Website Design Blog of Alfred Fox
** If you have not read Part I of this story, please do so, It'll make much more sense.
On 9/20/2007 I posted about an experiment I'd been conducting to boost my search engine ranking for the key words I was aiming for. Freelance Website Design and Website Design... At the time of this post, I am currently #4 on Google for 'Freelance Website Design' and #36 on Google for 'Website Design'. A very unexpected bi product of my experiment was an increase in page rank. This may not be completely unexpected, but I was more than surprised. While I was receiving commendation from Google, others were being punished for things that didn't seem to be in violation ofGoogle's Policies.
Even Higher Ranking, and What? A Boost in PR?
I am now a PR4. My website, as it is now, is approximately 6 months old (I've had other things up here, but only for private use in the past). Here is an update as to what I've been up to in the last two months. Once again, if you have not yet read Part I of this, it probably won't make much sense. So for the last two months I've done nothing. I've not had any time to even read blogs let alone post comments in them. I've been inundated with work and life. Also, as before, I've taken a strict, noSEO policy to my ranking approaches. Surprisingly, despite two months of inactivity, my PR has jumped 3 points and I've acquired an even higher position for my sought after key phrase 'Website Design'.
What Was Expected
Ever since the beginning of this I've been wondering whether this would be effective or not for several reasons. The main being that many blogs seem to have no-follow on their comment links / names, and also the fact that people may simply delete my comment regardless of how absolutely not spam it is simply because I use a key word instead of my actual name. So far, here are the results...
Definitely Not Comment Spamming!
Being that my rank is still climbing and holding steady as well as the fact that I've gained more PR, I would have to think that blog owners realize how benign people using keywords for names really is. No matter what you think or how you look at it, a spam post is a spam post. No ifs ands or buts. However, simply using a keyword in your name instead of your actual name does not constitute a spam post, as your post is still just as valuable as the person ahead or behind you. Besides,spammers are the cancer of the Internet, and are very easily spotted. Oh hey guys, you want to buy some Cialis ? Viagra perhaps? Seriously, any one who thinks swapping out your name for a keyword on a comment we were already going to leave is the same as spam needs to recheck their spam folders and seriously rethink which is actually harmful and a pain in the arse.
No-Follow, Google, and Wordpress
I've not looked into how many of the blogs I've left comments in are in fact no-follow, nor do I really care. My guess is, with these numbers, that most blogs are either not no-follow, or that Google has been pulling a leg or two with what they've stated regarding No-Follow links. My guess, however, is the first. My guess is most people do not care whether their links are no follow or not. Mine aren't as I do not have a problem with people leaving an insightful comment, and getting a free link back out of the deal. I'm simply thrilled that people stop by and read what I've written.
Conclusion
There are still many ways to increase ranking, do SEO, and boost your traffic without spending money. The Blogosphere is a great community that provides numerous opportunities to meet others, share ideas, learn, and now increase your traffic, yes, even without Blog Rush. I for one am happy to be apart of it, regardless of how small my role actually is.
As always, thanks for reading. I've been on hiatus lately due to work and such, but I'm going to try to step it up. (For my small handful of subscribers :) )
Comments for How I Am Achieving Google Search Engine Rankings Absolutely Free Part II
What about traffic from links from comments? Any stats?
Well thats sounds great, would this be considered using the same technique? http://www.realwebspace.za.net
Real Web Space - Home - Hosting, Design, Managment, Real Estate Websites, Domain Registration, Computer maitenence, Gerneral IT Managment.
Black hat's commenters are misunderstanding that you didn't check on nofollow status. People are interpreting this that Google isn't being forthright about nofollow, when that isn't what you're saying at all.
(Apologies for the name, just wanted to see if you have a sense of humor ;)
LOL, that's awesome Dave. And you're right, That's not what I'm saying at all.
Thanks for stopping by :)
Hi Alfred. I've read the part 1 and this recent post. Thanks for the tips and I would love to try that too. However, I think such technique is great for niche blogs, but not for mixed content like mine.
Congrats on the PR and thanks for dropping a comment in my alternative blog. Cheers. :)
Nice article. and im trying to follow it:)
Let me see how it works.
Chakradhar
www.chakradhar.net
Thanks for both those articles (saw the link on BlackHat SEO.) I'm going to change the follow policy on my blog to nofollow, see if I can encourage some comment.
Congrats, I never thought that would work. I think the no follow command is default on word press. I wonder if it also has something to do with you not having any ads. Why would a spammer, spam without any ads might be what goog is thinking.
