate. I'm not sure how much it will help though, as your dad is up against some tough competition: some 103K separate websites come up in Google when you search for "Santa Cruz Real Estate!"

Buying a Google Bomb is probably cheaper than buying a Google Adwords microad. But even if that price disparity disappears, it's much better to be in Google's main search results than somewhere in a side module. Given this reality, it's inevitable that Money Bombs start appearing in the weblog community soon.

4. Justice Bombs

As we saw in last week's article, Justice Bombs can be tossed at evil corporations. The target then was Critical IP, a corporation accused with telemarketing to domain name owners by stealing phone numbers out of an Internet database.

In fact, several bloggers have built Justice Bombs after last week's article... including Megan McArdle. She was nauseated the other day to hear about the R Kelly videotape:

The other day, a radio station in New York that one of my co-workers listens to read a play-by-play of the R Kelly videotape. It is the first time I've ever been made actually nauseous by something I heard or watched. For those who aren't aware of it, R Kelly is a musician who purchased the services of a 14-year old girl from her family and . . . no, I can't go on. It makes me want to get sick just thinking about it.

Ordinarily, most people would feel helpless in this sort of situation. But armed with knowledge gleaned from last week's Microcontent News, Megan proposed a Justice Bomb:

I have the following proposal. Let those of us in the Blogosphere post the following two links on our pages:

Daniel Pearl Videotape
R Kelly Videotape

Several bloggers have already followed suit, and just a few days after the Justice Bomb was lit, five of the top ten results for R Kelly videotape are already weblogs with her Google Bomb. Go Megan!

Why Google Bombs are So Effective:

We went over the mechanics of Google Bombs last week. But why do so many weblogs participate in Google Bombing?

First and foremost, it's fun. Google is an institution, and seeing your personal website pop up in a search result is exhilarating. We've watched Microcontent News become the second search result for Google Bomb (behind Adam's essay inventing the concept), giving us some personal insight into the excitement of climbing the Google ranks.

Google Bombs also tap the natural human instinct for reciprocity: "you help me with my bomb, and I'll help you with yours." [1] Most of the Google Bombing to date has been Ego Bombing anyway, which lends itself especially well to reciprocation.

Google Bombing also fulfills a fundamental need: a need for justice, and for a feeling of control over the uncontrollable. When Megan McArdle got upset over the R Kelly videotape, she was able to strike back with a Google Bomb. Now, there's a good chance that someone searching for the videotape will read the message she's written just for them:

There is a special circle in hell reserved for people who watch things like this. Do humanity a favor and either get some help or take yourself out of the game.

How to Make a Google Bomb

Adam published instructions in his original Google Bomb essay:

1. Get a web site. ...

2. Whenever you update your site, ... be sure to include [an HTML link to your target site. Make sure the text of the link is the search term you'd like to own]

3. Add your site to Google.

4. Wait for the magic to happen!

Defusing a Google Bomb

So far, all the Google Bombs we've seen have been built using Adam's instructions.

Blogging a link (AKA "link-blogging") as a Google Bomb can provide a powerful short term boost in Google rank... but as we saw last week with the Critical IP example, the Google Bomb drops in power over time. (The Google Bomb raced to the #1 search position for "Critical IP" within two days... but two weeks later, it was already down to #46, and falling.)

It's clear that somehow Google was weighting the Google Bomb links less as they aged. This "temporal weighting" might be part of Google's algorithm. Still, something about that doesn't feel right - after all, isn't most of the Google database made up of older links?

More likely, the defusing of Google Bombs is largely a consequence of blog posts scrolling off a weblog's frontpage. Google almost certainly weights links more heavily if they're on the frontpage of a site, rather than on an interior page. After a week (or a month, in some cases), most Google Bomb links have been moved to archive pages - and so bloggers inadvertently end up defusing their very own bombs.

A More Powerful Google Bomb

A new type of Google Bomb offers a way around this. It's based on a blogging phenomenon named by Doc Searls in December of 2000. We're referring, of course, to blogrolling.

