Building Resilient Money Sites

Excellent info and insight PHPbuilt. Thanks for the share. Always love your write ups.

I'm not a huge fan of expired domains either. Buying closeouts at auction is a bit different I think. Have you tried anything with those out of curiosity?

Thanks again as I will definitely take some of your info and twist into my strategy!
 
Also, I have to say this is the foundation of the so called "parasites" in the seo world ;)

But instead of making a site in a legit site, you ARE building a legit site for later to use it to create your "parasite pages".
 
1. You mentioned that you build the money portion of your site in a subdirectory, as Google treats subdirectories as separate sites, did you mean that you were linking from the footer of your anti-war site to this subdirectory?

Subdomains are treated as separate site. Subdirectories are treated as the same site.

2. If you're attracting natural link so readily, what is the purpose of the tier 1 web 2.0s that you're building?

More links are always better. Plus, I get links this way to my money pages, whereas people naturally linking to my site wouldn't link to those pages.

3. You mentioned that you build 'fresh links' and social signals to the 2.0's, would you elaborate on this part?

There's over 50 high quality web2.0s out there to build blogs on (will be posting all about that soon).

I've got my super-popular facebook and twitter accounts. I find good tweets people made that I'll want to retweet or comment on ... and I'll que up 100 of them per day. My 20 twitter accounts feed on these 1/5th each (each one will post 5 randomly), to keep their outgoing link profile extremely diverse and make them look like they're not all feeding the same info.

These links are usually to other people's articles on high quality news websites. I'll quickly take a paragraph or two from their article and spin it ... about 1/5th of my tier 1 will take up the spin to this other person's site and then tier2 will use the same spin to link to tier 1, tier 3 will use the same spin to link to tier 2, tier 4 will use the same spin to link to tier 3 ... each one also blockquoting a portion of the blog its linking to. Each blog might get 2 to 6 posts per day ... and I've got a link to my latest article once a day or every other day.

Then my main twitter account links to these tier1 blogs and gets usually 40+ natural retweets (sometimes up to 400), my tier1 gets disquis installed usually, so my tier1 are getting natural social signals that makes them that much more powerful. They also get natural links this way.

EDIT: let me clarify ... my social accounts are posting to my tier1 100% of the time, and my tier1 is the one that is linking to other people's blogs like 70%+ of the time. I do this because outgoing link profiles are a massive footprint. If you've got 100 blogs, and those 100 blogs each have 10 posts, and those 10 posts all happen to be linking out to the exact same sites ... that is a massive footprint and it will get your blog farm banned.
 
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So, you are essentially parasiting off of your own site so you remain in complete control.

So the aff site would be www.genericbrandantiwarmainsite.com/SkiReviews/

Now how do you go about linking internally from the main site to the subfolder site? Is there a certain pattern or rule you have? Do you post about anti-war topics and somehow slip in some contextual links almost like a pbn to link to various pages on the subfolder site?

ie: Skiing was extremely popular around the time of the first world war.....

Also,

>>>>Theoretically, there would be the disadvantage that the money portion of your site is not relevant to your main site, or the links that the main site gets. This doesn't seem to matter! There is enough credibility created by your site being legitimate in all other areas, that you can rank for off-topics and it doesn't seem to matter.

This is interesting because I have been under the impression relevancy is a lot more important than I am inferring from your post. Where hyper-targeted sites on one topic are a better investement. I've had branded sites hyper targeted that have outranked tons of super authority pigs covering the general topic -- which I attributed to being because my site was hyper-targeted.

ie; outranking mens health on a targeted muscle building term, with virtually no links simply because my branded site was solely on muscle building
 
So, you are essentially parasiting off of your own site so you remain in complete control.

So the aff site would be http://www.genericbrand.com/SkiReviews/

Now how do you go about linking internally from the main site to the subfolder site? Is there a certain pattern or rule you have? Do you post about anti-war topics and somehow slip in some contextual links almost like a pbn to link to various pages on the subfolder site?

ie: Skiing was extremely popular around the time of the first world war.....

My main blog does occasionally link to the inner pages, but not with exacts. My blog articles will typically link to some 10 other sources, and I'll stick in a link to my inner pages sometime, but it wouldn't be with the exact ... it might be "blog", or "source" or generics. My inner pages get their exact anchors between themselves.

The main blog is a completely different blog installation. There are site-wide footer links to inner pages with "blog" type links, they're not very revealing, generic. The subdirectory is another wordpress installation, with another theme.

>>>>Theoretically, there would be the disadvantage that the money portion of your site is not relevant to your main site, or the links that the main site gets. This doesn't seem to matter! There is enough credibility created by your site being legitimate in all other areas, that you can rank for off-topics and it doesn't seem to matter.

