Hey there,
I’ll keep this super-short:
a few weeks ago I decided to give SEO Link Monster a whirl, and I wasn’t overly impressed with their interface, seemed a little buggy for my taste.
Anyway, I’ve put a handful of my blogs in there to see what results SEO Link Monster can give, and as of yesterday, every single one of the blogs that got SEO Link Monster links is tanking BADLY.
So, this morning I’m on skype with my outsourcer in the Philippines, and ask him if he’s doing anything unusual.
He then sends me this message which he got this morning:
I got email today saying
“Hello Team,We have just removed SEO Link Monster from our blog networks because all the blog they are in their system are all deindexed or banned by Google. If you post anything in their blogs, it will harm our clients websites rather than help.
Obviously, I cannot be 100% certain that it is the SEO link monster that’s responsible for my sites going down in the search results, but
- only those sites that got the SEO link monster backlinks are going down
- the company I use for the backlink building are not using it because *apparently* (just trying to avoid getting sued here;-) there is some deindexing and banning going on by Google.
Yikes
Veit
PS: just for legal reasons: this is my personal experience, I have no *proof* that SEO link-monster is responsible for these results and you have to do your own due diligence, etc, etc, etc.
PS: I’ve sent a support ticket to the SEO link monster people and asked for clarification, I’ll keep you updated.
UPDATE March 15:
Here’s the email I got from the SEO link monster support team – the links she provides are definitely worth spending a little bit of time on, plus there’s a reference to the Google Quality Raters Handbook, which should be helpful when setting up your sites!
—————–Hi Veit,
This is truly a difficult time for all internet marketers right now.
We have indeed found that one small sub-set of URLs were deindexed due to one specific user reporting some URLs to Google. That is why we have replaced the distribution reports with a new stats reporting tool in order to help protect ALL users and the network integrity from the possibility of someone signing up to SEO Link Monster and then reporting URLs to Google. Some of our sites were also deindexed when the recent Panda update was rolled out. We are proactively moving forward to protect the network for everyone and to help increase its effectiveness over the long term. We continually monitor the sites, and any sites that are found to be deindexed or that are losing their ranking power, we immediately remove them from the network and replace them with a site from our reserve queue.
We have received other reports of dropped rankings and it is apparently not just us here. It appears to be affecting many others regardless of the SEO services they use. As best I can tell it is because of the Google Panda 3.3 update. Please refer to the following:
http://www.warriorforum.com/
http://www.warriorforum.com/
So, quality content is more important than ever, and the content should be highly relevant to your targeted keywords as well as helpful to readers. Google also likes fresh content, so putting up more new high quality, highly-relevant, and useful content will be helpful towards regaining your position.
Dori also said “It has become increasingly apparent that they have put more weight on social signals so site owners need to up their game in that department as well as get links.” By social signals she means google+, likes, tweets, bookmarks, Pinterest, facebook, basically social networking and social bookmarking.
Aside from links and high quality content you now also need social signals, as Google has put more weight in the social area like they kept saying they would.
For additional queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thanks,
Marie
—————————————–
UPDATE March 20: just read this note on the build my rank website which kinda suggests that Google has finally figured out how these networks operate (not that tricky IMO, just submit a bunch of articles with a fixed string like “Schnapuffel” which you don’t find anywhere else, then look for all pages that have the string in them….) and deindexed them…
so far the confirmed ‘victims’ of this purge are BMR and seolinkmonster, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the the other ones weren’t to follow soon.
so, it’s going to be very interesting what the SEO community is going to look for next. (btw, this whole mess is just another reminder what can happen when you take the ‘lazy’ road when doing SEO for others … “haha, I can charge them $597 every month and all I do is submit a bunch of spun articles to BMR, muahahaha….”)
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
That sounds bad… maybe Google are just getting better at identifying private link networks?
Might also have been easier to flag up ‘SEO Link Monster’ because of its scale… and it has been advertised a lot recently!
Might be bad news in general for these types of ‘big’ private link networks?
John
I almost take their service during their first launch not too long ago. I think there are couple other networks that also expose to the recent Google Algo as many discussion about site’s getting de-indexed by G, or they got their ranking tank badly.
This is really confusing now. What should we do if all “hand-made” backlinks are verbid by G? Having Quality content? Is that really enough? Many newcomers like myself could not afford to pay for expensive writer, and yet.. We need to make this works. What a dilemma …
Yes, been hearing lately that this was one of the effects of Panda 3.3, this might just be the first large network to be publicly outed as affected
The big G is only going to get better and better at sniffing out the footprints the blog networks leave.
