How important are links?

pinkfluffybunny · 03-29-2005, 11:26 AM

Ok,

let's put the theory to a test.

Lets take a site built by a 14 year old kid for his mother (a friend of my wife's)
Cindy Lee's facial and nail institute

He wanted some optimization tips (free of course).

The site is not complete, did not have a domain name assigned until recently, and has never been registered with any search engines.
The kid is doing a fair job.

The site was spidered by MSN, without being registered and has the following keyword phrases in the top 10 or number one (I may hire the little bugger):

beauty school daytona, beauty school florida, beauty school daytona beach, facial school florida, nail tech school, facial school daytona, (there are about 30 in the top ten)

So you get the point. NOTICE THE SITE WAS SPIDERED BEFORE A DOMAIN NAME WAS ASSIGNED (an ip number is showing up in MSN link)

(without registering, without linkbacks, without tricks, without page rank)

Myth busted

James Trotta · 03-29-2005, 05:46 PM

You're telling me that a site with no inbound links was spidered by MSN. I wonder how MSN found the site. I wonder if Google will find the site? Yahoo!?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Ok,

let's put the theory to a test.

Lets take a site built by a 14 year old kid for his mother (a friend of my wife's)
Cindy Lee's facial and nail institute

He wanted some optimization tips (free of course).

The site is not complete, did not have a domain name assigned until recently, and has never been registered with any search engines.
The kid is doing a fair job.

The site was spidered by MSN, without being registered and has the following keyword phrases in the top 10 or number one (I may hire the little bugger):

beauty school daytona, beauty school florida, beauty school daytona beach, facial school florida, nail tech school, facial school daytona, (there are about 30 in the top ten)

So you get the point. NOTICE THE SITE WAS SPIDERED BEFORE A DOMAIN NAME WAS ASSIGNED (an ip number is showing up in MSN link)

(without registering, without linkbacks, without tricks, without page rank)

Myth busted

pinkfluffybunny · 03-29-2005, 05:52 PM

No I'm not telling you - I showed you. In fact I advised the kid not to register it for a while (until he got all his stuff together)

And yes Yahoo, Google and altavista will find it also (if he doesn't register it -a few weeks max)

They are all scrambling (search engines) to get the most sites indexed with the most relevent info.

All you have to do is build it. (I would register it, but as you can see you don't have to have linkbacks)

The attached shows the spiders that have come through (without being asked to)

I hate to bust up the let's sell links to the noobs party...but

Jazzee · 03-29-2005, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

All you have to do is build it. (I would register it, but as you can see you don't have to have linkbacks)

How did MSN find the site if nothing was linking to it? And how will the others find it?

pinkfluffybunny · 03-29-2005, 06:10 PM

Because like the viruses out there they are activity spidering the web.

A new server (unix or windows can expect an attack within 2 hours of getting online)

(watch those university of china computer sciences guys- they're brutal)

It takes the search engines a week to a month, I hope they catch up....lol

MSN is trying to tackle Google and have it down to a few days, hell the kid didn't even buy the domain name and they had it.

**John Scott** · 03-29-2005, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Because like the viruses out there they are activity spidering the web.

They mainly spider the web via links.

pinkfluffybunny · 03-29-2005, 07:53 PM

Scott no offense -
not trying to be a smartass
You can hold onto the myth
Hell some people look at a stain and see the virgin Mary

but show me "ANY" links to that kids site from external source

He has over 30 in the top ten, has never registered, and the site hasn't been up a month.

Maybe people should be honest, provide content, not try to scam the engines and just do what is good for searchers (you know when they say something is there it should be there) and they will not have to buy the scam SEO books, linkbacks and pour out their money to a bunch of sharks swimming around the webmaster boards.

Damn I saw a 14 year old do it, all I told him was to tell me what I would find on each page 10 different ways in 3 words or less. Then put it in the site.

(not a cut on this board - but I surfed a lot of these before I decided to post here, and it's a feeding frenzy on these poor small business owners that just want to be honest and get their local business listed, next thing you know they have a board devoted to ripping off noobs.)
And when the noobs stop coming they turn on each other for a meal

That's why when I get time off I try to help the honest ones and shoot at the sharks.

I know you and Sara are honest and I'm not accusing you or your board of anything, but I do see the sharks, and if they say the water is fine come on in, some jump.

Links will come because you have a quality site, it doesn't help the other way. Not anymore the search engines got wise.

Jazzee · 03-30-2005, 06:34 AM

pinkfluffybunny - without a link for the search engines to follow to the site, wouldn't the spiders have to "guess" the exact url of the site to find it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Scott no offense -
not trying to be a smartass
You can hold onto the myth
Hell some people look at a stain and see the virgin Mary

but show me "ANY" links to that kids site from external source

Here's one: http://www.aboutcurrencytrading.com/...dingeducation/ - #8 on that list takes me to the kid's site.

...

pinkfluffybunny · 03-30-2005, 11:44 AM

Basically what all the engines say is that linking "may" help the engine find your site before you submit it, but the links have little affect on its position, it simply gets the spider to it faster.

