A humble response to all those SEO related threads

[darkq22]

Few days ago I noticed several people posted threads related to “good SEO” and “bad SEO”. I am writing this post just to clarify some stuff.



Anyone is free to create any GIG, here, on Fiverr, as long as Fiverr TOS is respected. Right? Now, I really work in the online marketing field and I’ve learned a thing or two during all these years.

Here are some facts about SEO gigs:

1. Forum profile links: Yeah, as others said, forum ID gig’s are totally worthless. They’re made by Senukle like software. It runs as a background process and in minutes, depending on the speed of a PC, can create thousands of such links. No matter where these links are pointing, they’re all spam. It’s even illegal in most of the countries SPAM. It’s like sending out unsolicited e-mails.
   
   
2. Blog commenting: This is done using Scrapebox. Another automated tool that posts rubbish spam comments to various posts. Most of them end up in the spam box, and even if it gets through, it’s value is close to worthless (Google what Matt Cutts stated about these form of getting links).
   
   
   
3. Wiki links. The same as above.
   
   
   
   These type of “high quality SEO with guaranteed results 100% cheap WAWWWWW” are exactly like all those fake FB fans, G+ fans, twitter fake followers etc. Why do you think purchasing a service that will blast your URL to several thousands of twitter followers doesn’t generate any real visitors? Because those followers are real people? Think again. 🙂
   
   Here are some basic myths about SEO:
   
   
   
4. “The more links the better” - False. The quality of a link is what really matters, not the quantity. For example, a PR2-3 genuine contextual link worth thousands of times more than a gazillion of forum profile links or blog comment links. Moreover, it would be very interesting to check how many of those links are still in place after a couple of months. 🙂
   
   
   
5. “If my link is on every page of a website is awesome!” - False. Google knows a lot more about unnatural link building techniques than it did a few years ago. Sooner or later you’ll get one of those penalty notification e-mails. Some time ago Matt Cutts posted a video about theme sponsorship links and how Google discredits them.
   
   
   
6. “I link to you, you link to me!” - This is so 2000-ish. Excessive link exchange can lead to penalties as well.
   
   
   
7. “Pyramid is Goooood” - tried it as test, has absolutely no effect. In theory, it would work because emulates the natural model of how backlinking works, but when automated software is used, the chain will eventually break soon enough to generate no benefit.
   
   
   
   I understand we’re on Fiverr and some of you might say: “Well, what do you expect for $5?” or “You got what you’ve paid for!!!”. Now, it is one thing to create a logo, proofread something, a voice-over, a (honest) video testimonial, product review etc. I mean there is a human involvement as well, but is a completely different thing - just because Fiverr (still) allows it - to advertise SPAM services (especially the SEO ones).
   
   
   
   There are hundreds of webmaster blogs, tutorials, sites like SEJ, SEP so you can learn what’s good or bad.
   
   
   
   To be honest with you, I’d really really love to be a SPAM master. I’d make maybe thousands on Fiverr and I’d be a TRS as well :). Have you ever seen honest people owning several cars and houses in real life? 😃
   
   
   
   So, is there any good SEO gig? Yup, there are a few.
   
   
   
8. Contextual links (one link from one domain is enough, you don’t need thousands).
   
   
   
9. Natural looking links from other websites/blogs. Always ask for the URL and check it out with OpenSiteExplorer, does the domain has any backlinks pointing toward it? It’s even indexed by Google? Type: site:www.example.com and narrow the search down to the last month. If anything was indexed it’s ok. Rather look for domain age, Page Authority and Domain authority than for Page Rank. Anyone can buy a PR6-7 expired domain for $50 and build a blog on it (than on the next Google update vanishes)!
   
   
   
10. Let the seller express his honest opinion about something (my main gig is about reviewing websites on my blogs). Anything that is sponsored (and yeah, getting $4 bucks for something is a form of sponsorship) is bad because indirectly you fall under the “buying links” penalty. So let the seller link to you naturally. How would you link to Fiverr for example? Using as anchor text “Fiverr” or “make money online now cheap extra fast”!? See the difference. Google notices it as well.
    
    
    
11. Content is still king. Include relevant links, images, citations etc.
    
    
    
12. On page SEO is a distinctive subject. I suppose you all know what implies.
    
    
    
13. Be patient. Don’t expect overnight results.
    
    
    
    Of course, there’s the free will and everyone does it the way they want. I just wanted to bring some light upon this shady subject. 🙂

[kornilov]

I need to admit, that is a pretty fair “response”.

I’m not completely agree only with number 3. It really depends on the resource you cross-link with (it could be relevant, popular, high-rated - all of that is for good).



Buyers need to understand that black hat and grey tactics should never be applied to the white project! Forum profiles were effective between 2006-2010. These days, many links blasted in short time may simply kill (0 pages indexed by the Google) the recently registered domain! But could be useful for indexing new pages of newly generated doorways or satellites…



Anyway, if you don’t know much about SEO, and don’t feel like reading lengthy manuals or participate in specialized forum discussions the one thing I may suggest - go for adwords (expensive but guaranteed)!

