Okay I have to admit to been a little cagey in the beginning when the coop first came on the scene, but after a few months getting links through the coop network I am ranking well on Yahoo and MSN for keywords that I am using on the coop network. From no where to the 1st and 2nd page of MSN for some competitive keywords, i.e. travel news, travel forum. Traffic is on the increase and I couldn't have done that without the coop. The effects of the coop for me in Google are yet to be seen, but I think in time I'll start to notice the difference. So those that are not sure about using the coop to gain more links and increase traffic then try it out. Darren
I have a page with 0 natural backlinks in the #5 position in a fairly competitive two-keywords search in Google. Coop does work.
Hey Darren, Could you break down more about how you are using the coop? I'm at a crossroads myself right now and about to change how I use the coop. I was thinking for others, including myself, it might be beneficial to hear how you are using it. For example, without much guidance, I've been using the coop to the main site and inner category pages, but not individual pages. I'm thinking of changing things around to point to individual pages. Also, what sort of impressions are you averaging for your top positions? I've tried using a lot of weight and right now, just minimal weight pointing to categories. Would appreciate any advice you may feel like sharing.
There is no disputing that the co-op works fantastic on MSN. The question I have is the long term affects on yahoo and google. After initially ranking very well on yahoo, a lot of people have seen dramatic declines in rankings - well below pre co-op rankings. Even shawn's experiment on the charity say a huge decline in rankings after intitally ranking very well. My experience has shown that the co-op tends to help older domains that are well established. Yahoo has removed almost all backlinks from the co-op after about 4 months. Google has removed most of the backlinks - probably because they are not static. My personal belief is that the co-op can trigger an unnatual filter with yahoo and google after providing an initial boost. Personally, I would be careful not to add too much weight at once. The co-op can add thousands of links over a short period of time and this has to look unnatural. Of course if your site isn't getting any traffic, you will do very well in rankings with MSN and it will supply traffic you wouldn't get without the co-op. While the co-op is a "ad network" I see very small about of traffic from the actual links (less than 1%). No matter what you call it, the real benefit is the amount of backlinks it adds. Hopefully things will go well for you and you won't experience any negative effect with yahoo and google. I have removed the co-op on about half my sites (ones that were ranking pretty well before the co-op) and they are starting to climb in rank once again.) The sites which I did not remove the co-op no longer get any significant traffic from google or yahoo. It's hard to say that this is conclusive proof, but my personal results on over 40 sites leads to believe that the decline had something to do with too many non-static links. Of course, removing the co-op also negatively affect MSN rankings.
Similar to Gtech, I'm thinking of trying this as well and had similar questions. I've got a mix of all types of domains / sites Which types work best with the co-op lots of pages lots of pages indexed at google, yahoo, msn page rank backlinks new / old making money / not making money Do you run the ads on 1 site and then advertise another site(s) any help appreciated jay
Hi designteks, The most important factors for the site that you run the adverts on are that it should have lots of pages indexed and cached in Google, and a good page rank on the index page. The age and profitability of the site don't factor. You can target any site you choose with your adverts. Dan