Blogrolling is a relatively new name to a very old tradition. Most websites have traditionally had a Links page, where the webmaster points to their favorite websites. Weblogs have carried on the tradition... but rather than have a separate page for their links, they typically have their favorite links on the side of their page. Thanks to Doc's neologism, this "sidebar" section is increasingly called the "Blogrolling" section of a weblog.

Most importantly, a blogrolling link never scrolls off a weblog's frontpage. This greatly magnifies the impact of a blogrolling link, making them a much more potent Google Bomb.

Blogrolling Google Bombs have yet to hit the weblog scene. When they do, they could become the next generation Google Bomb, with a much longer impact than link-blogging bombs.

The Staying Power of Google Bombs

Google can be foiled over the long run, as mapped out in this excellent essay on the Church of Scientology. As the author puts it:

[T]he Church of Scientology, a large corporate entity, has figured out how to exploit [Google's algorithm] to their advantage by having large quantities of domains that are packed heavily with links to each other

In other words, this essay alleges that the Church has bought hundreds of domains and had them all point both to each other... and of course, to Scientology-friendly websites. It may not involve weblogs, but it sure sounds like a Google Bomb to us!

It should be noted that some bloggers are striking back at the Church with their own Google Bomb. They've achieved some short term success, getting Operation Clambake - a site dedicated to debunking Scientology - up to #4 in the Google ranks.

While a valiant effort, I'm not convinced that this Google Bomb will defeat the bombs placed by the Church. After all, these bloggers are fighting blogrolling bombs with link-blogging bombs. Once the links scroll off their weblog frontpages, Operation Clambake should fall back in the Google rankings.

Implications for Google Bombs

If the Church of Scientology can foil Google, then Google Bombs - especially ones based on blogrolling - could potentially have a serious and long-term impact on Google rankings.

This has serious implications for the future of Google Bombs.

Watch out, Google!

One or two people linkblogging some Google Bombs isn't going to make a big difference in Google ranks in the long term. But teams of people working together to blogroll Google Bombs could have a serious and long-term impact on Google rankings.

Sooner or later, these teams of people will emerge... and when they do, their collective power on Google will be staggering.

Google, you'd better start watching out for these "Bomb Squads." Weblogs can help filter billions of webpages for you... but they could also help destroy the very technology that Google is based on!

The Emergence of Bomb Squads

Bomb Squads have yet to emerge, but all the ingredients are there.

One interesting development: a blogger has auctioned off a blogrolling link as a joke. [2]

Tony Pierce, the blogger in question, posted his auction to eBay on February 22nd. His auction description is fun to read... but it's easy to picture the same description applied less humorously to an actual Google Bomb auction:

Some people have morals, standards, ideals about quality when it comes to linking sites to their Blogs and websites, but I'm an American, I couldn't care less.

145812. That's how many hits I've gotten this month on my web site, http://www.tonypierce.com

I will link you on my Blog (http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/bloggy.htm), way up high for one full month. I will also link you on my links page http://www.tonypierce.com/links.htm for an entire month in a prominent locale.

Tony's auction closed last Friday night, topping out at $15.50.

Tony was just doing this for fun - and as weblogs gimmicks go, this one was particularly successful in driving his traffic up. But the stage has been set for real Google Bombs.

Google Bomb Squads in Real Life

I mentioned Brig's speculation about Google Bombs earlier... what I didn't mention is that she posted something very much along these lines in her weblog:

02.27.02

reading why google loves weblogs got me thinking about google bombing. specifically, in regard to keyword searches. take, for example, my dad. he would be in heaven if his site came up #1 on a search for santa cruz real estate. he would be willing to pay for that. someone needs to set up a google bomb service. weblogs sign up and reserve page space for the "google bomb link of the day". the service then sells it to customers and divides up the earnings with the weblogs. interesting concept anyway. 06:05 pm

Sounds like a Google Bomb Squad to me!

Impact of Google Bomb Squads on Weblogs

The emergence of a Google Bomb Squad system could solve a thorny problem for bloggers: how to make money off of their time-consuming hobby.

