What Are Footprints And How to Avoid Them

[raven123]

Hey there BHW, I thought I would make this thread so that the members can share their experience on Footprints and on how to avoid them.

From Using only one Adsense account for 100 sites, to purchasing low quality links and using the same URl structure - everything stupid that someone inexperienced can/might do can and should be included here, with a suggested solution.

Let's keep it on-topic!

 

[keinehabe]

footprints for what lol . In general '' footprint '' means anything what you leave behind somewhere what can be traced back to you ... for example using same dummy avatar on all the forums where you join can be a footprint lol ... or when you setup a bunch of spammy blogs using same theme , or same default username for posting ... and the lists can continue easy .

BH usually brings you in position to work most of the time at the volume numbers ( like managing / deploying hundreds of sites | accounts monthly | weekly | daily sometime ... ) leaving such '' footprints '' behind your activities put you at risk ( you can lose some of all your stuff lol ) .

 

[raven123]

keinahabe:
Thanks for your input. Becally, not doing the same thing over and over again, right?

 

[420friendly]

Like it or not footprints of some form are left no matter what you do... just make sure to not leave a mud hole

Cheers!

 

[jascoken]

Footprints occur with link building in many ways:

IP; where you build the link from and to
Timing; how many links you build in quick successions as part of a blast
URL/domain; which URLs are used as part of a single blast
Anchors; the variety of anchor text used
Content; how similar/unique and varied the content is
Bio/resource; same as content
Platform; the platform/CMS you're submitting to

There are more. But all these factors can be used to determine a footprint for a blast and therefore an assumption of ownership or interlinked benefit.

Therefore, all these factors need to be as mixed as possible so that each submission from a blast looks as close to a single one-off sub' as possible. That's the goal!

 

[raven123]

jascoken:
Thank you so much for writing a detailed post. Diversify is the key.

So to sum up some possible solutions:

IP: Use proxies / rent IPs
Timing: I have read people who claim to leave SB on for days. Probably depends on site age. Better to vary the link quantity i.e. 1000, 1600, 500
URL: No use blasting only the homepage, as that will leave a mark. Imagine your HP having 1000 BL and your Deep pages - 0.
Anchors: Anything you can think of that is on topic. Diversify
Content: Always best to spin 1 article 500 when posting it to Article directories. Gives more juice.
Platform: self explanatory

If I am wrong in any of the above, please correct me.

 

[tnoam71]

Conversely, footprints left by competition and/or those utilizing web components of interest can help you.

You can use them to find editable modules on sites relevant to a certain niche.

Look for andreyg13's thread "47 footprints for finding blog pages with open comments" to read more about this utilization of footprints.

 

[Kikerinka]

My experience is that footprints are just for the paranoid people.

Few months ago, I did not know anything about footprints (simply did not think about it). I did not have proxies, never reset my router, calmly made ten AMR blasts from the same author from the same IP, blah blah. I was ranking top 10 without any problems.

Then I started to think about footprints... Bought 50 private proxies, changed themes so on every of my main sites the theme is different, start to schedule tasks, etc...

The results? Ranking achievements are the same as before, if not worse. However, I spend more money monthly (private proxies not cheap), spend more time, etc...

So, all in all - footprints doesn't matter, from my experience. More you think about it and try to not leave it, more time and money you waste.

jascoken:
Thank you so much for writing a detailed post. Diversify is the key.

So to sum up some possible solutions:

IP: Use proxies / rent IPs
Timing: I have read people who claim to leave SB on for days. Probably depends on site age. Better to vary the link quantity i.e. 1000, 1600, 500
URL: No use blasting only the homepage, as that will leave a mark. Imagine your HP having 1000 BL and your Deep pages - 0.
Anchors: Anything you can think of that is on topic. Diversify
Content: Always best to spin 1 article 500 when posting it to Article directories. Gives more juice.
Platform: self explanatory

If I am wrong in any of the above, please correct me.

 

[raven123]

Kikerinka, Thanks for sharing your experince. Maybe not thinking so much might be the answer. But then again, why is everyone constantly saying "But be careful not to leave any footprints!"

Maybe someone will share a post with some negative experince with not regarding footprints.

Thanks again for your comment.

 

[smoketowntheory]

I think it comes down to risk mitigation. IF the Big G dei-ndexes one of your sites there's a chance they'll take down your whole structure. Will they? Who knows, but do you want to risk hours/days/weeks/months of work that they *might*? I don't. I think the key really is diversification, the more legit you do things, the less your risk is. In theory anyway. You can blast your bottom tier, who cares, it takes 5 minutes to put up a new free site....but, if its the first domino to fall....it might take the house down with it. Just my two cents. I want change.