I, like most professionals believe, and tests have repeatedly shown, that the google toolbar TPR is little more than a novelty item. Business owners should be focusing on the relevance, content and basic seo.

The content and relevance of the site determines its position and placement. A very small amount of ranking is determined by link backs, (and that is fading so fast) there are so variables that is just best to let the links grown naturally. MSN, Google etc. thought it was a good idea to include link popularity in the positioning, but it was quickly bastardized by people trying to make a quick buck, setting up their own mini search engines (linkfarms) and companies like Traffic-Power began ripping people off. The engines are turning it off - no more free beer.

If you have good content you will get links because you have good content and your site is what it says it is.

If you are trying to scam the engines they will catch up with it.

My bet is the kid will beat other sites in his area (in most of the engines) because he did basic seo, made it so people get there they find exactly what they were looking for and didn’t try to trick or scam anyone.

If you never register and never get a link from another site will the search engines find you.
Yes I have tested it repeatedly.
Would I recommend it to a new business? Of course not.

I am not saying don't advertise on someones site to bring in a targeted audience, but don't buy links cause you think you will get placed higher. The engines are all working hard to endure if you make a bad site, you get bad placement and if you have a site that is useful and is what it says it is it will do well.

The site that started this thread is an excellent example. He's not trying to trick anyone, he just wants people in Atlanta to know about his service. That can be done with some basic SEO. He doesn't need to buy links, he just needs to let the engines know what he is offering and where he provides it.

He didn't do that. All the links in the world won't help if he doesn't.

Jazzee · 03-30-2005, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

If you never register and never get a link from another site will the search engines find you.

How?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Yes I have tested it repeatedly.

Doubt it. You THOUGHT that kid got listed with NO links. You were wrong.

There has to be some way for the spider to find out about the site to begin with. They don't just pull URL's out of thin air.

.

pinkfluffybunny · 03-30-2005, 12:38 PM

Ok the kid had a link that was a mistake.

Search engines use of WebBots that are designed to collect information from WebSites or "databases" on the Internet.

There are many IP databases on the web and throughout the world - SpiderHunter IP Database, American Registry for Internet Numbers, ASEAN, whois, etc, etc.

An IP database is a database that keeps historical records on IP addresses. This is usually stored using the IP decimal as the key.

Search engines use ip spidering to prevent cloaking

UKZJ007 · 03-30-2005, 05:21 PM

haha, is this a joke or something?

Let's say we found no links - ok?

Perhaps that's because the engines haven't updated their inbound links or you're registrar signed you up to those "submit site to 200 engines for free" thingies.

Anyway, seriously ... April fools day is only 1 day away - can't ya wait?

Buskerdoo · 03-30-2005, 06:11 PM

I've put enough sites out on high traffic, popular servers (domain names and subdomains of indexed sites) to tell you no link no find. Period.

sem4u · 03-31-2005, 02:04 AM

Search engines can crawl data like whois information. I have two domains listed in Google which had no links at all to them. Just the URL in the title though and only the home page. These sites were not even hosted - I just owned the domain names.

jstcrzyengh · 03-31-2005, 03:02 AM

If he is using shared hosting than MSN is following old links to the old domain name which may still have its nameservers set to that IP address. I had that problem with my old host. The new site named a page the same before I relaunched the site. So basically MSN followed that link. The search engines just dont go "Woh, I think ill try 182.345.546.17" its just not going to happen. So what you have is MSN following an old link to the last domain name that than went to the IP address. MSN strangely enough was the hardest for me to start getting "botted" google was hitting me 30 times a day, MSN just in the past month has hit me all over the place. Needless to say, no site is going to come out of the blue and just rank. I had a site sit for 6 months, put a sig link to it and now #1 on Google, MSN, and Yahoo. So tell him to put it in his sig if he really wants to get it spidered more often, and for gods sake get him on a real domain

Johan007 · 03-31-2005, 08:36 AM

April is tomorrow.

pinkfluffybunny · 03-31-2005, 09:59 AM

Tell you what.

Let’s run a test.

I will supply two clean IP's in a range not used.

Then we will build two sites (someone volunteer), one with minimal seo optimization lotz of links and one with good SEO optimization and no links.

Lets see which one places higher in a given engine in 3 months time.

To make it fair lets use only html no asp or php (we don't want to get off on the php/asp what's better for search engine debate).

Subject suggestions?

UKZJ007 · 03-31-2005, 04:02 PM

I have no links pointing towards a secret project - Why isn't it in google? - Because i've not told anyone about it.

Haha, It's like saying ... You have a website offline on your home computer ... and google spidered it!

James Trotta · 04-01-2005, 08:21 AM

A scientist! If you need proof, copy this thread and put it on your unused IP. In three months this one here at V7n will be indexed. If you play by the rules and have no links pointing at your secret unused IP the other one won't be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Tell you what.
Let’s run a test.
Subject suggestions?

babrees · 02-19-2008, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Trotta

A scientist! If you need proof, copy this thread and put it on your unused IP. In three months this one here at V7n will be indexed. If you play by the rules and have no links pointing at your secret unused IP the other one won't be.

I'm new to this forum and have just come across this thread. I'm curious - did this test ever take place?