BS and LV - Backlinks - Read this post first.

Sorry for the delay folks. I have been over-thinking this and trying to explain too much too fast and as a result I keep getting bogged down. In the end I think it is just best to lay this out before you and answer your questions as best as I can. This won't shock any of you but the fact is the people who dominate the serp's for all the best money making keywords cheat. They buy backlinks. Some overtly and some use more subtle methods. I have been building my own link farm for 2 years more or less and with it I have managed to build up 5 flagship sites. While not buying most of the links directly I have still cheated. The flagships are lilly white and now allow me to start new sites with a leg up on the competition in whatever niche I choose. This method is time consuming but it does work. It will take you ages to build up your own empire using standard white hat techniques. You need to do this for the natural links but there are ways to cheat that is more or less undetectable. Having said that anytime you stray into gray/black hat territory you run the risk of being caught and if you aren't prepared to pay the penalty then don't do it. This post is by no means an attmpt to get you to do what I am going to tell you. I am simply telling you what the competition is doing so you have a clearer picture of this online biz. What you do with this info is up to you and I am not endorsing these methods nor am I telling you not to use them. This is simply an attempt to show you all the big picture. I will of course give you my opinions and they should be taken as just that - an opinion. The fact is that the single biggest factor in ranking number 1 for any keyword is this - the site that has the most links with the keyword anchored in the link wins. Yes you need relevant content and your pages and blog need to be optimized for your keywords but this alone only takes you so far. This allows you into the game but you won't get top rankings using on-page seo alone. Off - page backlinks are the most important aspect. In fact I would say they account for 99% of your success. That's right - with enough backlinks I could rank number 1 for a keyword that doesn't even show up on my blog. This would be short lived but it can be done. The only way Google has to rank a site is by backlinks. Sure they use other things like LSI and people yak about keyword density and all sorts of crap but the final decision is still made by counting backlinks. Here are the four types of backlinks you can get; Let's pick a keyword to use as an example. "music download" Class A links (my terms only) The best link you can get for this is from a high PR site relevant to music using the term "music download" in the link. In this case the higher the PR the better the link. Class B links The next best link you can get is from a high PR site not relevant to music using the "music download" keyword in the link. Again, the higher the PR the better the link. Class C links The next best link you can get is from any site without any PR but still uses the keyword "music download" in the link. Class D links We now come to crappy links. Any link pointing to your site that doesn't use your keyword in the link is a crappy link. High PR or low - these are crappy links. A PR 10 non relevant site giving you a link with your name in it isn't as effective as a PR0 link that uses your keyword even from a non related site. Crappy links still matter though. If I get 10,000 crappy links I will outrank a site that has a handful of keyword relevant links. Numbers do matter but the work involved in getting those 10,000 crappy links is huge. Now for the important part. The only people with the perfect High PR keyword relevant site that can give you the best links won't - they are the competition you are trying to beat. The good news is that they can't get these types of links either. Only the top competitors can give out perfect links and they don't. This means you don't need to worry about getting them. Your competition can't get them either. This brings us to the links you do need to get in order to out rank the competition. Class B non relevant links are what ranking is all about and these are the links your competition is busy getting. High PR or low. The guy with the most links with your keyword in the link wins. Now a couple of other factors are important. My Asia'h blog is second because it is perfectly SEO'd. It has the keyword in the URL. Even better - it doesn't contain any text or symbols other than the keyword. This is the perfect URL for any keyword. It is second only because the American Idol blog has the "numbers" thing on it's side. They have thousands and thousands of crappy links and the site is relevant to the keyword - even though the keyword isn't used in their links. I could outrank them with probably 100 or so keyword relevant links. Why bother. I only have a couple of dozen links. All my links come from non-relevant sites but most of the links have decent PR and more importantly all of them use the keyword in the Anchor link. I got the links by cheating. I used a link network called Backlink Solutions. For a hundred bucks a month I get access to 148 blogs of various PR rankings. The PR doesn't really matter much - the fact that I can post a short article on up to 148 blogs at any time using my keyword in a link pointing to let's say "Asia'h Epperson" is what matters. How long have you guys been trying to get links to outrank my Asia'h blog? Time consuming isn't it? Hard to get your keyword in the link right? I got all my links instantly but spread them out over a couple of days. The niche was brand new and having the perfect url I could do a link blitz because it wouldn't look un-natural for a new blog on that topic to get found and linked too so quickly. If I was trying to rank for an old established keyword like "payday loans" then a new site showing up with 20 perfect links on the first day would look suspicious. To rank for a term like "payday loans" you would have to start out with 1 link every few days for a few months and then maybe 2-3 a week for another month and slowly increase the links as time goes by. When cheating you have to be smart - always remember to look natural for the niche involved. So am I telling you folks to do this. No. I did the Asia'h blog for several reasons; I wanted to introduce you to short term blogs - hot topics that can be milked quickly and make a few dollars. It turned out that she got crappy adsense ads. I have had 12,000 visitors to that site though. If it hadn't been an experiment I would have dropped the Adsense (which I did) and then wrote a new post pre-selling something else related to American Idol and then linked it to another site with some form of monetization. This is known as funneling your traffic or re-directing it. The key to short term search traffic is to just get it. Once you have it you experiment until you find a way to convert it to money. Last year Antonella Barba got huge amounts of traffic and after milking Adsense because of several ads that were specific to her I then funneled the traffic to my own sales page using a fake ad. I made a small killing. I ranked number 1 for her name too. And yes I cheated. Everyone on page 1 cheated - I was just the best at it because I was faster and I understand the power of Blogspot. By using Blogger I can usually get the perfect keyword in the URL for a new topic. I have said this before - when all else is equal