Hmmm... isn't snake oil something that doesn't work?
There are thousands of people out there right now making millions off of this snake oil.
I do respect your opinion though.. So, if you don't think of SEO, what do you think of?
Growth rate??
- Thread starter ROBD
- Start date
Hmmm... isn't snake oil something that doesn't work?
There are thousands of people out there right now making millions off of this snake oil.
I do respect your opinion though.. So, if you don't think of SEO, what do you think of?
Jake Bunce
Well-known member
Yes.
A scene from my favorite movie, Revolver.
"The bigger the trick, and older the trick, the easier it is to pull. Based on two principles. They think it can't be that old, and they think it can't be that big for so many people to have fallen for it."
Good content. Product quality. Offering a good and valuable service. You know... real things.
Jake Bunce
Well-known member
Because that is the job of search engines, not you. Search engines don't like it when you try to tell them how to do their job which is basically what black hat SEO is. Search engines punish you for this.
Jake Bunce
Well-known member
You cross the line when you try to manipulate your page rank. That is black hat.
Jake Bunce
Well-known member
Here is a black hat SEO birthday card using keyword manipulation.
Carlos
Well-known member
New sites struggle more often than you think. Most of the time, they're hit or miss unless you've found a niche that's growing. For example, you'd think a Marvel Vs Capcom 3 forum would not grow. Quite on the contrary. I took a chance when I bought a bundle of MVC3 forum domains for $40, it went on to become one of the first, and one of the fastest MVC3 forum on the internet.
20,000 uniques in one year.
You'd think a Modern Warfare 2/3 forum would succeed, but let me tell you, it didn't. That happened. But on the flip coin, I bought MetalGearFans and I found a winner with this site. It was launched around August of last year, and recently the site got pretty viral and more and more sites are linking to it.
Hey man, thanks for the reply.
Well, the only reason I started a forum is because it is in a new and fast growing niche that doesn't really have a forum at all... so I guess we'll see.
Mind if I inquire as to how you built up your successes? You buy any ads?.. I'm considering that at this point simply because the clicks will be super cheap it seems. Any tips would be appreciated man.
Well, the only reason I started a forum is because it is in a new and fast growing niche that doesn't really have a forum at all... so I guess we'll see.
Mind if I inquire as to how you built up your successes? You buy any ads?.. I'm considering that at this point simply because the clicks will be super cheap it seems. Any tips would be appreciated man.
DBA
Well-known member
How many members/posts/threads does it have? And by "uniques" are you referring to unique visitors?
Carlos
Well-known member
MVC3Forum only had 150 members and around 960 posts, and 450 threads. I just checked the site and it was hit with spam so that put the site over 500 threads, and 1000 posts.
Don't worry, it'll be merged into my main company forums in the future. Or I can change it into a fighting game site.
And yes, unique visitors.
It is going well. I'm about to hit my first big milestone since the acquisition.
3,000 members. I can smell it and it's close. When I talked about my MW2/MW2 forum I was talking about a fresh install, fresh new domain. Before I bought CODForums, I owned MW2Forums/MW2Boards (both dot coms), and MW3Boards dot com. MW2 was supposed to be a powerful niche, but by the time I launched it, it was already too late, not being deterred by this, I continued to launch MW3Boards with my xenForo instance. MW2Boards was closed and the vBulletin instance was deleted because I realized that vB4 was ugly, and embarrassing.
The whole takeaway from this, is that launching new sites is still a pain in the @$$ no matter how you slice it. But you can always learn, learn, and learn from the experience.
What Jake is saying is that SEO can only get you so far, but you should not modify to go over the edge, as Jake stated... Black Hat tactics only puts your site at the edge of that little wire.
Imagine you're running for the olympics, and the prize is the #1 ranking on google for the search keyword you want. There's a lot of wires on the way to the top. These wires, should you trip over them by running and not being careful to your environment; you can be penalized for the trip. Try to run that wire, you trip over like a person. Google says "Don't #@^&ing do that again." But you continue to use the Black Hat tactics, you trip many wires and those infractions degrade your rankings by 10% each time and then once you push further, your site is banned from google. You're back to square one, but that turtle is winning the race. Why? Because he's carefully trying to win the race, instead of getting to #1 spot quickly before the competitors.