Getting search engines to send you traffic has become a big industry with cryptic acronyms (SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization) and fancy industry conferences. Joining a Google Bomb Squad could let bloggers tap what's become a multi-million dollar industry. It could even make life easier for the SEO industry - after all, as Google's become more popular, their usual bag of tricks has become less effective. Google Bombs and Bomb Squads could be the killer app that SEOs have been looking for.

Impact of Google Bomb Squads on Google

It's clear that Google Bombs are incredibly effective at building traffic. What's not so clear is what Google should do about it.

After all, a Google Bomb is extremely difficult to distinguish from a genuine link. Take our last Microcontent News article, for example. Just one day after its publication, it had already catapulted to the #1 search position for "Google Weblogs" This is despite the fact that there are 40,000 weblogs that share those very same search terms. In this case, that's a good thing: Google is giving Microcontent News credit for the dozens of links we received from the blogging community.

But how would Google know if all this linking had been a Google Bomb? Do they create an algorithm that defuses Google Bombs? Do they create a self-policing system to report sites that Google Bomb? Or do they - gasp! - ban people who sign up for Google Bomb Squads?

And what comprises a bannable Google Bomb?

For example, is it wrong to Google Bomb the Church of Scientology, or Critical IP? Is it more or less wrong to try and profit off of a Google Bomb? What exactly would comprise a offense worthy of Google excommunication?

At this point, it's unclear. But Google has generated so much goodwill in the weblog community that any guidelines they issue will surely be taken into consideration by the blogging world. Google, let us know what's right or wrong in the world of Google Bombs!

In the meantime, all your search are belong to us. Somebody set up us the bomb!

[Madsci30]

It's never easy for newcomers to enter a market and there are barriers of different kinds. For newcomers to the world of search engines, the barrier is called a sandbox – your site stays there until it gets mature enough to be allowed to the Top Positions club. Although there is no direct confirmation of the existence of a sandbox, Google employees have implied it and SEO experts have seen in practice that new sites, no matter how well optimized, don't rank high on Google, while on MSN and Yahoo they catch quickly. For Google, the jailing in the sandbox for new sites with new domains is on average 6 months, although it can vary from less than a month to over 8 months.

Sandbox and Aging Delay
While it might be considered unfair to stop new sites by artificial means like keeping them at the bottom of search results, there is a fair amount of reasoning why search engines, and above all Google, have resorted to such measures. With blackhat practices like bulk buying of links, creation of duplicate content or simply keyword stuffing to get to the coveted top, it is no surprise that Google chose to penalize new sites, which overnight get tons of backlinks, or which are used as a source of backlinks to support an older site (possibly owned by the same company). Needless to say, when such fake sites are indexed and admitted to top positions, this deteriorates search results, so Google had to take measures for ensuring that such practices will not be tolerated. The sandbox effect works like a probation period for new sites and by making the practice of farming fake sites a long-term, rather than a short-term payoff for site owners, it is supposed to decrease its use.

Sandbox and aging delay are similar in meaning and many SEO experts use them interchangeably. Aging delay is more self-explanatory – sites are “delayed” till they come of age. Well, unlike in legislation, with search engines this age is not defined and it differs. There are cases when several sites were launched in the same day, were indexed within a week from each other but the aging delay for each of them expired in different months. As you see, the sandbox is something beyond your control and you cannot avoid it but still there are steps you can undertake to minimize the damage for new sites with new domains.

Minimizing Sandbox Damages
While Google sandbox is not something you can control, there are certain steps you can take in order to make the sandbox effect less destructive for your new site. As with many aspects of SEO, there are ethical and unethical tips and tricks and unethical tricks can get you additional penalties or a complete ban from Google, so think twice before resorting to them. The unethical approaches will not be discussed in this article because they don comply with our policy.

