Why Links From A Word Cloud Sites Are Worthless

As I browse through the forum, I keep coming across these word cloud sites and I just don’t understand why people continue to spend money on worthless links. I won’t even get into the fact that the value of your link is diluted to almost nothing and that the page is completely unrelated. Rather, I will use basic logic to show you why word cloud sites make no sense from a financial perspective.

There are 2 basic facts:

1. The word cloud site owner is limited to how many links he/she can sell…if there are 100 links spots for sale, once they are gone, that’s it (unless you add additional word cloud pages)

2. Assuming the price per link remains the same (which it usually is), the word cloud owner is now limited by the total amount of money they can make.


I will use the last site I came across as an example. Here are the specifics:

1. PR4
2. $0.75 per link
3. 500 links spaces

Using simple arithmetic, the total amount of money this word cloud site owner can make is $375…and that’s assuming that all links are sold. But how often is that the case? So let’s assume that they are able to sell 70% of the links on their page (which is optimistic). This would lower that number to about $265 in total profit that can be made from the site.

Now let’s take a look the costs:

1. Domain Name Registration: $8
2. PR4 Domain: $30 (depending on age)

With the free scripts out there, this would bring initial costs to about $40…and promotion/link building is not even a factor.

As we factor in this cost into the total amount to be made from the word cloud site…it leaves a total of $225 to be made. Now I ask you…how much time/money do you think will be spent to promote the site in the long run? Will they buy links to increase the value of the page? Will the domain be renewed for 3 more years? All this costs money.

Let’s say that all links are sold…now what? Since there is no money left to be made from the site, there is no reason for the owner to continue spending money on the site.

You’re probably thinking…it’s only a dollar. Ok, that’s fine. I can set up a page and you can donate a dollar to me….you’ll get the same value out of that and I can take my girlfriend out for Sushi more often.

Anyways…just wanted to share my opinion.

 

True, nice article. Word cloud sites can be good for indexing though.

 

I actually thought so too and I have purchased links in the past just for that. Unfortunately, spiders don't come around too often and you have a better chance submitting to some free directories. Another problem is that there are 500 (potential) links on a page...and SE's recommend no more than 100.

 

If the PR is high enough the spider will be around often.

 

Ok lets say the spider lives on the page...is it still worth paying for a link on a site that will not be promoted? Also, since the PR in the toolbar is a snapshot of months ago, spider activity could have slowed down considerably. Why not pay the same price and submit to a web directory where the owner has room to expand and can promote the site longer (btw...I don't own a directory)?

 

I agree that it is not worth paying for of course.

 

anyone agree with this? try bottom link

http://www.jimboykin.com/what-a-links-page-should-not-look-like/

 

Isn't it worth it to try to see if you can't get that PR3 backlink for $0.50-$1? Even if you don't get much PR juice from it...it's still a backlink that's sitting there permanently

 

In general they are a waste of money. I am making one however that is different and it is free. Stay tuned. Unfortunately going on vacation tomorrow. When I come back I hope to launch it.

I agree 100% with what you are saying about "word clouds" in general as they are now.

 

There are major changes being developed in word cloud scripts I have seen a prototype of the wordsense pro word cloud site script and was awe struck.

It is an article directory with a download store and every page created has page keywords inserted as the word cloud links up to 10 per page.

This adds great credability and power to the word links.

Coming Soon WordSenseProDOTCom Word cloud script

 

That's great and all but how valuable is a link on an article page that's stuck in supplementals? Unless the word cloud script is generating unique content, chances are the article has already been used before (especially if it's an article directory). Not to mention that the page will have little to no PR...since pages are not expired domains like your typical word cloud site.

Now let me give you some more reasons why this won't work:

1. There is no difference between this and any other article directory.

2. I can spend the same amount of money and have a unique article written for me...this will ensure that it doesn't end up in supplementals.

