Forum

Google Screwed You ...
 
Notifications
Clear all

Google Screwed You - 27 Talking Points

104 Posts
18 Users
232 Reactions
1,531 Views
Posts: 14
(@lebogang22)
Eminent Member
Joined: 1 year ago

The bottom line being that the Google party is over. I'll also add some practical recommendations for those who still want to make things work on Google with traditional practices if you don't have ethical biases.

Look into niches that are legal and not allowed to advertise. Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana etc.

I have ranked two website in first position, with the newest website being about 3 months old and having zero backlinks. Some pros with this type of niche/business is that a lot of SEO agencies and backlink providers do not work on these niches so by eliminating a large number of the marketers, you already stand a better chance against what competition will be there.

And most importantly, Position 1 for these keywords is Position 1 (sort of, if there is no local pack). No ads to compete with. No Healthline or Mayoclinic taking up position 1 for every conceivable keyword in the niche.

Vaping, in particular, is continuing to grow and the competition is not as saturated as you might think. Long tail keywords also still work there.

Reply
4 Replies
(@partha)
Joined: 1 year ago

Prominent Member
Posts: 240

@lebogang22 Yes Lebogang, you da man!!

I was going to ask if you'd be willing to do a write-up about your recent "local SEO" stuff, but in much the same way as local doesn't appear to have been impacted by all these Google updates, so too have various "outside of the box" niches that most people don't think about.

I think what it is, many people who approach this business tend to go for "popular" niches, and while there is obviously a lot of traffic and money from these niches, there is equally a LOT of VERY GOOD competition (branded sites, high authority sites, etc.), so often coming into a "common" niche means you're going up against websites that have been online for 20+ years and who have over 10,000 articles on their sites, etc.

While, it was fairly easy to rank for most things in any niche for many years, this isn;t so much the case nowadays, and if you are going after a broad niche, be prepared to work really hard for years to make a big breakthrough.

Realistically, as you've said, it's really about finding those golden niches with little competition, or finding niches (as you've done) that go against the norm!

Great job! Smile

 

Reply
(@lebogang22)
Joined: 1 year ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 14

@partha I will definitely write one up.

I am still building and expecting the websites to rank for more keywords. Once that is done and the websites have reached some sort of equilibrium, I will write a comprehensive guide based on how I approached it all, and also provide key information like what content/keywords I put on the landing page, how long it took to rank, and what kind of traffic the website yields.

Reply
(@partha)
Joined: 1 year ago

Prominent Member
Posts: 240

@lebogang22 Cool, let me see the "guide" before you publish.

Because, we are going to eventually have a Services & Products sub-forum, so members can actually advertise their own products or any services they offer (plus, we're going to build the forum on-page and off-page, so my hope is that we can actually do some decent "parasite SEO" from the forum, i.e. rank these posts in Google within about 3-6 months).

So, it could be a case that you do a quick "free" guide/tutorial for everyone here, but eventually if you want to expand on it, turn it into an ebook and videos, etc. you can "advertise" it on the platform (once we've gained some authority on the forum over the rest of 2024, I can start throwing backlinks at specific posts and threads to help them rank in the search engines), and you've then got your "own product" to sell. Smile

Reply
(@lebogang22)
Joined: 1 year ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 14

@partha Sounds great. 😊👌

Will give you a shout when it's done.

Reply
Posts: 31
 Nat
(@nat)
Trusted Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Oh my gosh Partha. This is really scary.

My site is dead so I have that alghoritm penalty.

I dont want to create new site or getting involved in black hat things.

Except for updating old articles, which now I guess is pointless, i write very little new articles and try to use Pinterest, Flipboard and YouTube.

So far not much traffic as these take time.

Partha, do you think there is a chance to get traffic from social media on that site and just ignore Google?

Thank you

Nat

Reply
2 Replies
(@partha)
Joined: 1 year ago

Prominent Member
Posts: 240

@nat Hey Nat,

Yep, 100%.

I've mentioned somewhere in this thread about one of my sites.

I managed to get it up to 131,000 visitors (202,000 page views) per month, this was about 95% Google traffic.

It got "hit" by HCU and the Spam Update in August/September 2022.

The traffic kept falling for a couple of months, my motivation went to zero for that site, and I didn't really do much on it at all for a few months.

Then I started trying to "please Google" by rewriting and updating all my articles.

I saw an upsurge in GOOGLE traffic during the September 2023 HCU, so I assumed that all my hard work had paid off.

However, I also started being a LOT more active on social media from around July 2023.

Then the site got "hit" again in December 2023, and then again in the March 2024 update.

For April 2024 the site received just 700ish visitors from Google for the 30 days of April, BUT, my overall traffic for April 2024 was 90,000+ visitors.

In other words, out of 90,000 visitors LESS THAN 1,000 came from Google!

This kinda proves that if you go really hard at social media (i managed this in around 9-10 months, but saw massive improvements from around month 5) you don't need to worry about Google.