Before we delve into more detail about particular techniques to minimize sandbox damage, it is necessary to clarify the general rule: you cannot fight the sandbox. The only thing you can do is to adapt to it and patiently wait for time to pass. Any attempts to fool Google – starting from writing melodramatic letters to Google, to using “sandbox tools” to bypass the filter – can only make your situation worse. There are many initiatives you can take, while in the sandbox, for as example:

Actively gather content and good links – as time passes by, relevant and fresh content and good links will take you to the top. When getting links, have in mind that they need to be from trusted sources – like DMOZ, CNN, Fortune 500 sites, or other reputable places. Also, links from .edu, .gov, and .mil domains might help because these domains are usually exempt from the sandbox filter. Don't get 500 links a month – this will kill your site! Instead, build links slowly and steadily.

Plan ahead– contrary to the general practice of launching a site when it is absolutely complete, launch a couple of pages, when you have them. This will start the clock and time will be running parallel to your site development efforts.

Buy old or expired domains – the sandbox effect is more serious for new sites on new domains, so if you buy old or expired domains and launch your new site there, you'll experience less problems.

Host on a well- established host – another solution is to host your new site on a subdomain of a well-established host (however, free hosts are generally not a good idea in terms of SEO ranking). The sandbox effect is not so severe for new subdomains (unless the domain itself is blacklisted). You can also host the main site on a subdomain and on a separate domain host just some contents, linked with the main site. You can also use redirects from the subdomained site to the new one, although the effect of this practice is also questionable because it can also be viewed as an attempt to fool Google.

Concentrate on less popular keywords – the fact that your site is sandboxed does not mean that it is not indexed by Google at all. On the contrary, you could be able to top the search results from the very beginning! Looking like a contradiction with the rest of the article? Not at all! You could top the results for less popular keywords – sure, it is better than nothing. And while you wait to get to the top for the most lucrative keywords, you can discover that even less popular keywords are enough to keep the ball rolling, so you may want to make some optimization for them.

Rely more on non-Google ways to increase traffic – it is often reminded that Google is not the only search engine or marketing tool out there. So if you plan your SEO efforts to include other search engines, which either have no sandbox at all or the period of stay there is relatively short, this will also minimize the damages of the sandbox effect.

[Madsci30]

If you've read anything about or studied Search Engine Optimization, you've come across the term "backlink" at least once. For those of you new to SEO, you may be wondering what a backlink is, and why they are important. Backlinks have become so important to the scope of Search Engine Optimization, that they have become some of the main building blocks to good SEO. In this article, we will explain to you what a backlink is, why they are important, and what you can do to help gain them while avoiding getting into trouble with the Search Engines.

What are "backlinks"? Backlinks are links that are directed towards your website. Also knows as Inbound links (IBL's). The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than others in their results pages for a search query.

When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, they consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So we should not be satisfied with merely getting inbound links, it is the quality of the inbound link that matters.
A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.

For example, if a webmaster has a website about how to rescue orphaned kittens, and received a backlink from another website about kittens, then that would be more relevant in a search engine's assessment than say a link from a site about car racing. The more relevant the site is that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the backlink.

Search engines want websites to have a level playing field, and look for natural links built slowly over time. While it is fairly easy to manipulate links on a web page to try to achieve a higher ranking, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from other websites. This is also a reason why backlinks factor in so highly into a search engine's algorithm. Lately, however, a search engine's criteria for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher, thanks to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve these inbound links by deceptive or sneaky techniques, such as with hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites. These pages are called link farms, and they are not only disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely.

Another reason to achieve quality backlinks is to entice visitors to come to your website. You can't build a website, and then expect that people will find your website without pointing the way. You will probably have to get the word out there about your site. One way webmasters got the word out used to be through reciprocal linking. Let's talk about reciprocal linking for a moment.

There is much discussion in these last few months about reciprocal linking. In the last Google update, reciprocal links were one of the targets of the search engine's latest filter. Many webmasters had agreed upon reciprocal link exchanges, in order to boost their site's rankings with the sheer number of inbound links. In a link exchange, one webmaster places a link on his website that points to another webmasters website, and vice versa. Many of these links were simply not relevant, and were just discounted. So while the irrelevant inbound link was ignored, the outbound links still got counted, diluting the relevancy score of many websites. This caused a great many websites to drop off the Google map.

