[CASE STUDY] Race to the top - testing different ranking strategies
- Thread starter rankdominator
- Start date
mathewsassn
Power Member
- Jul 15, 2008
- 635
- 71
mark.keep us updated
yeah... great study!! can't wait for more results!
thesameprice
Registered Member
- Sep 15, 2011
- 55
- 2
Subscribed!please update we can learn something from your case study
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
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My own personal opinions aside, I think it is trying to prove the latter - namely that
with consistent linking both strategies will produce results.
If you asked me personally - I have a suspicion that Strategy 1 is WAAAAYYYY better than Strategy 2 - and quicker too - but I suspect my test setup is not really going to prove that, or is not setup properly to conclusively prove it one way or the other.
We have ranked sites with both strategies and more so always using a mixture of each of the linking types as well... however this is probably the first time that we will be doing each linking type exclusively to each site... and seeing the results...
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
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Right time for some updated rankings and some explanation on what has been done:
Current Rankings:
1) STRATEGY 1 (Quality based links): 56
2) STRATEGY 2 (Quantity based links): 67
Linking strategies:
So for Strategy 1 - we have created 2 guest posts (mixed and matched the number of words for each site - all unique for both articles) - pure content - no videos or images in these posts and both were posted during the week. These guest posts backlink back to the money site rather than the Web 2.0s, as they were just too good to pass on. So I think for now I will change Strategy 1 to rather be quality links but some that point at the money site, and others that point at the Web 2.0 Tier 1. I think this will look a bit more natural ... It will still all be Quality handpicked type links though!
Content is roughly around 400 words for 1 blog post, and around 500+ words for the other. I am disappointed that images were not allowed - as my niches really would be well suited to content with images - but go figure - when you are allowed to post on other non-spammy type blogs - you take what you can get. On the site - the posts are linked to from the homepage from a "Recent posts" widget / section of the site, and are thus just inner pages on each site - thus each post is on a PR n/a page (i.e. page PR is 0)
Domain page rank for these sites was a 3 and 2 respectively.
For Strategy 2, we initially bought just 2 services off of Fiverr - and for both services - the link was requested to be spread across the Tier 1 sites
a) 5000+ high quality blog comments
b) Directory submissions backlink campaign - 400+ PR3+ directories
Note that the for the directory submissions - this request is still in the queue to be done - so will see if any results are obtained later
Any questions - please feel free to ask
Current Rankings:
1) STRATEGY 1 (Quality based links): 56
2) STRATEGY 2 (Quantity based links): 67
Linking strategies:
So for Strategy 1 - we have created 2 guest posts (mixed and matched the number of words for each site - all unique for both articles) - pure content - no videos or images in these posts and both were posted during the week. These guest posts backlink back to the money site rather than the Web 2.0s, as they were just too good to pass on. So I think for now I will change Strategy 1 to rather be quality links but some that point at the money site, and others that point at the Web 2.0 Tier 1. I think this will look a bit more natural ... It will still all be Quality handpicked type links though!
Content is roughly around 400 words for 1 blog post, and around 500+ words for the other. I am disappointed that images were not allowed - as my niches really would be well suited to content with images - but go figure - when you are allowed to post on other non-spammy type blogs - you take what you can get. On the site - the posts are linked to from the homepage from a "Recent posts" widget / section of the site, and are thus just inner pages on each site - thus each post is on a PR n/a page (i.e. page PR is 0)
Domain page rank for these sites was a 3 and 2 respectively.
For Strategy 2, we initially bought just 2 services off of Fiverr - and for both services - the link was requested to be spread across the Tier 1 sites
a) 5000+ high quality blog comments
b) Directory submissions backlink campaign - 400+ PR3+ directories
Note that the for the directory submissions - this request is still in the queue to be done - so will see if any results are obtained later
Any questions - please feel free to ask
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
- 68
Just another point - the rankings are continously moving during the period (both upwards and downwards) - but the rankings as posted in the status updates are those I obtain just before posting the thread.
