major link popularity increases

100 or more domains

[Chris999]

Has anyone had success getting tops spots on AV or any other link popularity oriented search engine by purchasing quantities of domains, creating web sites with relevant content and linking the sites together?

I believe it could work unless the SE's detect consecutive IP numbers. Does anybody have any thoughts or experience regarding this?

[seth_wilde]

I don't see why it wouldn't work, but it seems like a waste of resources to me.

More Ideas -

1. Sign up for a link popularity program
2. List the site in all the directories and then submit the listings
3. Look for relevant links manually by searching for your phrase on the engines (or higher a high school kid for $8 an hour to do it for you) This could also be sped up with an email harvester as long as you do it ethically (only email each site once, personalize each email)
4. Create some kind of an award (ex - best insurance sites)and send out an email to sites with a line of code that includes the award graphic along with a link back to your site.

[Chris999]

We are considering both alternatives however consider the following. Our research indicates that sites on link farms are being penalized, at least on AV.

We concluded this after many of our domains were kept getting hammered on AV. We were using "Link Attack" and "Links To You". To confirm for your self. got to those sites and check and see how many pages are listed on AV from the site at the top of the list (those being on the program the longest). You will be surprised to find 95% are no longer listed on AV the other 5% may have 1 page, the root, listed.

Owning the domain gives us control over the content and gives us the ability to develop extremely relevant content. It also easier said then don't to get 100 other sites to link to you.

At any rate if anybody has had LONG-TERM success with a link farm or had experience purchasing lots of domains, I would be very interested in hearing more about it.

[rcjordan]

>long term success....lots of domains

I did, and that was an extremely viable approach to SEO for spidering engines, particularly back in '96-98. It seems the positive effects have been diminished now in most of the engines that count, the movement towards PFP being a primary reason. The current notable exception would be Google, I think Brett still cites good results from cross-linking between domains. As for AV, who knows what they are doing. All in all, I still like this approach because it spreads the risk over all your domains.

I suspect that spreading out your IP numbers increases your odds of success, too.

But Seth has a good point, it does take alot of resources to go this approach.

[Chris999]

...the movement towards PFP..

What is PFP?

[DaveAtIFG]

PFP = Pay For Play, AKA (also known as) the recent need to pay for listings or clicks

[rogerd]

Another approach to partly automating the development of relevant (non link-farm) links is to use a program like Zeus. By setting your search keyword database to sites that match the theme of your own site, your links will be from sites that will reinforce your theme. Check out Zeus Review on AIM-pro site [aim-pro.com]. I have used this with good results, although AltaVista seems less affected than some other SEs.