We must be careful with our reciprocal links. There is a Google patent in the works that will deal with not only the popularity of the sites being linked to, but also how trustworthy a site is that you link to from your own website. This will mean that you could get into trouble with the search engine just for linking to a bad apple. We could begin preparing for this future change in the search engine algorithm by being choosier with which we exchange links right now. By choosing only relevant sites to link with, and sites that don't have tons of outbound links on a page, or sites that don't practice black-hat SEO techniques, we will have a better chance that our reciprocal links won't be discounted.

Many webmasters have more than one website. Sometimes these websites are related, sometimes they are not. You have to also be careful about interlinking multiple websites on the same IP. If you own seven related websites, then a link to each of those websites on a page could hurt you, as it may look like to a search engine that you are trying to do something fishy. Many webmasters have tried to manipulate backlinks in this way; and too many links to sites with the same IP address is referred to as backlink bombing.

One thing is certain: interlinking sites doesn't help you from a search engine standpoint. The only reason you may want to interlink your sites in the first place might be to provide your visitors with extra resources to visit. In this case, it would probably be okay to provide visitors with a link to another of your websites, but try to keep many instances of linking to the same IP address to a bare minimum. One or two links on a page here and there probably won't hurt you.

There are a few things to consider when beginning your backlink building campaign. It is helpful to keep track of your backlinks, to know which sites are linking back to you, and how the anchor text of the backlink incorporates keywords relating to your site. A tool to help you keep track of your backlinks is the Domain Stats Tool. This tool displays the backlinks of a domain in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. It will also tell you a few other details about your website, like your listings in the Open Directory, or DMOZ, from which Google regards backlinks highly important; Alexa traffic rank, and how many pages from your site that have been indexed, to name just a few.

Another tool to help you with your link building campaign is the Backlink Builder Tool. It is not enough just to have a large number of inbound links pointing to your site. Rather, you need to have a large number of QUALITY inbound links. This tool searches for websites that have a related theme to your website which are likely to add your link to their website. You specify a particular keyword or keyword phrase, and then the tool seeks out related sites for you. This helps to simplify your backlink building efforts by helping you create quality, relevant backlinks to your site, and making the job easier in the process.

There is another way to gain quality backlinks to your site, in addition to related site themes: anchor text. When a link incorporates a keyword into the text of the hyperlink, we call this quality anchor text. A link's anchor text may be one of the under-estimated resources a webmaster has. Instead of using words like "click here" which probably won't relate in any way to your website, using the words "Please visit our tips page for how to nurse an orphaned kitten" is a far better way to utilize a hyperlink. A good tool for helping you find your backlinks and what text is being used to link to your site is the Backlink Anchor Text Analysis Tool. If you find that your site is being linked to from another website, but the anchor text is not being utilized properly, you should request that the website change the anchor text to something incorporating relevant keywords. This will also help boost your quality backlinks score.

Building quality backlinks is extremely important to Search Engine Optimization, and because of their importance, it should be very high on your priority list in your SEO efforts. We hope you have a better understanding of why you need good quality inbound links to your site, and have a handle on a few helpful tools to gain those links.

[Madsci30]

Inbound links are one of the most important factors that Google uses to determine the position of a website in the search results.

Some years ago, it was sufficient to get a lot of inbound links to top Google's search results. Nowadays, it's not that easy. Google has started to detect unnatural linking patterns.

What are unnatural links?

Unnatural linking is linking that wouldn't happen if search engines didn't exist. Unnatural links are links that are built purely to increase the search engine rankings of a website. These links don't have topical relevancy.

For example, unnatural links are:

links from totally unrelated websites (that have no value to the web surfer)
links from blog comment spam and forum spam
links that exploit a weakness in server design (like form injection)
What are natural links?