[darkq22]

People need to know what they’re purchasing. That’s the point. Nothing more, nothing less.



And sellers shouldn’t lie about their services. Whenever I see the word “Guaranteed” in a sentence related to a SEO service I just close that page.



There isn’t such thing as a guarantee in the SEO world. Specialists spend months and thousands or tens of thousands on marketing strategies, they hire well known authors to write here and there (of course, this isn’t natural either, however, no one can prove it) so… it’s not that easy as it seems.



Really, only Google knows their own 300-500 factor ranking algorithm.

[mgjohn78]

The problem is allot of the best ways to get truly good and exclusive backlinks are insanely time consuming.



Blog comments can still lead to results but not in the same way they used to. I been commenting for 2 years now on one of my biggest rivals blogs, during this time i have never posted any links, just helped their members and gave my opinions on things. In the end the blog owner contacted me and now we cooperate instead of being rivals.

Both our sites ended up with more search engine traffic.



You can buy good seo gigs but the best seo strategies are and have always been the ones that cant be bought.

[fluidmarket]

@darkq22 i agree with you. sending hundreds of people to a store does not

mean hundreds of sales. spammers are just doing the digital counterpart.

[darkq22]

Reply to @mgjohn78:



Yup, I agree with you. But in your case there was a human being involved. I suppose you haven’t posted comments like: “What a helpful post, I will bookmark you right now!” :)))

[freelancemm]

I can vouch for the quality over quantity. I helped one client skyrocket their page in rankings with just two high quality and very natural backlinks because they were in an extreme enough niche’ without any real major competition.



Blog commenting/forum profile links(signature as well.) in a natural way does work, but not so much for bringing value to the page, but rather building a following and getting additional exposure. In essence, either blogging professionally, or hiring someone to post on your behalf specifically to help build up a trust level unmatched by any random advertisement. The spammy blog/forum posting commenting, not so much.



“If my link is on every page of a website is awesome!” <- This one at least in my opinion is kind of debatable. Depending on the nature of the page and how many pages the particular site is linking out to can really play a role in this. Over-all it isn’t exactly a BAD thing, but it kind of depends on the circumstances of the particular page and niche’. I wouldn’t say it’s a very smart idea to do this with tons of pages, however it shouldn’t hurt your page but it’s not going to give you much more value than the linking out from the root domain. Depending on how high ranking the particular page in question is, can really play a bit part in how it may hurt or help your page. in general, it’s probably better if you don’t do this if the person in particular isn’t really all that familiar with SEO.

That’s about all my input in this subject as I offer various aspects of SEO services here on Fiverr and thought I would chime in!

[freelancemm]

Reply to @kjblynx: Probably the same one that bumped one of my gig threads recently. I was all excited until I found out it was a spammer and flagged their post.

[darkq22]

Reply to @freelancemm:



Basically everything works if it’s done naturally. Trust me, I have websites me and my team optimized and invested thousands/year.



Every SEO effort, if done correctly, will pay off at some point.



I mean, yeah if you go and surf the Internet and comment on related to your niche blogs, use a name instead of a spammy keyword (I never ever accepted a comment left by “cheap loans”.). Most of those links are no-followed, but who cares? maybe some other reader will be thrilled by my writings and I’ll end up with a few extra visitors/day.



On the forums the same. From my experience Forum sigs have absolutely no effect. Google discredits them all. But than again, maybe some people will check out those links.



So proper SEO needs to be approached in a natural manner, think if a human being would do something or not.



When the system is forced to a specific extent, it’s called black hat SEO.



And trust me, it’s way harder to get rid of those links when you receive an unnatural link penalty notice from Google.



Matt Cutts really helps folks with his videos, I mean they could of say nothing and let us all wonder why this and that is happening. But they do explain what to do and what not to do. Now, everybody does what he thinks it’s ok.



Usually desperation, the lack of visitors and the non-sense “guaranteed” promises sells. Unfortunately.



Just out of curiosity, a few months ago I bought a GIg offering thousands of backlinks (a mix of them in fact) for a test website. I got an .xls report. I waited 6 months to see the results. Absolutely no effect. Yesterday I found that order and checked out again those links. Guess what? None of them are alive, lol. Yer they have tons of orders, TRS, featured gigs etc.



No, I haven’t left any feedback at all.



I’m offering a genuine service. I review stuff and post the review on one of my real blogs (tons of backlinks, genuine PR, decent PA, DA, good traffic). And I’m stuck to level 2 since 2012.



So, offering something better, something that really works for a fraction of it’s real price… it’s less appreciated than spam.



But it’s ok. 🙂 The world it’s unfair.