I have seen a popular Nintendo forum go down in rankings, and ultimately banned from google rankings. The new owner was using autobots to spam the forums into oblivion.
Quite on the contrary. Google doesn't want to encourage you to do certain things. So, many times, they tell you one thing, and then their algorithm changes a few months after the video was posted. It's almost like google wants webmasters to fail.
I too, believe that content is king, but the age of the domain matters just as much. Mostly because it's ALREADY in the google system, and google remembers your site as "that site that was big." Well, it's not an algorithm, but it's something that has been part of google since day one. Mostly because domains are actually real estate to online entrepreneurs. Someone sees that your site has been in business for this much years, they like it instantly and is not deterred by the wrongs in the site. The longer your site stays there, the more you rank for a particular keyword. For example, if your previous keyword was "CODForums" it will stay that way, and even pushed further if they like to index your site. If they like what they see in googlebot.
Not directly, but if your domain is in the google system and has been since 2005, you stand to gain if you have xenForo installed (that's why you're here, right?), I'm telling you from first hand experience. CODForums is about 10 years old, and it's rising.
The way Andy said it, aged domains is pretty much "black." I'm saying that it's a "grey" area.
Because, SEO isn't just one thing. It's a combination of many things, like someone else said here.
Hey, thanks for the informative reply man.
But to hell with all that... right now I am getting BLASTED by spammers. I don't know what to do. I haven't taken any measures to stop this yet. No captcha or anything. It hasn't been a problem up until this point. Maybe here and there... but dizzaammmnn, they got me. Just deleted them all but need to do something to stop this now. Can someone link me to a thread, or provide me with some quick tips? Thx.
But to hell with all that... right now I am getting BLASTED by spammers. I don't know what to do. I haven't taken any measures to stop this yet. No captcha or anything. It hasn't been a problem up until this point. Maybe here and there... but dizzaammmnn, they got me. Just deleted them all but need to do something to stop this now. Can someone link me to a thread, or provide me with some quick tips? Thx.
Carlos
Well-known member
Carlos
Well-known member
What's the niche, and what's the site if I may ask?
Well, as someone else says: Build your content. Just to start out.
Turn on friendly URL's.
While you're doing this, you should market these content to your facebook friends. Or you can make a facebook page for the site by creating a page > "Brand or Product" > Category = Website & Choose brand or product name > Click Get Started.
Publish your content to your profile/page, and communicate with your fans/friends with these links. If you want examples...
www.facebook.com/CODForums
www.facebook.com/MW3Blog
www.facebook.com/MVC3Forums
Annnd my main page: www.facebook.com/CarlosX360
Some of these pages got to where they are because the fans liked them organically, while others, I had to pay for the impressions/likes. Which in turn means more visibility for that particular page. This also moves your search queries higher and higher. With MW3 blog, the average number of views for each article posted, is a resounding 1,500+ to 2,000 views each. Not easy to capture; you need a niche powerful enough to capture that, because the amount of views also takes into account that these stories are being searched every day on facebook.
Google+ works pretty much the same, but it's also got hashtags, so you can also treat it like Twitter. Only difference between all three? The length of the posts. Twitter is at 150 words, facebook has it's own limitation, and google allows you to treat each g+ posts as if it's your personal mini-blog.
If you want twitter examples:
www.twitter.com/CarlosX360
www.twitter.com/CODForums
www.twitter.com/MW3Blog
I did not do any advertising for twitter, as there isn't a system similar to facebook yet. To do advertising with twitter, you have to do it one-on-one.
So, instead of wailing over it, I went ahead and followed most of the niche's company's followers. For example, if I wanted to capture the MW3 market, I'd have to follow some of Activision's fans while MW3 is rising in popularity, and it paid off.
As for ads, if you have money to spare, focus on facebook first, then advertise on google. Paying for advertising can work, but you need to provide them with a incentive for registering. Often times, it's either a "great website design" or content.