Natural links are simply links that webmasters would also build if search engines didn't exist. For example, reciprocal links with related websites make sense (I send visitors to you and you send visitors to me, our visitors benefit from the links).

If a link is logical and on-topic then search engines will like the links. The following graphical example explains why on-topic links will increase your search engine rankings:

The topic of your website is symbolized by the green color. The more other "green" websites link to your site (symbolized by the green arrows), the deeper is the green of your own website.

In that case, search engines know that your website is very relevant for this "green" topic and they will give your site high search engine rankings for search terms related to that topic.

Now lets take a look at the effect of unrelated links:

The links from unrelated websites (symbolized by other colors) take away the green from your website. They make it harder for search engines to identify the topic of your site.

If you have a lot of links from unrelated web pages then your website becomes less relevant to the original topic of your site.

What does this mean for your website?

Links that are useful to web surfers are links that search engines deem relevant. Do now waste your time with shady link farm systems that promise hundreds of links in a short time. This won't help your website much.

Better focus on high quality links that will bring your website targeted visitors while increasing your search engine rankings at the same time.

[Madsci30]

Has it ever happened to you to have a perfectly optimized site with lots of links and content and the right keyword density and still do not rank high in search engines? Probably every SEO has experienced this. The reasons for such kind of failure can be really diverse – starting from the sandbox effect (your site just needs time to get mature), to overoptimization and inappropriate online relations (i.e. the so called “bad neighborhood” effect).

While there is not much you can do about the sandbox effect but wait, in most other cases it is up to you to counteract the negative effects you are suffering from. You just need to figure out what is stopping you from achieving the deserved rankings. Careful analysis of your site and the sites that link to you can give you ideas where to look for for the source of trouble and deal with it. If it is overoptimization – remove excessive stuffing; if it is bad neighbors – say “goodbye” to them. We have already deals with overoptimization as a SEO overkill and in this article we will have a look at another frequent rankings killer.

Link Wisely, Avoid Bad Neighbors
It is a known fact that one of the most important items for high rankings, especially with Google, are links. The Web is woven out of links and inbound and outbound links are most natural. Generally, the more inbound links (i.e. other sites link to you) you have, the better. On the contrary, if you have many outbound links, this is not very good. And what is worse – it can be disastrous, if you link to improper places – i.e. bad neighbors. The concept is hardly difficult to comprehend – it is so similar to real life: if you choose outlaws or bad guys for friends, you are considered to be one of them.

It might look unfair to be penalized for things that you have not done but linking to sites with bad reputation is equal to a crime for search engines and by linking to such a site, you can expect to be penalized as well. And yes, it is fair because search engines do penalize sites that use different tricks to manipulate search results. In a way, in order to guarantee the integrity of search results, search engines cannot afford to tolerate unethical practices.

However, search engines tend to be fair and do not punish you for things that are out of your control. If you have many inbound links from suspicious sites, this will not be regarded as a malpractice on your side because generally it is their Web master, not you, who has put all these links. So, inbound links, no matter where they come from, cannot harm you. But if in addition to inbound links, you have a considerable amount of outbound links to such sites, in a sense you vote for them. Search engines consider this as malpractice and you will get punished.

Why Do Some Sites Get Labelled as Bad Neighbors?
We have already mentioned in this article some of the practices that are a reason for search engines to ban particular sites. But the “sins” are not only limited to being a spam domain. Generally, companies get blacklisted because they try to boost their ranking by using illegal techniques such as keyword stuffing, duplicate content (or lack of any original content), hidden text and links, doorway pages, deceptive titles, machine-generated pages, copyright violators, etc. Search engines also tend to dislike meaningless link directories that conceive the impression that they are topically arranged, so if you have a fat links section on your site, double-check what you link to.

Figuring Out Who's Good, Who's Not
Probably the question that is popping is: “But since the Web is so vast and so constantly changing, how can I know who is good and who is bad?” Well, you don't have to know each of the sites on the black list, even if it were possible. The black list itself is changing all the time but it looks like there will always be companies and individuals who are eager to earn some cash by spamming, disseminating viruses and porn or simply performing fraudulent activities.

