Does the coop make that much of a difference?

the coop has worked great for me...my only problem with it is sometimes adding too many links too fast...sometimes someone will sign up using my referral # and my weight jumps enough where G decides it is unnatural linking...no good

 

there is something like too fast linking?

thats bullshit right? I mean, if my website would start a commercial on national television during the superbowl, I might get millions to see it, and therefore get thousands of links in a day. whats unnatural about that?

 

There are trending algorithms in place. I don't think that it is an across the board thing, but there have been plenty of sites "sandboxed" with the common denominator being thousands of inbound links being generated too quickly. Yes - you do bring up a good point, but google doesn't always take a "we'll give you the benefit of the doubt" position.

Anyhow, like most SEO things, it's all up for debate. There's no hard and fast answer to your question.

 

Dirkjan, it's not about what you find unnatural, it's about Google's definition of the matter.

All they're worried about is keeping their results relevant. It doesn't matter how you get the new links but if the distort the results too quickly, I can see Google putting a filter on the new ones. They won't ban you or whatever but I have seen signs of this delayed link impact.

It keeps THEM in control over their results.

 

update: just moved up from #10 to #9 / from #13 last week

 

Steven, do you think the same holds true with a few links for pr4/5 sites to a new site, followed by a pr7 link? Less than ten links on a new site, with one being a high authority link, is what I'm trying to ask.

 

I wouldn't think so. I think (from basically being involved in message board discussions) that the sandbox is triggered based on an unnatural amount of links coming in quickly - like 15000 links showing up in one cycle whereas there were less than 10 inbound links previously.

It also could be tied to over-optimization... where keyword densities are too high and it looks like someone just tried 12 different well known on-page SEO tricks.

Everything having to do with the sandbox is theory.

With my web conferencing site, agilelive.com I'm allinanchor top 10 or 20, but the site is not well ranked for the keyword phrase ("web conferencing"). I had some legal problems with Agile Software - they basically have threatened to sue me for having "Agile" in the name of my company. I'm relatively paranoid by nature, so I wonder if they didn't have their lawyers send some sort of letter to google. (They were very aggressive in dealing with me - and according to my lawyer their behavior wasn't typical for such a flimsy basis to complain) - that being said, the site ranks very well for the term webex conferencing, which is much less competitive. Is it a sandbox or a penalty? I don't know. I figure the way to deal with it is to sit and wait for the rankings to climb, and they eventually will.

 

I'm sorry to hear about the harrassment. I don't see how someone can sue over that. Thank you for the information. When I talked with my client and suggested a PR7 link, he was very interested. But I don't want to do something that will foil progress.

 

NevetS,

Google is not out to penalize you because you have agile in your name. They have nothing to do with that nor do they care. They are out for relative results. That is all they care about. Keeping people using their search engine so more and more businesses will spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on adwords.

Next, people have been sued for a lot less. Back in the 90's there was a band called green jello. They got sued by Jello Gelatin for using that name. They changed their name to green jelly. This solved the problem.

However if you are concerned about that, it will fall under, presuming that you are in the US, the trademark of the name. If you look under US laws for trademark, two companies can have the exact same name as long as they are not the same concept in business. IE. (fake companies for example) Agile Sales (This company deals with record sales) out of Texas & Agile Sales (This company sell wholesale shoes out of Florida). Both companies have the same name however they sell very different products. The law looks at this as if they were not try to steal the others clients or cause confusion. This is the same reason that Microsoft lost the battle against Lindows claiming that people would get the name confused with Windows. The names were not the same and there would be no confusion. The courts decided that Lindows was not out to steal business away from Windows by utlizing sneaky tactics.

Hope it helps.

 

PPC -
Exactly. Agile Software applied for the trademark "Agile", and that has not been approved. The firm they hired is a very high profile silicon valley firm that is very active in the tech industry. I'm not worried, aside from the fact that if it does move along much further it's going to cost me a decent amount of money to get to summary judgement. We are in different lines of business, and the point of confusion they were relying on is the fact that we use "collaboration" in our tag line, and they develop "collaboration" software, which on the face seems like a good argument - if you know nothing about software, since virtually all software these days is designed for collaboration.

There is no confusion between my business and agile software, and in fact I had no idea that agile software existed prior to their threat letters. (although since I've found that they are a rather large company).

What it boils down to is they used a very common dictionary word for their company name, as did I. That is pretty much all we have in common.

I've offered to change the name if they were to pay for my trouble, but the fact is that I have several licensing agreements in place that rely on the company name, and changing my name would mean significant costs not only in re-development of our branding, but in existing contracts. And if there were no costs involved, there is still consideration that must be made for the fact that I've invested significant time and effort in establishing our brand in the marketplace, and that effort would have to be reworked towards any new company name.

I've been reasonable; they've been agressive to the point where I feel like all I'm getting is threats from them. They have been silent for a while, which I assume means that they have given up on the fact that I will just go away quietly.

There is a chance that I would lose if in fact a judge found Audio and Web Conferencing Services and PLM services to be related - and that our branding is in some way confusing. Logically, that couldn't happen, but I've been involved in lawsuits before that have made less sense and ended up with the short end of the stick. The difference being that now I have experience and a lawyer that should prevent that from happening.

I'm only partway serious about the potential for them contacting google - it could have happened, who knows. Probably not, but their aggressiveness indicates to me at least the potential. I have seen results removed from google (kazaa lite or kazaa plus) because of litigation. I haven't seen any evidence of penalty, but the potential is there. Penalizing a site rather than removing it would give google some leeway with certain situations. It would most likely prevent the penalized site from suing them, since there is no way to determine a penalty publicly.

I have targeted the keyword phrase for my own SEO purposes, but I haven't done any on page optimization for the keyword phrase and I'm not actively doing a heck of a lot to get the ranking because agile live isn't my priority these days.

 

Yeah, like the lady that spilled the cup of coffee on herself while driving out of the McDonalds parking lot and sued and won a million dollars. YIKES!

I am glad that some judge had the decency to throw the next case out of court where the overweight family blamed McDonalds for their weight and was suing them.

 

You're putting 60K weight to each of your websites? How much do you have anyway?

 

moved up again today to #8 so its still working for me

 

Hey Weirfire ,
If you don't mind me asking, which coop did you join?

Sorry.. i didn't notice the above post.