Penalized for too aggresive link building?

nicolegreen · #1 (**permalink**) 06-25-2006, 03:36 PM

I'm trying to assess whether I am being realistic or too agressive in my expectations for getting a top #5 ranking in search engines. Contrary to what many people out there are doing, I am targeting MSN and Yahoo as opposed to trying to achieve top rankings in Google. The reason for targeting Y and MSN is I don't have the luxury of having time on my side. Basically, our URL sells a product which is fad-based - meaning, it doesn't matter in two years from now because there probably won't be much demand for what we are selling (thus, the reason why we need to get a good SERP ranking in the shortest amount of time). Oh, and yes we are white/grey hat SEO.

The top 3 sites in Yahoo and MSN for our KW have 2,500 to 4,000 links. Our site has an on-page optimization very similiar to the top #2 sites so it comes down to a matter of link building.

Is 3 to 6 months is unrealistic (too aggressive) for catching up with our competitors? The way I figure it, we need to build roughly 2,500 to 4,000 links using about 300 to 400 one-way links (based on our competition). Do these search engines penalize for adding links too fast as Google does??

G10 · #2 (**permalink**) 06-25-2006, 03:57 PM

I take it you are asking if they have the 'sandbox' effect that big G has?

Possibly and knocking up that many one way links in such a short time is definately one way to find out.

The thing is, it isn't just based on links but link relevancy and also time driven i.e. how long your site has been up.

WagerX · #3 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006, 06:12 PM

I started with two sites.. CrazyMonkeyCasino.com and WagerX.com
Both relatively equal in content, and SERP's.. I was very aggresive with the link building on WagerX.com and yahoo dropped the results down about 10 pages.. while the other with moderate to low backlink additions in a months time were still on the first page for my targeted keywords. Google liked it, but it took 3 months to recover yahoo positions.

So I think yahoo penalized me for being to aggresive with backlinks (backlink acceleration to high??) but it could have been an isolated incident, or something else happenned I didn't factor in.

If you do get some definitive numbers as far as links per month or links per month per month). lol.. then please let me know..

Good luck

kristeejo · #4 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006, 06:36 PM

g10 - what is your experience with link building on a brand new site?

ChipJohns · #5 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006, 09:02 PM

(Brainstorm - consider all the marketing options)

Looking at a time sensitive product can lend to ppc. Have you thought about this?

The time spent on getting that many backlinks makes me think that is a lot of time that could be spent on a productive and effective ppc campaign.

Basicskills · #6 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006, 09:33 PM

like chip said ppc would be a good option if you know what your doing! also buying an old domain that hasn't expired with backlinks in good neighborhoods is an option to avoid the sandbox (with google) and roll out your new site slowly on that domain. Would help if the old domain was related to what your topic but since it's a fadish site and probably not many old sites on your subject, that's why I would change the content slowly. Don't want to raise any alarms!

Manish Pandey · #7 (**permalink**) 06-30-2006, 04:19 PM

Yes... it certainly is considered bad in the "eyes" of the search engines... go with small initially and use low competetive keywords.. otherwise you will end up going in the sand box.. and it would then take you more than 6+ monts to beat em up...

Take care

Manish

spyderscripts · #8 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 04:22 PM

You cannot be penalized for having too many inbound links in a short period of time, at least not on Google, Yahoo or Dmoz (of course not Dmoz).

As Google states, you cannot control who links to your web site. Anyone can do it at any time. How could you get punished for it? You can't tell them NOT to link to your site.

If growing a list of inbound links too quickly can penalize a site, it'd be a security hole for web masters trying to knock out their competitors. All we'd have to do is "link spam" and watch our competitor's site drop like flies.

This is one of the main reasons you're able to build an infinite number of links over night.

G10 · #9 (**permalink**) 07-03-2006, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kristeejo

g10 - what is your experience with link building on a brand new site?

I've dabbled once or twice in the dark arts

Build links too fast, google don't like it. Use the same anchor text on all your links, google don't like it. Use blackhat techniques to try to get your site to do better, google DEFINATELY don't like it.

It isn't the same for all sites though.

As you know, some sites use blackhat techniques and get away with it, others get laid into by Google right away.

Take BMW for instance, they were blacklisted by Google for using doorway pages and some other techniques which they deny, now how many other other companies are doing this and getting away with it.

kristeejo · #10 (**permalink**) 07-04-2006, 07:43 AM

I'm experimenting with a new domain. I'm building links somewhat aggressively with three different anchor text/descriptions. It's been up for two weeks and it's indexed in google but not showing on my keywords. I have a number one listing in MSN - took 1.5 weeks.

G10 · #11 (**permalink**) 07-04-2006, 07:51 AM

Different anchor text is good.

Worst case scenario is that it could fall into the google black hole for a while as I guess you are not using so called black-hat techniques.

If you are trying to add 100's of links, I'd say not to build links too fast but drag it out over a few month's, make it seem more natural.

As you know, your site will show up in google in their time, others seem to bring up results quicker.

xeno · #12 (**permalink**) 07-04-2006, 11:02 AM

I think Yahoo just did a BL update as I have shown a lot more results in one of my new sites coming from Yahoo. No one really talks about this as it is in the shadow of the false alarm Google update.

divine · #13 (**permalink**) 07-04-2006, 02:02 PM

IMHO, building one way links aggressively will not hurt as much as building RECIPROCAL links aggressively. If you are doing reciprocals, then definitely, don't do that aggressively.

And, remember RELEVANCY when getting any type of link - be it any search engine.

freetraff · #14 (**permalink**) 07-05-2006, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicolegreen

I'm trying to assess whether I am being realistic or too agressive in my expectations for getting a top #5 ranking in search engines. Contrary to what many people out there are doing, I am targeting MSN and Yahoo as opposed to trying to achieve top rankings in Google. The reason for targeting Y and MSN is I don't have the luxury of having time on my side. Basically, our URL sells a product which is fad-based - meaning, it doesn't matter in two years from now because there probably won't be much demand for what we are selling (thus, the reason why we need to get a good SERP ranking in the shortest amount of time). Oh, and yes we are white/grey hat SEO.

The top 3 sites in Yahoo and MSN for our KW have 2,500 to 4,000 links. Our site has an on-page optimization very similiar to the top #2 sites so it comes down to a matter of link building.

Is 3 to 6 months is unrealistic (too aggressive) for catching up with our competitors? The way I figure it, we need to build roughly 2,500 to 4,000 links using about 300 to 400 one-way links (based on our competition). Do these search engines penalize for adding links too fast as Google does??

100 links per week is ok. But links must be relevant. Then no one can frown upon you.

But, are you sure that all that 2,500 to 4,000 links of your competitor are using proper anchor. Maybe if all your links have nice anchor, you will need a much lower number of links to fight with.

James Trotta · #15 (**permalink**) 07-05-2006, 09:43 AM

I've had good luck taking it easy for the first month by doing a handful of recips, a few text link ads on related sites, and a few paid directory listings.

Then in the second and third months I've been able to increase linkage significantly with no ill-effects.

Of course I don't ahve any time-sensitive products for sale so I never really tried to see how fast I could go before getting penalized. But if you ahve two domains, there's your answer. Build links for one slowly and steadily. For the other fast and furious. Let us know what happens