3. Chances of my article page receiving PR with Ezinearticles is much higher.

4. I can include links to back to my site in the bio box anways.

5. If someone likes my article, they can publish it on their own site, which further increases my link count (across different sites).

6. If someone takes an article from this type of site, they have no obligation to reprint the content with those added links. So your link stops there.

Personally, I would rather pay $7 to have an article written up, submit to ezinearticles, and then another $1 to submit to isnare....plus i'll get some traffic back. All that for $8 (or less, depending on quality of the article)!


Now unless your price point is at $0.50 a link...I suggest you throw away that Arby's napkin you've been scribbling on and move on to another idea.

 

From an SEO perspective they are quite useless. All the terms on the one page are semantically unrelated. It's essentially a link farm.

 

I think it would be worthless when they exceed more than 100 on a page!

 

it is useless unless it can bring traffic

 

rzvagelsky : In general your points are valid - if you're talking about a word cloud site that's only the 500 words and nothing else. Especially if it allows any old word ranging from adsense, blue pill, all the way upto zebras. But it can be different, a brief write up here after a comment

Dubz : I'm curious about what route you're taking, do keep me posted.

Ok, here's my idea. I have a new domain, absolutely no PR - all the more reason why no one should be interested in a run-of-the-mill word cloud. But the domain has a great name, tightly linked to a niche that has a lot of interest here on DP. Infact, there are about a dozen related subniches.

So here goes.

www.domain.com has a word cloud allowing only words related to the main niche, with sub pages for the subniche topics. The word cloud script would be somewhat similar to the one Neil Harvey has (the one that rotates articles) - I'm planning a variant, that will be different - basing it off another version word cloud script.

blog.domain.com will have something like reviews of sites relating to the sub niches, resources, etc. - and will have pointers to the main page / subpages.

tutorials.domain.com (or articles.domain.com) will have info / updates etc.

A couple of other possibilities (including directory.domain.com).

Ok - so when I start, a word link isn't worth much. Probably nothing, guys are going to ask for free. And walk away if it's paid. So I don't sell links immediately. Instead, I trade. A blog link + blog post in return for small help, or a link back from another site. Or use some of the other blog post sellers here on DP to get a bunch of links to both the blog and the main site.

Submit it to the niche directories - many of them are free. And since many don't allow subdomain links or deep links, they will consider the www.domain.com - since it WILL stay on niche.

Talk to a few of the article writers on this topic to get custom content in return for a bio link on the article pages.

Do all the things that I'd do to promote a non-word cloud site - I'm just adding the word cloud as yet another revenue source. And while I will trade a few links, not too many - and not unless there's a quality site related to the niche at the other end of the link.

Ok, so I won't get revenue on day 1. I may not even start generating word cloud revenue on day 30. But I'm willing to bet that 3 - 6 months down the road, I will get decent revenue. And a decent PR.

I'd appreciate views / feedback. What do you think of this? And would you go for a link, if it happened to be your niche?

 

I don't use and don't like word clouds. I see this as a new face of link farms and I think wordclouds are useful (if any) only for short term link building strategy and only as additional support, because - sooner or later - google will do something with this like just started to downgrading the importance of directories.
Wordcloud links are some kind of lottery - much, cheap tickets and small chances to win.

 

lmao...This was the best dam post I read all week !!!!

Rep added dooode

Oh BTW - you forgot to add in the paypal fees -3%

 

well im one of those word cloud site owners, all the links you see on there are free lol, i gave them out to dp members for free a while ago, only one person bought a few links with the extra features and stuff. made it cuz i was bored -- i've had thousands of hits from bots though, mine is a pr2 site so my prices would have been low and with those paypal fees as you have said i wouldnt make much money so i was like wtf, give it out lol

 

There is not such thing as a bad link to your site. (if you control the anchor text) All things being equal, 1 more link than your competitor will get you a higher ranking than them (on Yahoo at least) the question is: is it worth the cost of the link.

 

Sorry... but links are not equal (if I got right what you mean - in Google at least ).