Gr1Innovations

Teaching you how to make money online since 1999

Link Farms

So I figured it was just about time for me to sit down and finally write another post and just when I started to think about this I happened across a debate at the Keyword Academy forums about link farms and offered my two ‘godly’ cents.

First off I’ll start with the disclaimer:

I do not personally use, nor do I advocate the use of, link farms or any other link building method that seeks to manipulate Google’s system.

And I suppose with that disclaimer I should add another:

I do know there are many people who use link farms that make a lot of money and are very successful doing it. But what works today may get you banned tomorrow. So, proceed at your own risk!

With that out of the way let’s start with defining exactly what a link farm is:

  • Traditionally: A network of self owned sites from which one links to another self owned site. Basically you buy a bunch of domains, post content on them, and use them to send anchored links to your money site in order to climb the SERPs.
    • Self hosting domains
    • http://wordpress.com
    • http://www.blogger.com
  • Modern: A network of sites which you have paid access to from which you can post links to your sites. Basically you pay some money to someone for access to their large network of sites, you write articles (some spun, some 100% unique), and in those articles you can link to your own sites.
  • Broad: Any site that allows people to post content in exchange for anchored ‘do-follow’ links back to their own sites. Basically you give us something we give you something, so no matter how you slice it that does fall in a broad definition of link farming.
    • http://ezinearticles.com
    • http://hubpages.com
    • http://wordwolf.com

So anyway now that all that preliminary junk is out of the way, the first assertion that I was arguing against was that Google could algorithmically sniff out link farms easily and either a) devalue their links or b) deindex the farms completely. I suppose this is not an unreasonable assumption, Google works with an algorithm as the base of their search and they do that pretty well. The problem for Google arises because allowing a few link farm websites ‘costs’ (in creditability, algorithmic accuracy, annoyance of people) them far less then the alternative of wiping out all link farms and causing some collateral damage as well. I agree that Google has an interest in getting rid of bad links, and getting rid of programs like BMR is one of Matt Cutts’ goals as spam king. I don’t think Google will ever be able to wipe out these types of farms completely, but if they can get rid of even some of the sites these programs use then there is some devaluation of the linking power over time so people who use these techniques need to know that over time rankings will slip if they don’t keep building links and therefore their income isn’t truly passive.

The other argument that ensued was the debate over whether or not the postrunner system constituted a ‘link farm’ of sorts. Let’s not kid ourselves about the difference people, PRN is designed to manipulate googles system therefore it’s always at risk too, which is why high standards are maintained and people need to be sure to keep the junk off their sites or some of them may be devalued or deindexed as well.

Anyway the point is that if you use link farms I wouldn’t suggest relying on them solely and you should always be trying to grow your natural link profile. It’s the only safe way. And remember the best way, and the only completely risk free way, to get any backlink is to get them naturally by providing high quality original content on your site!

–Justin (and Trent)

The Google Sandbox Effect in SEO

One of the favorite things for people in the make money online and SEO world is to argue over theoretical concepts like “what is the best type of link?” or “how important is getting links from different c-class IPs?”. There are countless concepts out there like this, but few catch the attention of people like the google sandbox effect. Some people don’t believe it exists. Some people are so afraid of it that by the time someones site gets out of the sandbox they are getting their third link and are still on page 20 of the SERPs.

Ok so I’m getting a little ahead of myself I guess. First things first, the google sandbox effect is a phenomena where a site climbs in the SERPs too quickly and subsequently is applied a temporary penalty. The penalty can last anywhere from a couple of months to nine or more. A site that is seemingly going strong, climbing up towards a magical page one ranking, flies too close to the sun and gets knocked down a peg.

So what exactly gets a site relegated to the dreaded depths of the sandbox? Well this is where the debate truly heats up. We all know that the basic thing that happens is a quick climb followed by an even quicker fall, but there is more to it than that. A lot of people think that getting only strong links (in content, from high page rank, and high trust rank pages) will keep you out of the box. Others think the key is building links very slow and steady, not setting off any red flags. To be truthful I don’t have the answer to this question, but one can take a good lesson here anyway. Build your links naturally, which means slowly and from a wide range of quality sites.

Another thing to think about is why does google even have the sandbox? Well that isn’t too complicated to figure out, and since google is logical it also seems to be result that supports the theory. Google has the sandbox to, like everything they do, fight spam. Think about it, spammers are generally into sites for the short haul, the quick buck. When they run the risk of google slapping their sites down it deters them from building in the first place because unlike those of us who build a passive income they want a site to pay off short term.

A final question that is interesting to consider, and probably more useful is what to do if you think you are in the sandbox. The answer there is simple in the MMO world, keep building links. That’s all you need to do if you find yourself in the sandbox, or just in the midst of a normal shuffle. Don’t complicate things unless you’re just looking for some good mental exercise.