 

[Chicilikit]

I have many sites on one adsense account, why is that bad? Not hundred but few dozens, but I have not seen anywhere that it is not allowed.

 

[smoketowntheory]

Its not that its not allowed, but what happens if they close your Adsense account? Now all your sites are tied to that one account and the money tap gets shut off. Diversification my friend.

 

[NikosX]

the more you talk about footprints the more you give ideas to trace and pattern footprints in general.

go with the rules/tos/agreements for everything you do and keep everything as seperate as you can and you wont have a problem.

 

[jascoken]

My experience is that footprints are just for the paranoid people...

So, all in all - footprints doesn't matter, from my experience. More you think about it and try to not leave it, more time and money you waste.

Kikerinka

I don't know how much testing you've actually done, but It sounds to me like you've gotten away with it for a while, and assume that because of this, it won't affect your future.

I own around a thousand sites, and do SEO testing for some big players. I also own an SEO company that builds Millions of links per month for hundreds of customers, so I have to test and measure a LOT of different affects...

Panda changed a lot of things during 2011, and although these things were there before, it brought them to the forefront. Diversity has become absolutely essential to protect your future if you're going to be around in IM in a couple of years time.

Footprints are just the surface here; but they point to areas that you need to consider form Google's perspective. They spend millions of dollars to combat spam, and concentrate on those 90% of spammers who do it badly, because they get the most results for the effort expended. Make sure you're in the other 10% by being more clever than the others, and you'll be around when the others are failing.

J

 

[raven123]

smoketowntheory, jascoken, NikosX : Thanks for your answers.

jascoken, smoketowntheory:

I think what we are talking about here is essentially this:

Being on the safe side, or not being on the safe side.

Being on the safe side might not seem like a lot at all in the beginning, but as you said, once the spammers start falling - that's when being on the safe side with Diversity gets some value. And not just some value. It means the difference between dropping down 200 Places and going up 200 places.

Not being on the safe side might initially seem better - maybe faster, easier to obtain results, but what will it matter if your site gets deindexed / punished?

Diversity.

 

[Kikerinka]

Thank you a lot for your valuable advice Jackosen. Just for the matter that you and other guys do not understand me wrongly, I do not care about footprints becasue of:
1. All my sites are 100% legit, 100% unique and high quality content written either by my or by writers that do not cost $5/5 words article
2. I do not do any SB blasts, and such things
3. The backlinks that point to my site are either from providers from here (who I hope take care about footprints ) or built by my using various software, but if I show you the pages where the link is, you would never know that it was built by a software and not by a human.

Anyway, thanks again for your advice and if I go into such a big game like you are in (doubt so anyway, my goals are bit different than yours ), I will for sure keep that in mind.

To summarize it: If you should/or should not care about footprints depends strongly also on what area of IM are you involved in. If you do kind of YT/CPA method, or some mass blasting, probably it makes sense. If you aim for something different, it makes not.

ATB
K.

Kikerinka

I don't know how much testing you've actually done, but It sounds to me like you've gotten away with it for a while, and assume that because of this, it won't affect your future.

I own around a thousand sites, and do SEO testing for some big players. I also own an SEO company that builds Millions of links per month for hundreds of customers, so I have to test and measure a LOT of different affects...

Panda changed a lot of things during 2011, and although these things were there before, it brought them to the forefront. Diversity has become absolutely essential to protect your future if you're going to be around in IM in a couple of years time.

Footprints are just the surface here; but they point to areas that you need to consider form Google's perspective. They spend millions of dollars to combat spam, and concentrate on those 90% of spammers who do it badly, because they get the most results for the effort expended. Make sure you're in the other 10% by being more clever than the others, and you'll be around when the others are failing.

J

 

[nikao]

footprints hardly matter for google in my opinion.
A lot of people worrying about footprints make sure they have different themes on all their websites, but....... have adsense on all of them.. what bigger footprint than that could you leave?!

As for linkbuilding; Appart from link velocity I don't think google is paying that much attention to footprints. I mean, we all know how big a footprint angela links left behind.. yet they worked wonders ..
people tend to overrate google's smartness... especially the whitehats, but also blackhats apparently

 

[smoketowntheory]

it boils down to this....diversified backlinks are ruling at the moment. Everybody who wants to 'cheat the system' is focusing on the wrong thing. Sure, you can beat G00gle for a day.....or two...or a week or so...but eventually they catch up with you. Is your site THAT good that you can make a shit ton of money in a couple days? If it is, why in the world would you take shortcuts? Just let it happen naturally. Otherwise, you're delusional and need to really look at your business plan.