the url with the keyword in it and nothing else will reign supreme. The only competition I had was from the person who had the .com name but they didn't have the links I did. "Asia'h" is still pulling traffic and I will keep the blog alive with a post now and then so that next Idol season I will have a relevant PR aged site to use for links to whatever new blogs I create. In effect it will become part of my link farm. The link farm is the second reason I did the Asia'h blog. This is how you build one. I create lots of blogs all the time. Just like Asia'h - I get them indexed - get them some decent links and keep posting enough to keep them alive and then just wait. When a topic or niche shows up that I like I wade into the farm and use the most relevant sites to link to a new blog. Keep in mind that all blogspot blogs are on the same C class ip and if you use them for links then don't use too many for one site. 4-5 blogs linking to a new blogspot blog is fine but spread the links out over a week or two and make sure you have lots of other links as well. Be natural. Keep track of which blogs you have used Adsense on. If I use my Asia'h blog next year to link to a new blog then I have to remember that G will know it is mine because of Adsense. If the new blog doesn't have adsense on it no problem - if I put it on though I have to make sure I don't use too many former Adsense blogs in my backlinks - this is a sure way to advertise what you are doing. Hey Google it's just me linking all my sites to a new site I own! This is dumb. Create lots of non-adsense sites for your farm too. If you build a farm then build a spreadsheet and keep track of all the important data for all your blogs. The final reason for the Asia'h blog was to demonstrate what all of you are really up against in the real money arena online. I get a lot of frustrated people emailing me because they are doing everything right but aren't making money, can't get enough links, can't get past page 4 n the serp's and so on. It has been hard for me to just urge people on when I see the niche they have chosen and I know they won't succeed simply because they are not cheating like the people on page 1 are. Can a perfectly legitimate white hat site get top ranking in a competitive niche? Yes but the odds are overwhelmingly against it. The only way is by becoming a hugely popular blog and having tons of readers who constantly link to your posts. Problogger is an example of this. He is the only A-lister that actually ranks well in the serp's for some competitive terms. His links are mostly crappy but he has the numbers. Courtney Tuttle is another example of a white hatter dominating a very competitive niche. Court has tons of experience and knows what he is doing folks. He is very impressive in many ways and I have huge respect for him. If cheating is not for you then Court is the man to copy. Can a white hat site get top ranking in a less competitive niche? Yes - your odds are much better but the money to be made is a lot less. Take Asia'h for example. Elliot is now in 4th spot and he has been getting links the white hat way. He has a PR5 site to help and he has some friends with high PR sites - as a result he has managed to round up some really good links all using the right keyword and if he continues he will outrank me eventually. The thing is if I decided that I didn't want him to beat me I could easily be adding more links and I doubt he has a hundred more friends with high PR sites to use - maybe he does - lol. The thing is most of the low competition keywords don't have a p**ck like me in them so you stand a much better chance of succeeding. Just keep in mind that you will have to dominate a lot of these niches to make a good income. This is the $1 a day stuff. Even then you can't use Adsense as your prime monetization because a hundred Adsense sites will send up spam flags and someone will check to see if the content is real. If you can provide quality content on a hundred sites then no problem but I bet you can't. You will lose your adsense if you fail. Be smart. This can be done with affiliate sites though. Just be warned that selling affiliate crap is a numbers game - you need a lot of traffic to make a sale. It is doable though. So what am I telling you? I am not telling you to cheat - just that it is prevalent and be aware of it. This may help some of you understand why you are not gaining ground in your niches in spite of doing all the right things. In competitive niches being patient will not always work and at least now when you ask me I can tell you the honest answer - your competition is cheating and you will only get so far. If some of you do decide to cheat then do it with your eyes open. Don't cry if it backfires. Be smart. Some tips. If you use Backlink Solutions or Linkvana then don't be an idiot. You will be tempted to start sending links like a madman/woman. I have seen noobs send the same keyword link on all 148 blogs to the same page on their blog (the home page) in two days. What do you think happened? Is it natural to get 148 perfect keyword optimized links to your homepage in two days? Stupid. Always build links slowly and naturally. Use different keywords and send links to all your pages. When cheating make sure you are getting lots of the usual crappy backlinks from all the usual sources. No blog gets only keyword anchored links - ever. Get links with your name in it (do-follow) and your URL or blog title in it - the most common crappy link - everyone gets these. Get misspelled links. You get the picture - if your links don't look natural you will get flagged. Beware of the people in the link network. Lots of members are noobs but you will also find some pretty advanced marketers. You can see the keywords others are chasing. They can see yours. They may be stealing your keywords or you theirs. I don't use these networks for any of my flagship sites or any of my money sites. There is no way in hell I am going to advertise my best sites to the competition or the noobs. I use these sites to simply build my blog farm sites. I have used them to rank long tails on my MMO blog too but I assume the blog will get spanked sooner or later anyway just because of the attention it is getting. I never should have turned it into a quasi social site. If I had kept it as a crappy affiliate/adsense blog it would be a huge money maker now. As it is, it is sitting on page 1 advertising to the world how I do things. Dumb. When I get spanked I will build a stupid social wordpress blog and you can all visit me there and remind me what an idiot I am. Okay, there is lot more I can talk about in regard to this subject but I think I will stop and let the questions take over the direction. I know some of you are going to ask if I think you should cheat. My answer is no - I would prefer you all spend two years learning the ropes the long way and doing everything by the book. The thing is that some of you will hit a dead end doing this and now I can tell you why. I just wanted to clear the air in regards to the stuff most of you don't know about. In future I can simply tell you to find a different niche rather than encouraging you to be patient. For those that do decide to cheat then at worst you have someone to get answers from before you screw yourself. My own position on this is untenable as I am telling people not to do what I do (hypocritical) but will help those who don't listen to my advice. Oh the tangled web we weave... The discussion is yours.