So for each strategy - the rankings have actually been better prior to me posting the status update - but have since dropped for each of those strategies.
Suspect these are just the usual dances as Google is trying to settle on a rank for the site.
So for each strategy - the rankings have actually been better prior to me posting the status update - but have since dropped for each of those strategies.
Suspect these are just the usual dances as Google is trying to settle on a rank for the site.
psychorollercoaster
Newbie
- Mar 23, 2012
- 44
- 5
interesting! bump.
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
- 68
Quick Update
Current Rankings:
1) STRATEGY 1 (Quality based links): 46
2) STRATEGY 2 (Quantity based links): 69
Strategy 1 - nothing done recently - however rankings have improved steadily - I will be doing some more Web 2.0 contextual links this week on new Tier 1 sites.
Strategy 2 - received the directory submission results - actually moved backwards since that time. I will be ordering another set of comments blasts and wiki blasts to the Tier 1 sites this week
Current Rankings:
1) STRATEGY 1 (Quality based links): 46
2) STRATEGY 2 (Quantity based links): 69
Strategy 1 - nothing done recently - however rankings have improved steadily - I will be doing some more Web 2.0 contextual links this week on new Tier 1 sites.
Strategy 2 - received the directory submission results - actually moved backwards since that time. I will be ordering another set of comments blasts and wiki blasts to the Tier 1 sites this week
clickwhale
Regular Member
- Jun 23, 2010
- 444
- 120
This is gonna be nice... one query: how difficult are the keywords? Long tails?
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
- 68
I would term them between easy-to-medium difficulty.
Not really long tails at all .
The nice aspect about travel related niches is you can really find plenty of LSI keywords and create content related to the niche - as opposed to really tight mini niche type keywords (if you think along the lines of product type niche keywords - I really struggle to get ideas for content on those).
Well at least Im finding it easy to think up topics related to the keywords and structure some content around those keywords.
Last edited:
great exp. subscribed
YellowHats
Junior Member
- Mar 10, 2013
- 195
- 136
Hey,
Great thread. Subscribed - really curious to see what happened. My money is definitely on strategy 1. I've been playing around with Fiverr a little more and so far have not been seeing much sustainable success for anything above low competition...
Great thread. Subscribed - really curious to see what happened. My money is definitely on strategy 1. I've been playing around with Fiverr a little more and so far have not been seeing much sustainable success for anything above low competition...
rankdominator
Junior Member
- Dec 18, 2009
- 120
- 68
I think with Fiverr its hit and miss ... but for $5 I do not really expect anything anyways - its more the diversity I am after and letting others do the work for me. Nonetheless, here are the updated rankings after some work has gone in for the last week:
Current Rankings:
1) STRATEGY 1 (Quality based links): 18
2) STRATEGY 2 (Quantity based links): 42
Strategy 1: Another BHW user (Kimi) had a good list of Web 2.0 sites floating around (just use the search button - its called 92 Web 2.0 sites or something similar) - so we created some further unique content on about 10 of these sites (roughly 300-500 words each - most that we had not used beforehand - Thanks Kimi) - anchor text was split between keyword and raw urls. All had pics - some just a single pic, others 2 or more pics with relevant title and alt tags. The content is not spammy in that it is not keyword stuffed, but we believe it adds some value (or at least is informational in my eyes )
Strategy 2: Bought a few more big backlinks packages - 5000+ social bookmarks, a different directory submission gig, some more blog comments.
Overall the content on the Tier 1 sites seems to be beneficial. None of the Web 2.0s have been taken down - I think that comes down to proper content, unique and non spammy looking text. It would pass any manual reviewer as well. Obviously taking the time to create the content upfront is the onerous part, and certainly writing the 10 articles takes its time - but I do believe the rankings will be longer lasting. Time will tell whether the upshot in rankings for Strategy 2 will last for some time. Previous experience tells me Strategy 1 is so much longer term and not as volatile after algorithm changes either.