Sort of makes me glad we are too cheap and lazy to do all that much backlinking, lol.
I would guess that the more you’ve used these various tools the more drop you might see in rankings.
Back to the drawing board, Carruthers…
what’s interesting (IMO;-) is that Google not only appears to discount those backlinks, but instead appears to penalize your site.
Previously, it’s been said over and over again, that Google won’t penalize a site for dodgy backlinks, simply because you could go out and ruin someone else’s site by blasting tons of rubbish links at it.
Now it appears, all you need to do to get to #1 is set up a private blog network of really sh**ty sites, then backlink to all your competitors and Bob’s your uncle.
Awesome, exactly what Google wants;-)
Veit
sounds all monstrous to me Veit…I’ll stick to my own tactic which seems to do it’s job but slowly…SEO is just a giant puzzle I reckon. Back-linking comes with that…I have discovered Tynt is doing a good job when you copy portions of text that is content of your own site onto high ranked blogs…but I may be wrong at the same time…for me it is still a very large puzzle and be able to have a solid strategy that works is just a matter or trying all options? Is it?
cheers from a bloody hot Melburn Down Under.
lol, trying all permuations might just take a while.
maybe just putting out quality content that gets natural backlinks might just be the ticket after all;-)
actually, on a more serious note: I guess this is yet another wake-up call to show you how important it is to use buffer sites:
send spammy links to buffer sites, never to your money sites (and yes, I forgot that one with the 3 sites I put into the SEO link monster network, so lesson learned … AGAIN…:-(
Veit
I avoid private blog networks, and now I know why
I have been using ezArticleLink, for a long time now, and it only gets better. This system uses members blogs and keeps tight reins over the quality of the content. BTW – it’s free for the basic level which is what most people need.
Veit – So where you say G not only discounted those links… did they also ‘penalize’ the sites?
I also thought that because of the possiblility of competitors sending your site spammy-links… Google would just discount links and not actually ‘penalize’ the site?
So .. to what extenty were your sites ‘penalized’?
John
well, “penalized” is difficult to measure as I’m doing ongoing backlinking to my sites, but overall they’ve dropped quite dramatically for some keywords, in other words:
they’ve gone down more than they’ve gone up since I’ve started testing SEO link monster.
Veit
“penalized” means. de-indexed in my book. I got a big scare when my money site was “de-indexed” for three days pending “review” by big G. Although I did not use seo-link monster, I used a much more expansive blog network (and “supposely” better than most blog network” since Dec 2011). I only begin to use this blog network for my money site for about 2 weeks only (mid Jan 2012) and it got “de-indexed” for three days. I thought it was gone forever until big G determine I did not go too “crazy” on this money site and let it go from de-index hell with full rankings restore. Thanks gods for that because it took almost one full year worth of expansive back link campaign to put this site at its present # 1 position on the toughest keywords around. The reason for me to use this expansive blog network on my money site is that I am only trying to move from # 2 or # 3 to # 1 for some of a couple keywords. Who would have think of just a couple weeks of going “somewhat” crazy in this “superior” blog network (cost about 3 times more than link monster) would get my site into de-index hell!
On my latest site I used mostly social buzz (+1 works wonders for that), press releases and content curation. It is natural (only “slightly” encouraged by me
) and provides good content at the same time. Looks like Goggle is loving it 
As Google is about quality user experience they eventually get around to fixing things. Maybe they are filtering irrelevant links. I don’t see how a link from Yandex is relevant to my local marketing business in Florida. If this is the case then the least spammy-linked sites will move up by default.
This last month my keyword terms have moved up immensely.
Keyword 1 – 381,000 results w/no quotes page 11 to position 5
Keyword 2 – 2,650,000 results w/no quotes page 12 to position 49
My tools show no indexed back-links in Google.
Just posting one on-site blog every couple weeks and posting to a few authority sites is all. Nice and organic like Ely Shemer.
It seems mobile rankings render sooner than desktop results so if you look at your mobile results you can get a sneak peek of which direction you’re headed next.
Ely- and would the 2nd comment/link you provided storyofjesusofnazareth dotcom be an example of you using your successful technique?
Veit- I’m finding that a google algo change has occurred recently and is wreaking a bit of havoc on a few of my sites as well.
Also, I’d be very curious and appreciative if you could perhaps do a write up on ‘how to detect when Google penbalizes your sites’ and ‘how to tell what the penalties that google applies’ are – is it merely lowering the ranking, de-indexing or something else?