Oh and if you want to see the sandbox effect in action here is a good image of my site when it went in for NINE MONTHS! I kept working on this baby thought the rough times and it paid off well. Keep working.

Can You Make Money Posting Links On Google?

I was checking my email today when I saw a text ad about how to make money posting links on Google. I was curious so I clicked on the ad to see what the site has to offer. The site post title was “How I Started Making $6,700 a Month by Working from Home Online.” That amount is impressive, if it was true.

In the post, the owner of the site wrote about those stories that the person when from a 9-5 job to start making money online from home. He was laid off from his job, and he decided to search for how to make money online with google. He found two opportunities and now he is making between $5,000 and $8,000 a month by working at home from Google.

What attracted me initially was a picture of his old and new cars. He went from a wrecked old car to a brand new Ferrari. This is clearly an improvement in life – if his story is true.

He also showed a Google Adsense check of about $6,000 that Google sent to him. I am an internet marketer and even I didn’t know how this would work… Did it mean you would post links on Google and they send a check to you?

So, I started researching and found out the truth!

To post links on Google, you need to use Adwords, which means you would pay for any click on your ads on Google. They then split the amount you pay per click between themselves and the people displaying your ads. Google pays those people displaying their ads through Adsense. This means there is a huge problem with the ads title. The ad should have said; make money posting links for Google — and not ON Google. This is much more complicated than it sounds. There are a lot of things that go into setting up a profitable adwords campaign and its nearly impossible for the average person these days. I know this for sure because I’ve tried it many times and failed — even after taking lessons and having a lot of marketing experience.

Then, a week or so later, I saw another ad of a student that also claims to make money posting links on Google. After investigating it further, I found that both programs are basically the same. The program that both ads are promoting are Google Home Business Kit and Google Marketing Kit. The Home business kit is free to try, but you would have to pay for $1.99 shipping. The Marketing Kit is also free to try, but cost $3 for shipping. I think the free period is for one month, and after one month you would be charged a certain amount.

I believe if you want to make money online with Google, you need to have your own site or blog. After you have created one, then you apply to Google Adsense to get a publisher ID. After you have been approved, you can put those links on your blog. If somebody click on the ad, you would be paid a certain amount of money. Depending on your preference, you can choose to receive your commissions to be deposited in your bank or you can choose to receive a check.

Don’t let the ads that say “make money posting links on Google” deceive you. It’s not as easy as most of them make it seem nor would you be doing exactly what most of them try to make you think you would be doing in order to earn money from Google.

So, is there a better way? Yes!

Like I said, you can’t really make money with google posting links unless you are advertising something on Adwords. However, you definitely CAN make money online using Google, and a LOT of it! There’s no doubt about that fact. Millions of people are doing it every day.

In order to learn how to do it, we highly recommend the G Sniper course:

Understanding Google Pagerank

Google updated their page ranks of web pages on April 1st (five days ago). For those who don’t understand what is a pagerank, it is an algorithm that Google uses to measure how important a web page is by using the amount and quality of links that are linking to the web page. The higher your page rank, the more trust (not ranking) Google gives to you on their search engine. This is mostly true for sites that have PR 6 – PR 10. It is because it is hard to get those PR values.

I thought it was an April fool’s joke. But I thought, why would Google joke with webmasters like that. I saw the page rank (PR) update on my SEO toolbar. I thought my toolbar was messing with me. I went to the digitalpoint forums to check if there was any threads on PR update and there was a thread. This blog didn’t have any change. It still maintained its PR 4 ranking. I wish it ranked higher.

If anybody is following the news about the threat of the conficker virus/worm, computer experts said that the virus was scheduled to receive new information on April 1st. I was concerned because I don’t want my pc to be affected by the virus. I visited a web page that Microsoft made that was dedicated to protecting yourself from the conficker virus. If you look at the page, you would see that it was created on a April 1st. I don’t know if that site is a blog. I was trying to find out if it has an archive. I could not see anything. So I assume it is a website.

Since I have the SEO toolbar installed on my firefox browser, I look at almost every website that I visit. I noticed that the Microsoft conficker virus page had a PR 6. I was shocked because how can a page that was created within hours of Google’s page rank update have a PR 6 while blogs that have been around for more than 3 years cannot break the PR 4 barrier. Since the site is part of Microsoft website, I can say the link came from Microsoft. Microsoft homepage is PR 9.

Nobody except Google’s employees knows how Google’s page rank system work. The information you read online about Google’s page rank are what Google wants us to believe, or that is speculation from other webmasters.

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Gr1innovations.com launched way back in 1999 and was one of the first sites of its kind. Then, when the internet really became mainstream a few years later, it gained fame as the #1 ranked make money online blog in the world.