Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Last December Matt Cutts, Head of Google WebSpam Team, wrote a post which impressed me indeed:
Tell me about your backlinks [mattcutts.com]
Here is part of what Matt Cutts wrote at that post:
My favorite overall moment was when a totally legit company (micromatic.com) stood up and asked for advice. Overall, their site was great: good architecture and very crawlable. They had lots of really good backlinks, including industry-specific links. But I could also tell that they’d been buying some backlinks. And they were buying backlinks from the exact same place as one of the earlier sites! At the point when in a minute of typing, I can say: you guys are both trying to buy backlinks, and I can tell that you’re buying them from the same network, and here’s an example page from ketv.com where both of you are even on the same page, and it’s not doing you any good at all: that just made my day. Having a concrete demonstration is so much better than just making a claim, especially when one of the sites says beforehand that they’re not doing as well as they used to be. I told micromatic.com that they had a great site, so they should stop trying to buy backlinks and spend more money to reward their inhouse SEO who had done a great job on the crawlability and architecture of the site.
When you read that post you might get the same impression that I got; Google knows and penalize buyers and maybe also sellers of Backlinks. Not so, unfortunately.
However, it just happened that I know of a site (not mine) which purchased backlinks during the first 4 months or so of 2006. I know from which sites the backlinks were purchased. And I know approximately how much was paid for most of the purchased BLs. No rel=nofollow was applied, of course.
Then the current indications of PR update arrived. And I checked the PR of the site which purchased the said BLs.
WOW... boost in PR from PR4 to PR7!
And I checked the PR of the sites which sold the BLs.
WOW.. they retained their high PR!
Am I the only one who have noticed Google rewarding sellers and buyers of BLs?
Have you noticed the same?
Your feedback would be highly appreciated.
B.) MC is woefully un-informed and should never be listened to.
Is really, really, bad advice. You may not like the spin, the way he answers question in Google speak, or the fact you can’t prove what he says. I am not a naïve or gullible person but to just categorically dismiss all this person says is ridiculous and foolish. You need to take the time and put some work into sifting through what he says, do that and there’s a lot to be learned. I have read his blog, I have listened to him speak at conferences, I have seen him critique sites and there’s always a nice little nugget of information to be gleaned from it. Always take what company representatives say with a good grain of salt, but to categorically dismiss the information coming from this person is a mistake.
I'll take MC and all he wants to say any day over the brick wall of silence Yahoo offers up.
And speaking of Matt, he had this to say [mattcutts.com]:
Matt Cutts Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 10:11 amJoseph Hunkins, I read Jim’s post here:
<link to Jim Boykin's Blog>Sounds like Martinibuster is handling most of the common questions just fine..
I have seen that the backlinks shown are often those of LESSER value (i.e., the most valuable ones may not even be shown so "link chasers" won't have a gold mine at their finger tips).
Google has been doing this for years. If you want to see most all backlinks to a site use MSN or Yahoo.
Please, please, please go back and read
B.) MC is woefully un-informed and should never be listened to.
Is in context to
whitenight wrote
Reseller, as it seems you are unable to live in the reality of "grey" and everything must be viewed as black and white,Here are your choices.
Note - this seems the only way to explain the "phenomena" in your eyes, no?
It's called hyperbole [answers.com],
or
reading every other post I've made, which say
whitenight wrote
But I most certainly do not take MC's word at face value...The words of MC should always be taken with a grain of salt...Examine the SERPS...examining the SERPS and the ranking websites thoroughly and noticing what "works" and what doesn't and employing those techniques for their sites
Did I mention i hate quotes out of context.
It's bad enough when people do it to scare little webmasters into believing Santa's not coming to their house for SERP Christmas.
Please don't do it again. :)
[edited by: whitenight at 9:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 5, 2006]
Most interesting and of relevance to this thread is what Matt wrote today [mattcutts.com] :
I think it is hard to explain topic communities. I don’t how many times I’ve explained PageRank as “not just raw numbers of links, but the quality of those links,” only to see that reduced down to “raw number of links” in an article. So I sympathize with the folks that try to explain topic communities.
Converted to the topic of this thread; PageRank isn't just the number of purchased backlinks but the quality of the purchased backlinks.
And I agree 100% on that ;-)
Which means that if you intend to purchase backlinks of the kind that Google rewards, its better to focus on those sites of PR9 & PR10 and maybe to some extent those of PR8. From those high PR sites, there is high possibility that you are purchasing quality backlinks.
Thanks Matt for the tips ;-)
Most PR 10, 9 and 8 sites are not good choices for inbound links, for multiple reasons. A more plausible strategy would be to try to get some links from PR 7 and PR 6 sites that are more narrowly targeted on the topics that are relevant to your own site -- preferably on pages where the links will generate some actual traffic to your site, further confirming the relevance and significance of the links in Google's eyes.
reseller, why don't you do a simple test?
not on competitor's website (perhaps they got a nice natural PR8 linkthat you have missed) but with your own websites?
i believe if you buy links properly and use the chance the certain moment gives you can do well with that.just do a test and see what happens.
WHAT? Me purchasing backlinks from PR9 and PR10 sites?
Do you think that I'm a Google shareholder or something :-)
I'm already on budget preparing for X-Mas gifts for the children and grand children ;-)
Reseller: surely you jest?Most PR 10, 9 and 8 sites are not good choices for inbound links, for multiple reasons. A more plausible strategy would be to try to get some links from PR 7 and PR 6 sites that are more narrowly targeted on the topics that are relevant to your own site -- preferably on pages where the links will generate some actual traffic to your site, further confirming the relevance and significance of the links in Google's eyes.
In theory you mightbe right, but not in practice maybe. The way I see it, sites of PR7 and PR6 that sell backlinks tend to participate in what I call "Backlinks Merchant Networks" which mightbe monitored or could be monitored by Google very easily.
While especially sites of PR9 & PR10 sells backlinks in very "quite manner".
I would add, modify anchor text each time and include a few "click here"'s just in case :)
Anyone can research the top PR8 'n 9+ sites out there and most will want a link from them. This will lead to topic drift on the domain selling outbounds (leading to a diluted authourity) and also having the same link as your compeditors (not that bad, but hardly unique).
Somtimes it's far better to blaze new ground and get your links on hubs and authourities not so commonly known to your compeditors. These are the Gold links. PR has nothing to do with these links.
By focusing on PR, your detracting from the real game and this is what Matt and his Goog cronies want you to do (hence the CUTTLET THINKING). They can track all your movements far more easily.
Solid thematic backlinks (and potential for Backlinks) over PR any day.
Good luck out there in PR land mate. Try and avoid the Google Kool Aid it can do funny things to your head. Google PR never ceases to amaze me, their PR is flawless and second to none.
- Ben
reseller,Anyone can research the top PR8 'n 9+ sites out there and most will want a link from them. This will lead to topic drift on the domain selling outbounds (leading to a diluted authourity) and also having the same link as your compeditors (not that bad, but hardly unique).
Researching sites of PR9 & PR10 isn't that difficult. But to afford purchasing backlinks from those sites requires deep pockets. Those who have purchased backlinks from such sites know exactly what I'm talking about. So "anyone" can research but not "anyone" can afford to pay for that kind of backlinks!
By focusing on PR, your detracting from the real game and this is what Matt and his Goog cronies want you to do (hence the CUTTLET THINKING).
On the contrary. Matt keeps telling people [mattcutts.com] something in the direction: My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents.
Man, respect!
But also as the Google said:"Don't be evil". Don't buy High PR intend to improve SERP rank and disturb the normal SEPR. Otherwise, the Google will give you a lesson.