Ask @andy to have a look over your Pinterest account for you, and he should be able to give you some tips on keyword research, types of pins, and even things like colours, font text, etc.

The main thing is, and I know because I felt the same, you need to get that motivation back for working on THAT site.

As I say, it took me months, but once I decided I was going to work on it, I went HARD!!

Over 3,000 pins in that time, over 200 articles placed on Medium, and daily posting and comments on Reddit.

The traffic and income are definitely there, you just have to go "hard" at it.

Reply
 Nat
(@nat)
Joined: 1 year ago

Trusted Member
Posts: 31

@partha Thank you so much Partha. At least one good news 😀 

Will work hard on it.

Reply
Posts: 58
(@yusuf)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Posted by: @partha

Then pay for DA/DR manipulation (between $100-$250 for DA 50 - DA70), then sell backlinks (guest posts or niche edits) for your site via somewhere like Fiverr or Upwork (not very ethical, but as an example, a niche edit on a DA50 website, especially a RELEAVNT website to your niche could easily cost around $75-$150. You sell them for half that price, one sale a day and I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better (once more, as dirty as this is, speak to me, and I can help you do this).

Pay for DA and then sell backlinks? This seems like an easy way to make money. Are there a lot of people who do this?

How is your DA manipulated, and does it actually boost your rankings and make backlinks from your site more beneficial?

I'd appreciate it if you can tell me more about it — at your own time of course, I know you've been replying to people for hours now.

Reply
2 Replies
(@partha)
Joined: 1 year ago

Prominent Member
Posts: 240

@yusuf "Are there a lot of people who do this?"

Depends how many people think like me and the "level of knowledge" of the people you are selling to.

If I purchase backlinks, first thing I do is put the site through ahrefs/semrush and view the last 24 months for both traffic and DA (DR in ahrefs).

Massive spikes in DR/DA means it's been manipulated, so I won't touch it.

Massive drops in traffic means it's been hit with a penalty, I won't touch it.

I did say that the method was "dirty as hell", and not very ethical.

However, in the nicest possible way (I'm not being nice at all, hahahaha!!), many buyers on places like Fiverr are "ripe for the picking", i.e they don't know the industry very well, they are that clued up about things, so essentially you're taking advantage of their "stupidity".

Then it all comes down to your copywriting skills in selling your backlinks.

However, the best thing about this method, especially if you have a few sites in similar niches is you can offer NICHE-SPECIFIC BACKLINKS (only if it's a popular niche, as an example, Old Fluff and I have 3 food-related websites together, so this would be perfect for those, i.e. selling backlinks just to people in the food and recipe niche<--- looks far more legitimate that people "just selling backlinks", then you use your copywriting skills to sell the importance of niche relevant backlinks).

Your DA/DR is manipulated through a variety if backlinks, mainly high DA web 2.0 properties, and then tier 2 backlinks (backlinks to your backlinks) from "wikis" and "edu" sites.

Will it improve your ranking in Google? NOPE, it will either absolutely kill your website in Google's eyes for at least a few years, or they will completely ignore all the backlinks.

BUT 

DA and DR are 3rd party metrics (not Google's, Google has a "hidden" PR 1-10 system), so your website will remain at a high DA to anyone who checks (you just don't want SEO pros checking, although most pros won't use Fiverr for "money site" backlinks, but rather tier 2 backlinks)

As I've mentioned, it's straight out blackhat and unethical, and in reality it won't do much to boost the other person's site, the likelihood is the backlinks will just be ignored.

However, if you have a few sites, you can definitely "manipulate DA" and then use your sites for tier 2 backlinks to send to articles on places like Reddit, Quora, Medium, Linkedin, and even the large Chess site you often write on (as I mentioned, spammy backlinks WORK when you send them to high DA sites, but they will kill a low authority website = low authority websites get very few backlinks, so it's easy to spot spam, high DA websites, get millions of backlinks every month, so it's not noticed)

Again, the practice is unethical, you;re not really helping anyone, just getting some money back in your pocket from your dead website!

Reply
(@yusuf)
Joined: 1 year ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 58

@partha Makes perfect sense Partha.

It's not for me then. Thanks for being so blunt and honest about it.

Reply
Posts: 344
Admin
(@rohanm)
Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Posted by: @ohnoo_not_her

(wow , i can finally use that word on a platform hahaha)

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 

 

 

Reply
1 Reply
(@ohnoo_not_her)
Joined: 1 year ago

Prominent Member
Posts: 423

Posted by: @rohanm

Posted by: @ohnoo_not_her

(wow , i can finally use that word on a platform hahaha)

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 

 

 

 

What? I even say it in Dutch in every day life hahahahahaha! 

 

Reply
Posts: 344
Admin
(@rohanm)
Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Posted by: @ohnoo_not_her

What? I even say it in Dutch in every day life hahahahahaha! 

Sometimes, only profanity will do 😆 

Reply
Page 3 / 6

Leave a reply

Author Name

Author Email

Title *

Maximum allowed file size is 5MB

 
Preview 0 Revisions Saved