I would love to see what some of these link pages look like that you got from cyberlinkpro. Also I would like to see if you stopped the service what happens to your rankings, this would help determine if they really helped or not.
@ Poker you should never buy links anyway. I see your argument at "hiring" links but suppose I purchase a link for a year or permenantly. I have no control over that link if the site closes down or the owner simply removes the link I have no control and they have already gotten my money. I suggest if you ever buy link you buy them on a monthly basis so at worse you can only lose one months value. But that is just my opinion. I think I will give the links a month to see what affect they have and then remove them to see if there is any drop. That way we can be sure.
Week 3 update guys, Google ranking has hit the top 10 at number 10 . Up 13 spots this week. Bing ranking has crashed out of the top 100 Yahoo no change But traffic starting to pick up. Had an extra 21 visitors for the keyword crazy news. Also have an extra 350 links. I assume the articles are being republished. Dont forget you can track the whloe experiment at my blog http://www.scribblescratch.com/cyberlinkpro-experiment/
I outsource my backlinking and the links are not going anywhere if I stopped paying for the services so, hm... I was thinking that perhaps it would be better to spend $20.00 a month to building links that will "stick".
Sorry Guys I forgot to update this thread. Its been a bit crazy with so many experiments going on. Anyway The experiment has come to an end and I have the full results here. To summarize the site ranked #8 in google and was getting and extra 90 visitors a month for the keyword. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Also I have removed the links to the site and will report back my fall in the SERP's to evaluate whether it was in fact the links that provided the results or some other external influence. So not too bad I will probably set up another test to confirm the results of this one.
Good experiment. Regardless of the value of this site I think it's fair to say you controlled the variables of the experiment well. @ Cherrios, what backlink service do you use? @ Poker Rakeback Mafia, xrumer blast? - edit: googled the term, read the page... sounds interesting. What are your experiences with xrumer blasting?
Not great. The links are low value and didn't have a great effect on the serps, but i am in a totally saturated, very highly competitive niche. The last blast i done cost me $30 and a month later, google has found 4k links and is still finding new ones. They're all new threads on forums so will build up pr and therefor value over time. Although the links don't appear to be super effective, that many links for $30 is still money well spent in my opinion.
Very good thread, intersting to see how this helped, I look forward to see the effect this has now that you are no longer paying for the links.