Grey hat is the best of both of the White Hat and Black Hat worlds. There really isn’t a negative to going Grey Hat other than getting manually hit by Google. But because you always build multiple sites at once, getting a manual penalty on one that made money for a while isn’t a big deal because the second can take its place. The income stream should never run dry because you never rely on one site to keep you afloat.
Paid Links
Text Link Ads
In the past, TLA was our go-to source for instant rankings. It still works, but you have to be much smarter about which links you buy from them. Sorting by PR, PA, DA, etc. won’t help you get passed the junk content on the domains. There is no better test than going to SEMRush or SpyFu and checking organic ranking data.
Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind:
1. Do not rely on TLA as your only link source. Treat it like sprinkles on a rich cake.
2. Try to avoid site-wide links.
3. Does your anchor text look like a real brand? Is it at least different each time you use it?
(read more about our Bucket Theory for Penguin)
4. How many pages are indexed? Most sites on their network are unnecessarily massive. The time it takes Google to re-crawl those pages to find your “toxic” link is gone may take months if you decide to kill it.
Webmaster Outreach
This is where you should spend 80% of your time. Go out and contact webmasters that have decent sites. These sites are ones that “you would be proud of” because of how it ranks.
So for example, let’s pretend we want to rank for “cheap web host” – we want to find sites that are somewhat related so the webmasters aren’t totally confused as to why you are willing to pay for a link to advertise on their site.
1. Go to Google, run queries like: web host “webmaster”. Use the advanced search tool to set the date back. For some reason, older articles do really well for passing juice.
2. Check to see if the page passes the Copy/Paste test.
3. Check SEMRush to see how their organic traffic is and how many keyword phrases they rank for and if they rank high for competitive terms.
4. If the site passes the criteria, Email that webmaster.
5. Get the link.
6. Repeat.
It really is that simple. Do not overcomplicate this. If you can use Google, and send emails, then you should have no problem getting links to make you rank. There are no excuses to not build links like this every week.
Tips
Most webmasters have no clue of how to value their site, or why you want to advertise, etc. Here are some general rules we’ve learned to follow.
1. Be very specific with what you want. Write the text as you want it to appear on the page. It makes it less work for them to guess what you want.
2. Ask how much for them to make that exact edit. Tell them you have multiple sites and want to continually advertise with them, and you want a cheaper rate to buy in long term.
3. Don’t phrase it like “selling links” or “buying links” – they will search for what the rates are and turn cold when they see how much Google penalizes it. Constantly phrase it as “buying advertisements” and they will feel comfortable.
4. Don’t let the conversation turn into PR, PA, DA, etc. Most webmasters have no clue. Keep them focused (or distracted) on traffic levels they can send you if it even has to be discussed.
5. Go for year-long deals. Build the relationship.
6. Ask if they have other websites you could advertise on.
Cost
We have been averaging around $150 per link for a year, yes, not a month, but a year. If your target is to get 20 links to reach #1, your budget should be $3000/year.
Don’t let price keep you from purchasing a great link. Just change the offer instead of haggling to get them down. If the webmaster says “$600 a year” and it’s a PR6 on a high traffic page, ask if you can get it on a lower traffic page (make sure it still has some nice juice behind it) and get the link there instead. $600 for a PR6 is an okay price because of how powerful it is. We have been able to get contextual PR7s for under $1000 per year.
Stealing Links
You’ll have to do analysis to find the links worth stealing. Usually when you steal, the goal isn’t just to add your link, but to pay the webmaster to remove the competitor’s link. It works best in medium level competition markets, but when you do this to an entire top 10 you almost guarantee reaching number one, so long as your on site factors are great.
Tip:
Don’t ever phrase it as “stealing links” when talking to webmaster. Phrase it as “exclusive advertising” to push out the competitor. or “Featured advertising arrangement” requires an exclusivity. Never say what it actually is, it will come across as a “pushy bad deal” rather than someone who creates win-win situations for the two parties involved.
Sometimes you will find the other site didn’t pay to be there. Let the webmaster know they missed out on monetizing that page, but you are willing to do an exclusive arrangement with them. The webmaster will love you. If any competitors come along and want to steal your link, guess what? It’s exclusive and you had the relationship first. As long as you don’t create bidding wars, you will always win.
I Want To Rank Training (Feeder Networks aka PBNs)
This was a training to celebrate Web Marketing Now’s 15th anniversary and clear up a lot of bad information in the market. It is built around feeder networks, but we dive into other things like Panda & Penguin basics too. This is the short version of the private network training if you are very serious about it.