Thanks for the updates!
PS- now that ‘hook pigeon’ is officially over- could you do a followup for it too.
I have my opinion, but I’d like to see what a successful pro has to say on the matter.
just quickly: so far I’m only witnessing drops in rankings, of the order of up to a whole page, however, it’s only been going on for 2 days now, so no idea where/if this is going to stop.
No deindexing going on yet, but these are established sites, so no idea what would happen to a new site.
Re hook pigeon, coming up, I’m doing a case-study which is supposed to be “representative”, as in: not too much experience required, what can you achieve with a bit of effort.
Cheers
Veit
Surprising because the lady behind the link monster network I’ve heard before is one of of best private blog network builder and bern doing it for many years. Maybe because it was such a big launch with all im’ers pushing it it got hit.? I still have never read anything bad about bmr and aln for blog networks
I heard that BMR (buildmyrank) was affected too..but no official confirmation of course. Would be interesting…as BMR has been the #1 recommended network for many marketers…ah the changes…ah life
Jan
I think I’m going to cry now….
(ok, on second thought, I’ll go to the gym instead … just hope noone is standing in my way;-)
Veit
So the latest Algo push rears its ugly head, ay?
The best practice when, ahem, gaming the system, is indeed the buffer sites the good Doctor previously mentioned. Don’t forget your You Tube vids, they can take the serious scrutiny brought on by questionable links, and they happen to be part of the kingdom.
Nothing a good bottle of Hendricks Gin couldn’t cure.
All the studying and experimenting I have done tells me that for mass linking direct to sites social media links are the answer, especially ones that bring you real traffic, so find a way of syndicating your sites across Social Media.
Mass link building to your own sites have to be consistent and highly mixed – the days of blasting a huge number of forum links at a single site and expecting results have gone.
All the sh***y mass link building is better used to social media properties such as You Tube you want to rank that link back to you. Unfortunately you can bet your bottom dollar there are Google staff joining networks like this, working out footprints and finding ways of de indexing any sites that use them.
After all the WF is so open anyone who promotes anything to the masses are seen easily by anyone who shows an interest so its not hard for G to send some staff to investigate
Hi all,
Quick rundown of my experience of SEO LM. I was linking 5 sites to it which varied in age from 1 year to 1 month. 1of the sites is PR2. My subscription started in the first week and I can honestly say that there has been little effect on my sites one way or another, some have gone up a little bit and some have headed in the oppositer direction a little bit.
All this being said, I got in touch with customer care to enquire why the software they recommended, Rankerizer was showing no change in backlink numbers even after a month. I got the following reply
“Hi Dave,
There is a “Backlink Analysis” tool incorporated in your account under the “Automation” menu. The info from this tool is taken directly from majesticseo. This tool generates unique charts that show backlink discovery by month and allows you to also compare your site’s total backlink growth versus your competitors. You can also view the Referring Domains of the sites that are pointing links to you. By using this data you can compare your site vs your competitors and figure out what sort of linking growth you should look for.
I checked the sites you have mentioned using the tool and here is what I got for the month of February until now:
Site 1 – 132 links
Site 2 – 907 links
Site 3 – 739 links
Site 4 – 538 links
Site 5 – 1130 links
We cannot take credit for all the links of course as some of them may be from other sources. You could check the sources of your links in majesticseo.”
Now obviously I was somewhat confused by this info so replied thus
“Could you explain then why Rankerizer is giving no indication of backlink change at all apart from 11 new backlinks for one internal page? Something’s not right somewhere”
The response I got impliede that the software they recommend is dysfunctional
“Hi Dave,
For Rankerizer, please head over to http://www.bryxensoftware.com/support and submit a ticket to the RANKERIZER department there. That is the main dedicated support desk for Rankerizer since it was created by Bryxen Software.”
I have now closed my account and the one positive thing I can say is I got my refund very quickly.
Sorry for the long email but hopefully it might shed a little light on things
I noticed some articles in a blog network the other day with a serial number in them. It showed S/N and a string of numbers. I thought at the time that seems like a very bad idea to me.
Perhaps G has joined some networks and puts articles in them with a serial number.
I got the G has detected unnatural link building article and now I’m paranoid.
I saw problems within SEO Link Monster and bailed out of it three days ago. For one, they have blogs with PR 4 or better and about 20 links to it. i asked about that, didn’t get a good answer and decided to bail.
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