Leaving the COOP

storebuilder...thanks for your input. You have answered my questions perfectly. Unfortunately, your clarification leaves me with more to think about.

That damn PR thing. So Google does not like SEO, doesn't like the idea of buying links for the purpose of inflating PR and SERPS and doesn't like any attempts to manipulate SERPS. I understand this. But I am in business and my business is 100% internet dependant.

Most of my competition is buying links, is outranking me, is generating higher revenues as a result. Sometimes I feel this a puppy dog chasing my tail. My rankings are fair...but not top dog. In my keyphrases that I promote I fair in the top 10 and have achieved this naturally...by building a good site and not worrying about what Google thinks about it. The furthest I have ever strayed from scrupulious SEO tactics is here at the COOP and I took me 3 months to be convinced that it was safe

It is hard to sit back and stay on the good side when the competition blows by you as result of purchasing links, but I do. What the COOP did for me was helped me get right in the thick of it again...from 10th to 3rd 109,000,000 pages found. I can see that My competitors at this level have, for the most part, bought their ranking. They are now wondering where I came from...and I like that.

I will not buy links from high PR sites design to inflate PR...sometimes it is awefully tempting though.

Thanks again for your expertise, storebuilder

 

Have a look at my thread on "How the Co-op works:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=6167

basically, PR x pages (max 4000) x 3.375 (for 5 links) x 2(if you are not a forum)

so 5 x 4000 x 3.375 = 67500 if you are a forum

 

Pages indexed are done through the API tool. And yes, sending a URL through the co op tool does mean it's a part of the network, so I dont' understand this last part.

 

>>Pages indexed are done through the API tool. And yes, sending a URL through the co op tool does mean it's a part of the network, so I dont' understand this last part.

Not really important. I just ment digitalpoint could run the API with 1000's of non member URLs picked at random to throw Google off the scent.

 

The best way That I have found to gain links and increase your PR is to go for "sitewide" reciprocal links.

Depending on what market you are in that may be easier said than done but it sure beats paying for links.

Doing it this way means that you will neeed 7,8 or 9 PR6 or 7 links to drag you up to respectability.

It's also much better for traffic too rather than getting a useless exchange on some backwater links page.

Spending some time on writing articles and getting them distributed is also much more worthwhile than link exchanges.

Increasing your PR, link exchanges, using the Coop - all part of staying on top and why using the Coop exclusively is not going to work for people long term.

 

i suppose, but that is quite paranoid