This is interesting because I have been under the impression relevancy is a lot more important than I am inferring from your post. Where hyper-targeted sites on one topic are a better investement. I've had branded sites hyper targeted that have outranked tons of super authority pigs covering the general topic -- which I attributed to being because my site was hyper-targeted.

ie; outranking mens health on a targeted muscle building term, with virtually no links simply because my branded site was solely on muscle building

Muscle building isn't a boring topic though. You can get a big following socially on health topics as well. It can be a challenge building a following, but it certainly is in the realm of possibility with muscle building. Compare that to something like "HVAC pheonix arizona". There's not really a massive group of HVAC enthusiasts in Pheonix you can tap into, who all own blogs and want to link to you. I also have a muscle building site, but the goal of that one is to tap into muscle builders socially and do it legit.

So lets talk about relevancy. When you have a news site, that covers anything and everything that is interesting, obviously the topics are going to be all over the place, and yet they still rank. True, relevancy matters ... but natural links, and social media interaction, and natural comments on your blog also matters. I'd argue that the natural links/social signals must matter more, because you can still rank well with off-topics with that kind of setup. Ultimately, if you had both of course, then you'd be the real leader of a niche (both massive social interaction and relevancy). But that is why this setup rules for some niches, because there are niches that don't really have any kind of social interaction because they're boring, and using this technique you can dominate those types of keywords.
 
That is exactly what it is, i would ratter buy 2/3 TF 50+ domains and build them out then go true the whole thong that OP just written up (which was a great btw), that is way to much work for what you're trying to accomplish here, getting your PBN deindexed sucks but imho you clearly made a mistake when building your PBN (setting of a manual review) if your PBN consist out of real sites, build with different platforms, with every domain a different WHOIS, different nameservers you should be fine, the only time i got deindexed is when my PBN looked like a PBN.

That's great, don't take my or anyone else's word for it ... sometimes people need to learn for themselves. I think what you'll find is that you can build a successful money site from an expired domain, and yet it wouldn't have been any easier than if you had simply bought a brand new domain without pre-existing links. You might find initial boost with a domain with pre-existing links, but later on rankings fizzle out, because Google is juggling millions of websites with their algorithm, and their algorithm isn't always instant ... but at some point Google will say "these pre-existing links don't count", and you'll see a drop in rankings then, be it weeks or months down the line.

Just to be clear, I'm not against a properly built PBN, all I'm saying is that the extra link juice from pre-existing links that happened before a domain expired will eventually no longer count. At best, what you end up with is a PBN that is no different than if you had purchased all the domains new. As long as you have a plan for continuing to build up those domains with fresh links, social signals, etc., it's still going to be beneficial.

I understand that OP is reluctant now to expired domains and everything that goes with building PBN's and he has a work around that is (imho) tedious but interesting nonetheless. (often in IM it is the tedious shit that makes the money)

@OP are you going to start this from a fresh domain or are you going to buy a domain on a auction with a backlink profile and some authority?

I'm currently pushing the limits of what I can accomplish using free blogs. My old PBNs crashed and burned last year, I haven't tried to resurrect them. I took shortcuts with SEO hosting and I had footprints such as all blogs linking out to the same sites (not diversifying outgoing links) which is a major footprint. To build a PBN correctly, it takes a ton of effort and investment, and I'm waiting to see what Google has up its sleeve in 2015 before I start dealing with owned domains again.
 
True, relevancy matters ... but natural links, and social media interaction, and natural comments on your blog also matters. I'd argue that the natural links/social signals must matter more, because you can still rank well with off-topics with that kind of setup.

Maybe I am just getting confused, but, I am not very versed in social platforms at all. Are you saying that the cumulative social signals pointing at your anit-war site are also transferring over metrically to your boring secondary sites -- just like overall DA would -- which inevitably increases overall SE rankings further?

Because clearly your boring topics are not getting hyper-targeted social signals, which is what I thought is what really mattered when it came to social. Aka social signals directly on the pages themselves. People sharing your boring topic articles directly.
 
Thanks for the considered response phpbuilt, this has quickly become a pick your brain thread!

A number of people say 'social signals make no difference to rankings' on a direct level, I'm inclined to agree but as someone who builds copious amounts of them...what are your thoughts on their ranking effect on a money site when directed to a tier 1? Which is something that I've never seen discussed, ignoring their traffic/natural link building effects of course.
 
Because clearly your boring topics are not getting hyper-targeted social signals, which is what I thought is what really mattered when it came to social. Aka social signals directly on the pages themselves. People sharing your boring topic articles directly.

Example today.