[markp]

Matt Cutts also said guest posts no longer work and are spam…

[dionisaras]

Hi darkq22 very wisely spoken! If you allow me, i would like to say that particular someone like you who seems to know his field of work really well, should not make generalisations such as these software are crap or dangerous etc. They did tons of forum and web 2 properties profiles with senuke, bombed millions of spam comments using scrapebox, so what? These are like a knife’s blade. You can go out and start robbing people with it or use it wisely and put the butter on your bread with legitimate ways. Of course niche targeted forum profiles matter today Augoust 2014. I’m not referring to ghost riders, i’m referring to human edited profiles! I participate in drupal forums and without realising it i have created tons of dofollow pr3-pr5 links to one of my sites that i have as a signature. I did realise the page rank increase on December last year 🙂 Also, in regards to the comments, we cannot blame this great “swiss” tool , because of ignorant people who blast tons of garbage links to their money sites. Obviously you don’t want to do that, unless you do it on purpose and you are evil… (remember karma though ;). I have working examples of wordpress.com, drupal and blogger sites increasing rank and organic traffic, cause of this process. Obviously you are looking for related niche, indexed pages, page rank minimum 1, normal outbound links, human edited comment etc. As you said platforms such as Mediawiki or Jcow are nofollow, i would not definitely say that kill our tiers but i’d say there is no reason to worry for them that much. Of course this doesn’t mean that a link or two from them will destroy your link building campaign it will just won’t have results in ranking. The way to go is to crate relationships. Like our friend said, about collaboration with his ‘rival’ or these fine gigs of yours with one way high pr textual links. And hey, Matt Cutts is just a spokesperson he sais what he needs to say nothing more nothing less. I personally know many business owners who never employed any black hat tactic, there were ages online and due to lots of Google dances they lost almost 60% organic traffic. Their families were based on this legitimate money. The solution by Google? Join Google Adwords Today… Let’s not forget when he was saying there won’t be any pr change this year(2013)…

[freelancemm]

Reply to @darkq22:



Hey, thanks for taking the time to get back to me! Yeah, natural apparently takes “too long” for most people. A lot of people message me expecting me to rank them in unrealistic search terms that have value built up on them, that I would imagine took some of those pages years to get to that point and they want me to do it for $5.



Yeah, I actually used to run a few forums and a majority of people just about anything I promoted to them they were extremely interested in & signed up for. Even on forums I was fairly active on, I had the same effect. It’s not really SEO related, though. More about networking & relationship building so i’m getting a bit off-topic haha. Technically a successful business in the right niche’ at the right rates, with of course the right clients(even just 10 to 20) can be more than enough to keep a business afloat. Just like backlink building, quantity is not as important as quality. I have a few clients that always come back on Fiverr and are pretty generous. Where-as all the simple $5 orders don’t get you very far.



Yeah, most of my services are about as natural as you can get such as SEO content writing, SEO advice, and some light backlink building in the most natural of ways. For the most part I consider what I do to be white hat, and none of my advice or input will put anyone in hot water!



Honestly, SEO is a lot about common sense, so as long as users start to realize that they will head towards more realistic services and also the understanding that a $5 order will only get them so much value.



That doesn’t surprise me about the “thousands of backlinks”, really. Most of my “competitors” in SEO get so many orders due to their incredibly polluted black-hat methods it makes it pretty hard to compete.



I know the feeling, I have actually been here around the same amount of time as you. Although I don’t really get bulk orders too often, I focus more on the niche’ targeting to deal with less clients, but bigger earnings. If you would like to exchange SEO tips via Fiverr’s PM system feel free to message me!

[freelancemm]

*decided not to make a statement in regards to this, so ignore this post. 🙂

[darkq22]

Reply to @markp:



I heard that if you really wouldn’t vouch for a website, yeah. I think his post is somewhere on his blog…



However, I think he has a video on YouTube about spamming tons of same ip “accept everything” directories… I don’t really remember…



Anyway, I am very happy you know how things really work and congrats for your awesome success.



Best wishes!

[darkq22]

So, let’s get this straight. It wasn’t my intention to “hit” anyone offering those services. I just wrote a general SEO related post, just like many others did.



You see, sometimes, the Internet can be compared with the real life. Clueless people usually have an answer for everything. 🙂



Let’s face it… we provide a wide range of services on Fiverr and it’s better for everybody not to take into consideration the quality of specific services. As long as everybody delivers what’s described… everything is fine.



As for Google… either we like it or not, they make the rules. A few years ago when article directories were penalized, “accept everything” web directories and so on - the whole webmaster world was shocked. Many people lost their businesses… but whom to blame?



Good luck!

[dionisaras]

They indeed make the rules as they lead the search engine world and monopolize the market,we should definitely follow their guidelines, there is no discussion about it, but their efforts to move businesses to Adwords are so obvious, let’s not forget the ‘not provided’ keywords matter…

[freelancemm]

Reply to @darkq22: Honestly, I don’t believe anyone has any true answers, really. Just their own personal experience to delve into deciding worthwhile SEO methods & which are not so much. Since even now(in my opinion), a lot about SEO is still “secretive” in that sense and a lot of trial and error in different niche’s. We just keep trudging along and do our best to try to offer a worthwhile service to the best of our abilities, 🙂

[youaintaboutit]

That’s why I just sell me SEO advice. Basically, what you’re saying, but in-depth ways to use natural, grunt work to get ranked. 🙂