The first check you need to perform when you have doubts that some of the sites you are linking to are bed neighbors is to see if they are included in the indices of Google and the other search engines. Type “site:siteX.com”, where “siteX.com” is the site you are performing a check about and see if Google returns any results from it. If it does not return any results, chances are that this site is banned from Google and you should immediately remove any outbound links to siteX.com.

If you have outbound links to many different sites, such checks might take a lot of time. Fortunately, there are tools that can help you in performing this task. For instance, http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/ provides a tool that reports links to and from suspicious sites and sites that are missing in Google's index.

[Madsci30]

One of today's hottest marketing buzz phrases is "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO. SEO is the process of configuring an organization's Web site in such a way that when a person goes to Google (or other search engine) and searches for keywords related to the organization, the search engine lists the organization's Web site within its search results in the highest possible position.

SEO can be a valuable promotional tactic within any Web site marketing strategy. However, SEO can also become time consuming because Google, Yahoo, and MSN (the big three) use sophisticated algorithms to index Web content. All three companies continually adjust their algorithms to provide users with the best search results. Therefore, you will need to continually test new techniques to achieve and maintain high rankings.

The AVS Group has researched and developed an SEO model that improves search engine rankings. This article highlights three tactics from our model you can use to improve your own rankings:
Select great keywords
Convert keywords into traffic
Link building

Tactic #1: Select Great Keywords

Your first priority should be to select great keywords that describe your organization and the content within your Web site. It might be tempting to save time by developing a list of keywords, some specific and others broad, and then applying all of them on every page throughout your Web site. However, you will achieve greater results by selecting 10 custom keywords or phrases for each page of content within your site. For example, select 10 keywords and use them exclusively on your home page, followed by 10 different keywords for each subsequent page of content.

When selecting keywords, avoid words that are broad or vague. Broad or vague keywords provide little benefit because likely too many other pages are currently indexed in the search engines using those keywords. To illustrate, let's use AVSGroup.com as an example. Open a new browser window and go to Google. Search on the term "Web Site Design". Look at the upper right corner where Google displays the number of pages currently indexed for the keywords. Google has already indexed about 22 million pages for "Web Site Design".

Instead of competing against 22 million pages for "Web Site Design", AVS chose to optimize a page of content for "Web Strategy Development". This phrase precisely describes one of AVS's Web services, and because fewer pages are indexed, there is a greater likelihood of achieving a high ranking. To illustrate, go back to Google. Search on "Web Strategy Development". Google has indexed 623 pages and AVSGroup.com is the number one ranked site.

Tactic #2: Convert Keywords into Traffic

Once you have selected great keywords, the keywords must be incorporated into the right locations within your Web site to drive more traffic. Some of the best places are within your site's page title, META description, and META keywords. Google, Yahoo, and MSN look for keywords in these locations to help properly index a site's content.

If you are unfamiliar with how to view a page title, open a new browser window and go to AVSGroup.com. The page title is the white text that appears inside the bar at the top left of your browser window.

Next in importance is the META description and META keywords. Both are used to describe the content found on a particular page. To locate the METAs, open a new browser window and go back to AVSGroup.com. Click on the "View" drop down menu within your Internet Explorer window. You will see several options including "View Source". Select "View Source". This will display the HTML used to create the AVSGroup.com home page. At the top of the page, you will see the META description and META keywords.

You will achieve the greatest success if you develop custom page titles, META descriptions, and META keywords for each page within your Web site using the keywords that you selected earlier.

Tactic #3: Link Building

Link building is an SEO term that means requesting other Webmasters to add a link to your Web site within their Web site. This usually takes place in two ways. Webmasters will sometimes add your link within their own site's content because your Web site could be a valuable resource to their site visitors. You can also encourage Webmasters to post your content onto their Web site provided they include a link to your Web site within the credits.

