Hi Twisted, I have a question. I started this thread b/c I have been backlinking like 6 weeks now (all norm method) and nothing has happened. I mean one word jumped up coupe hundred spots but is still way down in the serps. I don't think it's on my end with the backlinking and I'm guessing now it's the keywords (people on this thread said prob was not google hitting all my sites with penalty but possible). When you backlink and rank in a short time, are the keywords golden? Like phrases you can definitely rank for? I use UD for T1 and GSA for T2-3, all standard shit, manual spun, etc,etc. Can you help dude?
I also don't think it's a penalty that's hitting you because of ip. I have most of my sites hosted on the same IP (shared hosting) including my rank and bank sites, yet my main sites still remain fine. I think the problem lies in using UD as tier 1. Don't get me wrong, UD is not bad for tier 1, but people tend to make a lot of common mistakes, and that holds true for most automated tools. The problem usually lies with correctly placing anchor texts within the article. It's hard to automate this to look natural. You can definitely rank sites with UD as tier 1, but these sites usually won't stay that long unless you've mastered the tool to be able to create footprint-free properties. You can rank with unnatural links, there's no denying it, but these links usually don't stand the test of time.
What I mean is, you need to insert the anchors so that the contextual text surrounding it is very unique all the time. If you insert it with html manually, usually what ends up happening is you have unique anchors, but the text surrounding it is the same spun sentence (or 4 sentences) over and over again. And once you've built enough of these, it's not hard for google to know that the anchor is always next to the same spun sentence.
If you use the automatic insertion of anchors, the problem here is you don't get enough variation, all your anchors tend to be keywords. You don't have naturally placed generic keywords, long filler keywords, long anchors which include the keyword within it, brand keywords, main keyword combined with brand keyword, etc. Again, you can rank regardless, but rankings are often short-lived once google catches up with your footprint.
Another mistake of UD for tier 1 is creating hundreds of web 2.0 properties, leaving 1 article on it and having that article backlink to your site (sometimes even multiple times). This can rank your site, but once again it's a huge footprint that will catch up to you sooner or later. (These are all great for rank and bank site strategies, but not for sites that you want to keep long term).
For long term sites, you need to think about naturalness, and if you can automate it, perfect, but I find it easier to just create tier 1 manually. I set up a network of web 2.0s all with different usernames, etc. And make sure to post unique content on all of them (with no links). Let google index them all on it's own (if you did this right, made the accounts look natural, google usually indexes it on its own within a few days, no pinging at all).
Your articles should look natural too, lots of formatting (lists, headers, bold where appropriate, images, video, etc.). Once this is done, post 1 article from each property with 1 link to your money site. You can also post more articles linking to your inner pages. Don't forget to link out to authority websites too. Keep it natural. That's it, if you did it right, these tier 1 links will stick there forever (mine are all over a year old now). Now you can do tier 2 to these tier 1 links in moderation, but I no longer use this strategy (I power mine up with private blog network links - this is more advanced so you don't need to worry about it yet). Also, this network can be re-used over and over to backlink all your websites (don't use all of them though for each site, use like 60% of them).
You also need to add in variation to your backlink types. Usually having custom web 2.0s (not the generic ones founds in most automated tools), a few articles/doc sharing, and a few private blog network posts is more than enough variation.
One of the biggest lies that get's passed around so much (I felt for it for years) is that web 2.0 links are "powerful." The truth is, properly set up and maintained web 2.0s are high quality, not 2-second web 2.0s with a single post on it. Those work to rank you, but it won't keep you ranked.
I'm just sharing what's working for me. So it's up to you if you want to re-evaluate your linking strategy, or not. I understand that this forum has a reputation for people wanting the path with less work at every corner, and they tend to procrastinate on making the necessary changes they know they should make. It's one of the reasons why so many here don't make money, and I no longer try to convince people what to do. I just share what's worked for me, and let them decide if they want to absorb it into their own strategy or not.
EDIT: Do all your sites look identical with footprints that link them all together? I remember 3-4 years ago google used to drop sites that they knew were all linked to the same person (with 1 violating site triggering this), even if the other sites were clean. I was pretty new in SEO back then so I'm not sure if this was really even happening or not, but I remember hearing about this all over the forums, but it seems like no one has reported this (or forgot about it) in recent times.
One more thing, sometimes people think their site is penalized or filtered, when the real reason is they don't have any real strong backlinks (web 2.0s with 1 articles on it is NOT a strong link). Other times, google has just devalued a bunch of the links you're using making them worthless. If you really want to check what's going on, 301 redirect the site to a new domain. If it starts ranking higher again, it could mean you were penalized (The penalty will transfer over after 1-8 weeks). If it ranks around the exact same position you are in now, it could mean your backlinks are just not very strong to begin with (or have too many footprints that's caused them to be devalued). If this is the case, consider using some high PR homepage blog posts, which you can find on this forum.
Lol I know it's a long post and most people won't even read past paragraph 1, but that's okay. Anyways, I understand your frustration OP, I used to be in the same exact position as you. One thing you got to learn is to test different strategies out for yourself all the time. Once you do this, you'll realize that 80% of the stuff people are spreading on BHW is just outdated info, or regurgitated crap that doesn't work. You have to question why (probably 95%) of the forum members aren't making any real money... do you really want to learn from them? I started making money after I stopped taking whatever people said as fact, and tested it on my own to see if it works for me. So don't take what I'm saying here as fact either, just take the ideas you find useful and test it for yourself.
When you backlink and rank in a short time, are the keywords golden? Like phrases you can definitely rank for?
My rank and bank sites are usually in low-medium competition with around 2k-12k searches a month. I haven't tried competing in competitive niches yet so I can't help you out there if that's what you're doing. There are many other members here who rank and bank in competitive niches, so perhaps you can refer to them for more info.
