I just want to warn everyone that I signed up for Automatic Backlinks link exchange program because I actually thought this was a safe way to exchange links. http://www.automaticbacklinks.com/ However I was wrong and got penalized on Google making my PR to Zero. I had to remove all the links associated with Automatic Backlinks and then submit a reconsideration request to Google acknowledging that automatic backlinks is a huge no no and I will never do it again, luckily Google re-instated my PR just recently. Just a heads up to the community.
Thanks for the heads up. I'm a bit new to link building and the LAST thing I need is a faulty link system. lol I'll be sure to keep an eye out for things like that from now on, thanks again.
Thank you for the heads up and yeah, auto link exchanges don't work at all -- link exchanges in their own right really don't work either due to Google's hilltop algo as well as a few other algos I can't seem to remember -- The idea of neighborhoods is studied by google in relation to the number and quality of links you have leading to your site.
are you sure you were penalized? What happen to me was that I lost PR for about 1 month but my SERP’s never moved down. Actually now I’m back stronger. I’ve read, back when it happen, that google might suspect that you are buying links and just give the pages PR 0 to shake them off. So I stay put and like I said was back to normal.
Yeah, it's never a good idea to use these types of programs. I think it's because you end up linking to "bad neighborhoods" without even realizing it, since you can't monitor all the sites you're linking to. -Danielle
like I said...no problems my PR came back in a little bit over a month and things back to normal. I dont say you should use it but it works for me.
Hi there, The effect you experienced is indeed a "link shaking" and is not really a punishment. If you at the time checked your ranking and not just your PageRank you would have seen that your ranking was still intact. When Google suddenly sees several new external links on a page with PageRank that has not changed for a while it will think that maybe the owner has started to sell links on the page. The best way to test this is to remove the Toolbar PageRank. When the PageRank becomes 0 the people paying for links will quickly remove their links (and probably ask for their money back). In Automatic Backlinks we see this happening all the time and we encourage users not to panic when this happens. Your ranking is still intact and everything is fine. After about 1 month of having PageRank 0 your page will once again have it's original PageRank back. In regards to bad link neighbourhoods then we have several quality measures in place to both prevent the inclusion of, and quickly remove, low quality sites that may be considered bad neighborhoods. The vast majority of our users see a huge increase in their search engine position within 30 days or less.
Again... it is only the PR that gets dropped not the ranking of the site. You are not being punished by Google they are just trying to scare you to see if the links added are paid.
After sitting on the sidelines for a while, I have to chime in on this topic. In our vast research and experience, automatic backlinking systems are safe and the comments by Automatic Backlinks are valid: your site is not losing any value when Google temporarily assigns it a PR of 0. Rather, it's a temporary scare tactic as they try to police the internet to conform to its wishes. Two points to consider: 1. Google is diminishing its use of PageRank (read their latest patent), so do not rely on PageRank as a measure of SEO success. 2. True SEO success is measured by your website's rankings in search results for the keywords of your choice. That is the only metric that matters. As long as you use a reputable automatic backlinking system, you don't have to worry about being penalized by search engines. That's because such systems closely monitor and police their subscribers to ensure only valid websites are allowed. Plus, the benefits of such systems are fantastic: relevant one-way backlinks to your website for the keywords of your choice that help your site rise to the top of search results pages. Good luck in building backlinks...they are absolutely critical to ranking higher in search results.
Interesting how the only two users that have positive things to say about these programs, are owners of the programs themselves. -Danielle
It's not just interesting, it's borderline AMAZING! Somebody call Ripley's. And it's a good thing that lurker decided to 'chime in'... whew! We were worried there for a minute, until they began promoting their site. What I don't understand is this: if google frowns upon this sort of thing to the point of penalizing individual sites for it, why does automatic backlinks still have a PR4? Why wouldn't google start by penalizing the source? And if the links are related, niche-wise anyway, I don't see why they'd penalize anyone at all.
I explored the site today, and it the home page barely loaded. By this evening, Google said the link was broken. Wonder if the site crashed because everybody tried to jump on the bandwagon and it could not handle the traffic. Who knows, maybe if the site can't load merely to login, it may not be able to load links fast enough at other sites.