Open Question Post: Weird Google Results & Link Building

Sorry for the delay with answering the questions that have been sent in over the last couple of weeks using my “Ask a Question” feature. If you don’t know what that is yet, I basically try and answer any questions my readers have regarding SEO, Web development, Thailand, Bangkok or anything else you think I may be able to answer I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all of them, but I will promise I’ll try!

From the back log of questions I’ve got stored, todays question comes from Daniel who asks:

Have you been aware of the weird google results recently? Sites seem to be jumping all over the place. I’m not sure if Google are using multiple algorithms or what.

How long have you been doing SEO for? I read the SEO Book like you recommended and it was very helpful, thanks.

No one says it but I think the secret to a 1 spot in Google is to build loads of domains, promote them all to so they are hubs, or near hubs. Then 1 way link them all to the site that you want to rank for. Yes, absolutely tonnes of work.

I haven’t noticed anything different about Google’s search results recently, my own sites are still sitting nicely at the top - maybe this is due to the way I manage my SEO strategies - I’m a firm believer in building content and links slowly, and naturally.

The thing with Google’s algorithms is that we are kept in the dark on how they operate for obvious reasons. If we knew the ins and outs of how they rank sites (which you can find out enough off via testing yourself), people would just take advantage, which would mean spammy sites reaching to the top of search results, a shit user experience, loss of visitors for google, loss of revenue, and loss of market share. Not a good look for Google.

What we do know is that the Google’s algorithm is based on Page Rank - sites link to others are seen as a vote. The more votes a site has determines how much juice is passed onto a site they link too. With this in mind, it’s a pointless exercise building lots of simple sites that will not attract links themselves as without inbound links, the site will not pass any value in terms of link juice or Page Rank. With most niches, building quality content and networking is the only way to go to build links from relevant, established sites that already have their own set of back links.

Saying that, there are certain niches, which I’ve had my fair share of experience with, that are near impossible to build links for organically… think pharmaceuticals, adult and gambling. It’s very hard to build great content that other sites will want to link too for these niches. These niches require great creativity, knowledge and experience to achieve high rankings for the highly competitive keywords relating to these niches.

I do build sites in certain niches just for passing on link juice, but when I do, I make sure they will attract links themselves, so that it’s worth my time and effort for the Page Rank they pass onto my main site. Here’s an example: You have an adult site, no other adult sites want to link to you as they don’t want very valuable traffic wondering off to another site that doesn’t include their money makers (links/banners etc.) In this situation, you know that these sites also have difficulty finding links, a way to generate a nice link along with helping out other webmasters would be to create a directory (old school I know but sometimes they work!). They say a picture is worth a million words so I created this quick drawing so you can understand how a directory could provide the site with some relevant link juice:

The above is just an example!

Myself and a few other great SEO’s I know all work on “test sites” What I mean by test sites is this: choose a few obscure keywords such as “fluffy widgets in gold colour” and apply different link building tactics to them… monitor the data to see what works and what doesn’t. When you find tactics that work… exploit them. Link building in a never ending learning process, so be prepared to work hard to get high competitive keywords ranking at the top of the search engines

The reason “no one says it” is because 90% of SEO’s, whether they admit it or not, are scared of the consequences of what could happen to their business. I would never talk about a link building tactic link this one in public, but hey, I have more to loose than gain I guess. For a head start, I really liked what Rae did with her recent “11 Link experts speak out” article.

By the way, unless you can afford a link builder that really knows what he is doing ($300+ per hour) learn and test yourself. There are so many ways that could get a site penalized it’s just not worth risking an inexperienced link builder to work on an established site.

I’ve been playing with SEO for 7 years but have only been relying on SEO to pay for my bills for 4 years.

If anyone else has their thoughts on Daniels question, I would love to hear them in the comments Cheers!