For the first example, open a new browser window and go to www.viroqua-wisconsin.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a link that reads "Web site design and development by The AVS Group". This link provides AVSGroup.com with additional traffic if someone were to click the link, but more importantly, the link helps increase our "Page Rank". More on Page Rank later.

Next, open a new browser window and go back to Google. Search on the phrase "e-mail marketing tips". You should see a link that reads "Learn Successful E-mail Marketing Tips" (it might even be the number two ranked site). Click on this link and you will find a Web site that is featuring one of The AVS Group's Resources articles. This is an example of leveraging your Web site content by permitting other Webmasters to post it and provide a link back to your site. Scroll to the bottom of the article and you will see a link to AVSGroup.com.

Your link building activities increase what is known as, "Page Rank". Page Rank is a measure that Google uses to evaluate the relevancy of a Web site's content. If you have hundreds or even thousands of Web sites linking to your Web site using these two examples, Google will consider your Web site to be more relevant. You will earn a higher Page Rank score, resulting in improved search results for your Web site against sites that might even be optimized for the same keywords.

In closing, this article shared three key tactics within our SEO model that you can use to improve your search engine rankings. Because of the complexity of SEO, please let us know if you would like to learn more about our full SEO model. Our Web experts will demonstrate the various tactics within our model and discuss the results.

[skyorbit]

How do I get my blog higher.
http://randforsenate.blogspot.com

Basically there's this blog called Sarah Palin's Accomplishments, that keeps coming up in the Google News feed when you search Google (do not post her link, she doesn't need any more link popularity.) for Rand Paul. They're heavily anti-Rand Paul screeds.

So over at rand paul forums, we're trying to make our own Rand Paul blogs, (or other kind of blogs) that might show up in the Google news feeds also.)

Blogger's owned by google, so maybe that's why her site is showing up in the NEWs feeds, I don't know.

So I got a blogger account, and decided to start my own blog.

http://randforsenate.blogspot.com

Obviously it would be better if there was a community of Rand Paul blogs that could all link to each other, but their isn't a whole lot yet.

So, how do I compete with her?

And what's she doing that's gaming Google?

See this isn't specifically Search Engine optimization. It's google's NEWS feed specifically, and optimizing the blog for the Google NEWS feed.

Tracy

[nurse_emily]

We need a private Forum for this. I have a lot of information to share and I can't do it out in the open like this. We will have the opposition jocking every thing we send up the pipes.

[newbitech]

nice tips

[evilfunnystuff]

We need a private Forum for this. I have a lot of information to share and I can't do it out in the open like this. We will have the opposition jocking every thing we send up the pipes.

a private section wouldnt be all that private though imo anyone here who would put seo techniques to use against us more than likely has an account here already and would still be able to access it

if you are that concerned maybe a better tactic would be seek out sites you want to help and talk to them via email or pm's or something

[nurse_emily]

a private section wouldnt be all that private though imo anyone here who would put seo techniques to use against us more than likely has an account here already and would still be able to access it

if you are that concerned maybe a better tactic would be seek out sites you want to help and talk to them via email or pm's or something

Actually yes, You confirm that a person is the owner of a site. Lets say I have 1 Ron Paul / C4L focused site. 2 Republican sites and then I have 50 business sites.

To gain access you post a link on your political site and have your site confirmed to gain access to the private forum. I have been down this road before, it is not difficult.

The only way to gain access would be to actually build a site and age it... build links and groom is for several months. I would know a site that was thrown up last week, any rookie could figure that out.

[nurse_emily]

a private section wouldnt be all that private though imo anyone here who would put seo techniques to use against us more than likely has an account here already and would still be able to access it

if you are that concerned maybe a better tactic would be seek out sites you want to help and talk to them via email or pm's or something

One last thing, negative energy is self defeating.

The sub-forum is called "Success Strategies" for a reason.

[evilfunnystuff]

One last thing, negative energy is self defeating.

no negative energy intended just makin observations

[nurse_emily]

no negative energy intended just makin observations

I have 5 years experience in this. I was a member of a private org doing this and it is extremely powerful.