Why Links From A Word Cloud Sites Are Worthless

Discussion in 'Link Development' started by rzvagelsky, Feb 24, 2007.

  1. guerilla

    guerilla Notable Member

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    #41
    Repped OP. Great thread.

    I bought two Wordcloud links and one is already losing page rank rapidly.

    It was an experiment, that experiment is now over. :(
     
    guerilla, Apr 16, 2007 IP
  2. pasfile

    pasfile Active Member

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    #42
    check out all the wordcloud sites now.
     
    pasfile, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  3. scking

    scking Peon

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    #43
    It seems like a link farm with all the unrelated words on the page. An interesting way to make some money! Are these word cloud pages fairly new? It's too easy to get good quality free links to bother with these. How are you supposed to rank a page like this in Google? It's just assorted links.
     
    scking, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  4. kentuckyslone

    kentuckyslone Notable Member

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    #44
    I have a word cloud site that is a PR 3. It was not an expired domain. I registered this domain myself and promoted it. It got a PR3 on it's own merits and so far is holding. Who knows what it may be after the update.

    I have to agree about the expired domains for the most part. I have seen many word cloud sites with high PR that have only recently been changed to word cloud sites.

    I have even thought about changing this site to something else (But retaining all current links) but I dont know if I will or not
     
    kentuckyslone, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  5. coolsitez

    coolsitez Well-Known Member

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    #45
    the biggest issue here is the site that turned into a word cloud site with an expired domain. It's not simply because of word cloud site itself.
     
    coolsitez, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  6. kentuckyslone

    kentuckyslone Notable Member

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    #46
    Yes, I agree 100% with that. I was recently approached by PM to take a link on a PR5 site in a trade. I checked it out and it was a word cloud. You could tell by the name of the domain that it wasnt always a word cloud. In fact at that time it only had two links on it.

    I respectfully declined the exchange
     
    kentuckyslone, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  7. coolsitez

    coolsitez Well-Known Member

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    #47
    smart move. But some DP members actually promote expired domains, so just because a site is made of an expired domain you shouldn't ignore its potential right away ;)

    I also mentioned something similar to this in this thread.
     
    coolsitez, Apr 28, 2007 IP
  8. mikey1090

    mikey1090 Moderator Staff

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    #48
    i could buy a PR7 link for $250/year. thats the best offer i have had.

    So perhaps google sees this and gives my site a PR6.

    I install the free word cloud script on it. I sell yearly PR6 links for ......lets say $10.

    I need to sell 25 links to break even.......and seen as my profits pretty much depend on how well google visits and gives PR, its a waste of time.

    I recently bought a PR4 cloud site, and in the update it has gone down to a PR0. So i have a totally worthless site, with no niche and a load of unrelated links...

    Google will not like these links much anyway, they are unrelated and have no content surrounding them

    Mike
     
    mikey1090, Apr 29, 2007 IP
  9. gurusecrets

    gurusecrets Peon

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    #49
    I agree 100%. I actually was one of the first bloggers to suggest the idea of a "Million Dollar Tag Page".

    Joel Comm and others eventually picked up with the idea and made a small chunk of change from it.

    I would never personally buy a link on one of those pages though!
     
    gurusecrets, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  10. Smaaz

    Smaaz Notable Member

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    #50
    I have some word cloud links to my site, that are counted as backlinks. Since most wordclouds are pretty cheap its still a good deal for me!
     
    Smaaz, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  11. Dakuipje

    Dakuipje Peon

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    #51
    I own a nice word-cloud website and it earned me some good ammount of money on the first day.

    Let's do some maths:
    $15 dollar PR4 domain.
    I host on my own server so basically no costs.

    First day profits:
    $11 worth link sales.
    $10 worth article sales.

    Now though the site is limited to 100 words. They will renew after 1 year. Articles can be sold as many times as wanted. Now on the article page there are another 51 words to be sold. That makes a total of 151 words.