Anyways if you have sometime check out my Blog
Alfred, you are probably too busy to notice but as of Feb 6th, you are now listed as high as position 24 for 'website design' (and that is without the quotes).
I was going to say 'great tip' but you know, it is more of a 'great strategy'. It's like getting a black belt in karate, you only need to perfect 6 moves (I think). Simple but effective. Thanks!
Great article and read and falls right in line with what we share at CrackGoogle.com. Essentially, "the best scam is honesty". Just post good clean and relevant content and participate in real actual and proper blogs and you will see receive the benefit.
In other words, the more you just come across as a normal person, as opposed to being a robot feeding keywords to a search engine, the better chance you will have of climbing.
Sure, you want to use the right meta tags and titles and have a clean url which includes the right subject matter in it, but you don't have to go out of your way to get picked up. Just forget about SEO and Pagerank and share something. ANYTHING! Just share and be honest and you will get picked up and climb with little or no effort. I promise. I have seen it work time and time again for friends who come to me for help. I tell them hey, "there is no secret to good SEO or Pagerank", the "secret" is that there is no "secret". But many people can't understand that.
Thanks,
Crack Google
PS, We are going to start adding some content to our site due to the recent changes, there is a lot to talk about.
Let me know if you want to share some articles (exclusively) as I like your blog.
My website www.phpjavascript got its page rank 4 in 6-8 months as well. But daily hits are like 200-300, the aim behind phpjavascript.com was to share knowledge and I had hoped to get some revenew from adsense. Even though my rank is steady #4 and I have reached the homepage for some keywords (havnt kept track) my daily hits or google revenue not worth mentioning.
Anyone has an idea why is that.
Hi, i would like to translate some your Article naturally put on you as a source of reference, not against you?
Hi, thanks for writing this article, I find it to be very helpful! As of now, I don't think I am getting a ranking at all on google, I will take your advice and see what happens! Again, thanks for the info.
Wow, thank you for such insight and offering your experiences to the rest of us.
Just finished reading part 2, very interesting story and definately sounds like its worth trying out. I'll post back in a couple of months or so and let you know if i have results.
Commented in part one, thought i'd put a quick update here as well, changed name from Lottery to E Lottery, thinking may have more luck with spam filters which don't like the Lottery name. Seems a lot of my blog posts are not linking my name with the anchor text for any backlinks, wondering if anyone else is having a similar situation.
Thank you for the inspiring post.
Within you inconsistent 20minutes a day commenting and posting, how many blog posts did you target and where they all related to webdesigning?
I also noticed that you have dropped in the ranking for webdesign. I believe part of this happens when the campaign does not become more consistent and somewhat aggressive, not to say this is your fault in anyway; its just that others are obviously trying. Google loves fresh content and the place were you are leaving the comments are as affective as their age and freshness. New stuff is released on the same subject matter in the bucket loads. Smashing magazine is allways getting frontpage diggs for website and graphic related issues and of course other interesting fresh content are released.
You may want to consider a Silo affect now Alfred.
Take 2/3 riveting articles/post and place them as stickies. Maybe ones that give a bunch of grahics/logos photoshop styles for free in a .zip pack, these kinda posts get a lot of thank you comments, and actually state in the post that you may make additions or addons via the post. they do these for wordpress plugins (all the version changes, bugfixes, etc take pace on the same bog post as the download). Now follow up these post with other keyword related posts and link directly to them, lets say 5/6 for each sticky article. Now when you go to do your commenting link back to these different posts/articles; ultimately they will give weight to the main sticky posts which will alter every week or so in the text. Since the Google spider will visit those pages regular following the trail then it will stay more at the top of the ranking. You will need to follow up these sticky post now and again with 'keyword density' posts that link to them.
I found this to be quite inspirational. I've been wondering if no follow is really "followed" by google so to speak. 20 mins is not unreasonable. Congrats to you and thanks!
Very interesting read. It Would be Great to have an example of a comment you leave with the keyword in it. I am in a competitive market- Hotels, restaurants, golf clubs, b&b's etc in Ireland. I will try your techniques and keep in touch. My blog listings get spidered in google in 36 hrs. I only take blogs about your visit to Ireland. Thanks Glenn
I'm wondering if a lot of the new worpress plugins are reducing the value of linkbacks. Definately hard to find many where you can put decent comments The spam filters cancel most comments with keyword in neame section.
That is definitely an interesting read. I did find it humorous and ironic that only about 1/2 of the people commenting here were only using your technique partially by not aiming for better keywords
Congratulations.I'll try to use the same technique for my portfolio,when it's finished and I'll let you now how it goes.
Best Regards,
John