Step One: Unlearning
Step Two: Think Like A Spam Engineer
Step Three: Panda & Penguin Basics
Step Four: Buying Domains
Step Five: Domain Metrics You Can’t Ignore
Step Six: Building The Sites
Step Seven: Organization
Step Eight: Zebra-Friendly
Your Own Expired Network
UPDATED Post Penguin 2.1!
Buying expired domains is an art. It’s awful when you find out the whole domain you just bought was deindexed or was previously used for porn marketing. We have mastered expired domains, but it takes an incredible team to pull it off. We are strongly advising members to do webmaster outreach. You don’t have to spend money developing another site, designing it, and keeping it safe from penalties. You don’t have to do research finding the domain, you don’t have to pay for hosting, etc. Think about all of those real and time costs, plus administrative distraction it requires.
Compare that to just buying the links via webmaster outreach. If those sites you buy from tank, you don’t have to renew them next year. You don’t lose anything. If the expired domain tanks, you lost a lot of time and energy.
After BaconRank theory became a factor, the quickest way to build relevant links is by using expired domains. There are a number of methods right now on how to choose expired domains, how to host them, build them, etc. We are still experimenting and are in talks with some of the best domain brokers in the world. Here is what we will tell you:
1. Aim for high domain authority.
2. English .com, .net, .org
3. Use the info: command to find if it is still indexed
4. Run a LRT report to find all the powerful backlinks and make sure they are 301ed properly.
5. If possible get a “neutral” looking domain. People are great. Topics not so much unless it is relevant to you.
How many do you need? We’ve seen 2 awful domains work to rank a site. We’ve also seen 10 awesome ones fail to make a site budge in a highly competitive space. It depends. We’re still testing to find the magic combination but it definitely works.
SEO Fightback
Michael Carlin released SEO Fightback. It’s a fancy management system for SEOs to trade content and links on. It is effective only if you are in a great private network. This means you need to go hang out on BHSEOS, BlackHatWorld, SEOSUnite, etc. If you build relationships and offer valuable domains to the system, you will be able to join some awesome circles.
Note: We don’t use SEO Fightback anymore as we have been able to achieve the same results with our own private network.
Tips:
Choose networks with people you trust. The niches don’t actually matter at all in terms of effectiveness. Ask others to build co-citation links (it’s so important it has its own section).
Paid Networks
There are some networks you can essentially rent from. They all “work” for really low competition markets. There is an inherent problem with all of these networks though: they are stealing your data and you are not in control of the content.
For some of you, people stealing your data is okay. Nobody will be able to jump into your tiny weird niche for some odd reason. That’s ok. Maybe it’s some random client that just wants a site to rank on page 1 for some random local terms. That’s ok. But do not build a real business on the backs of these paid networks.
There is someone in that organization ready to jump into your market and absolutely own you, using really powerful networks. It sucks. You basically pay them to rank you. Then they take that money and use it to beat you at your own game.
Real/Mom Blog Networks
This one is almost white hat, but we all know Matt Cutts wants to hammer this down just like advertorials.
Some of these networks by name are PayPerPost, Clever Girls Network, Blogsvertise, and SponsoredReviews. These are ridiculously overpriced for the quality right now. If you are running a massive company and have a huge budget, go for it. It will give you a decent amount of juice for the small amount of effort required. In our opinion it isn’t worth it. This is not at the top of our list, and it shouldn’t be at the top of yours either.
Just know that it is an option, and you could do very little work and generate links. For the “average client” who has a ridiculous budget and talks about “online visibility” and “real people talking about their products” – this is perfect to keep them happy.
Summary
Get to work. Do not over complicate this. If you fail at first, keep pushing, you will figure it out.
If you need an action list, try this:
1. Identify your goal of contextual links to rank #1. (More than what #1 currently has. Let’s assume 25.)
2. Quadruple that number. Some webmasters won’t respond. You will lose some in the deal. (Aim for 100 contacts.)
3. Email a set amount each day. (For our example we use 10. In 10 days, you should have your 25 contextual, high PR links.)
4. You should rank very well in the next 6 weeks.
Ignore link velocity trends and all that garbage. You are practically immune to any of those issues if you follow this guide. Keep good anchor text ratios in mind as explained in the Penguin section. You can’t NOT rank if you get this halfway correct.