    I sell links for as low as 0,5$ but the average is currently around $1. That makes 151 dollar a year.

    151-15 = 136 dollar worth of links a year.
    Now lets assume I can sell 25 articles a year (which is far from optimistic). That will make: 25*5=125 dollar.

    136 + 125 = 261 dollars.
    Now then there is the google ads that display on the article page. Now word clouds dont happen to have a high CTR, but it will make around $50 a year I guess.

    261+50 = 311 dollars.
    Not bad for an investment of just $15 dollars is it ? Now the time you loose on it isnt an issue at all. I spend like less then 1minute a day approving links.

    A PR4 link is never bad for SEO. Not even if it is surrounded by more links. And you go broke out of just 0,5dollars. Would you ?



    My site:
    http://www.geek417.net
     
    Dakuipje, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  12. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #52
    All of that tells us that the word cloud site OWNER may benefit (for a while) from this latest scam.

    It tells us nothing about the benefit to the BUYER, which you conveniently gloss over.

    First, as I'm sure you know (or you should know), that is not 100% true. More importantly, the fact that it may not harm your site does NOT mean that it will help it, even a bit.

    Do a search for articles on the value of pixel links.
     
    minstrel, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  13. Dakuipje

    Dakuipje Peon

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    #53
    That is true indeed.
    But if the wordcloud site does receive spiders there is a good change it will benefit your PR. In wont harm it for sure it can only help improve your PR.
    Now there is the benifit for the buyer. They cant loose, only win.
     
    Dakuipje, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  14. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #54
    You haven't been keeping up with the pixel pages and paid links issues, have you?

    People who buy these kind of links hoping for PageRank benefits are basically throwing away money.
     
    minstrel, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  15. Dakuipje

    Dakuipje Peon

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    #55
    Not per definition.
    For 0,50$ you can either buy yourself a lollipop or a PR4 link.

    Next to the PR discussion:
    The link may also receive some traffic. Now I know it wont be much but on the other hand it doesnt costs much either. Now lets say you would get a few uniques a week from it for a whole year long, wouldnt that be worth the 0,50$ ?
     
    Dakuipje, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  16. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #56
    Not to me. I can see why it might be worth it to YOU to convince as many people as possible that the link has some value, though.
     
    minstrel, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  17. Dakuipje

    Dakuipje Peon

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    #57
    Yeah I cant deny that I benefit from letting people know that the link has value.
    But even if I leave that out of sight I would still say it is worth the money. Guess we will never agree, but hey I dont care.
     
    Dakuipje, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  18. kentuckyslone

    kentuckyslone Notable Member

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    #58
    If a person pays 50 cents for a link and they get as little as 3 or 4 visitors per month it is WELL worth the cost. Supposing you got only 2 per month for a year - that is only about 2 cents per visitor.

    When I check my backlinks in Yahoo I do see links that I have on a cloud site. Google may not pay attention, but remember that Google isnt the only SE.

    While I do not value word cloud links very highly they can be far from worthless. My own word cloud site is a PR3 (Not an expired or changed domain, but has always been the same site since day1). If you search "keyword text link" in Google you will see that it is number 2 out of over 22 million results.

    If Google "looked" at word clouds as being worthless would they put this word cloud site ahead of over 22 million other pages?
     
    kentuckyslone, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  19. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #59
    That doesn't mean that the outgoing links are worth a damn, certainly not for PR and probably not much for traffic either.

    The million dollar pixel page ranked well in search engines. The links got a little traffic initially (novelty value) which quickly wore off. The links also passed ZERO PageRank.
     
    minstrel, Apr 30, 2007 IP
  20. kentuckyslone

    kentuckyslone Notable Member

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    #60
    PR is important, but it isnt the only consideration.

    And if the links get you traffic it certainly does mean that they are "worth a damn"
     
    kentuckyslone, Apr 30, 2007 IP