1) I write an article for root domain of my blog (anti-war topic).
2) I write a short spin (end up being about 200 words spin). First line is spun so it also works great for a twitter post. Random paragraphs from main article (1 or 2) are quoted from the main blog post, making it appear as though the purpose of the post is to talk about the article.
3) 20 of my 200+ tier1 blogs will take up the spin, linking to the main money site.
4) 60 of my 600+ tier2 blogs will take up the spin, linking to tier1 blogs (and their blockquotes are of tier1 blog spins).
5) 180 of my 1800+ tier3 blogs will take up the spin, linking to tier2 blogs (and their blockquotes are of tier2 blog spins).

(btw, in the interest of avoiding footprints, this is on average. It is actually around 15 to 25 on average, not always exactly 20)

6) my main 40k twitter account will link to my main blog post, gaining around 40 to 400 natural retweets.
7) my 20 smaller twitter accounts will each link to one of the 20 tier1 blogs that took up the spin.
8) spread out over the next 20 hours, at 1 per hour, the 20 smaller twitter accounts will retweet the main twitter account's tweet. For those followers that follow both accounts, this will have an effect of bouncing the main tweet again in their twitter feed, giving people a 2nd chance to see it at the top of their feed. Doing this, everyone sees my main tweet at least twice, sometimes 3 or 4 times depending on how many of my subaccounts are followed by people.

I have plans to go bigger with twitter for the tier2 and tier3, I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm also posting with facebook, and I'm getting healthy activity with it (almost as much as twitter), but I'm not as well-versed in how to bump posts and gain followers with facebook yet, while with twitter I'd consider myself fully understanding of how to manipulate it for targeted traffic like this.

None of the socials have anything to do with my inner money pages. However, my free blog web2.0s will occasionally link to inner pages using generic links, so that you'd have to actually follow the link to realize its a commercial page.
 
Thanks for the considered response phpbuilt, this has quickly become a pick your brain thread!

A number of people say 'social signals make no difference to rankings' on a direct level, I'm inclined to agree but as someone who builds copious amounts of them...what are your thoughts on their ranking effect on a money site when directed to a tier 1? Which is something that I've never seen discussed, ignoring their traffic/natural link building effects of course.

Ok, you'd almost have to read a many-thousand word post I'm making on this topic, to be eventually posted, there's just so much there that its impossible to cover with a few-minute response, but I'll do my best.

When you build a website, and your on-page SEO is spot-on, you're supposed to rank at least somewhere. Sure, building links will get you in the top 10, and its a vital step ... however, if you can't even make it into the top 100 with a well written post, something is wrong. Your site is somehow suspicious to google. You're not even in the top 200? You're somehow penalized, you're not legit enough, you haven't ticked enough of Google's 200+ ranking factors to even be considered for ranking.

When you do social like this, you rank. You might only be #70, but you're still on the radar. And it's not a fake-out blip of a ranking, you'll always be at least #70 and you'll slowly climb as your content ages ... instead of doing a big blast, wohoo you're #30, #20, #11, then boom -- you're not even in top 1000.

Now, do socials actually help you rank BETTER (aside from the fact people might see it and then link to your content)? I don't know. I don't know if your great article would have been #70, but you're not trusted enough so you're not included at all ... but if you were credible, you'd still only be 70. Maybe the socials give you the credibility to be seen in the first place, but don't contribute to exactly where you rank.

What I know is I can start a new website, post an article and it won't even be in the top 1000 if the site hasn't gained enough credibility yet, and then I do socials and it is then "considered", it might only be #50 but at least its in the SERPs. I can work on raising it with internal links or external links, or promoting the site so people will link to it, after that point and it will slowly rise.
 
Oh and another important point, these socials make your PBN more legitimate. It empowers them to send link juice on to your money site. Just like socials give your site what it needs to actually rank at least somewhere, socials give your PBN the credibility to pass along link juice. I'm seeing benefits of this free-blog network I'm creating that surpasses the privately hosted blog network I created last year, and it doesn't hurt that free blog are like ... free.
 
Welcome back phpbuilt, we missed your awesome threads. Looking forward to your PHP tutorials for twitter.
 
Great post. I always need to remember to take those moz guys with a grain of salt and remember their talking to the inexperienced.
 
I don't think Google gives much purpose to social signals. The reason being is that they can't control them. What if one day Facebook decides to block google bot from crawling and makes that ranking signal obsoleet? Google will not risk the health of its own algorithm by making it rely on something that is completely out of their control, like social signals. I just can't see them as a ranking factor at all and my experience has showed that they really don't help seo.
 
phpbuilt, thanks for the post!
I like your approach.

But it's not so easy to sort a list of 1 mln tweeple.
 
phpbuilt, thanks for the post!
I like your approach.

But it's not so easy to sort a list of 1 mln tweeple.

There's lots of twitter software out there, tons of people running around with huge followers, so my way isn't the only way. I do plan on doing twitter tutorials here soon though.

EDIT: You've got software being advertised for it in your signature, use it :p
 
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