We used to have our other sites (all on the same IP) linked back from our webmaster forum. Recently we started another site (and added the new link), but I'm starting to wonder if adding the link caused the site to start raking worse in the search engines. How does everyone feel about side-wide forum footer text links? The forum has 15,000 indexed pages and is PR5 (so you'd think it would help?!). I removed the footer links to the sites a few hours ago and will monitor to see if rankings increase. My gut feeling is that yahoo rankings will fall if anything. Not sure about google though?
Start what ranking worse? The webmaster directory? The other sites? What exactly are you trying to accomplish. My experience tells me the sitewide links would be worthwhile as a reasonable part of your overall seo strategy.
I'm sorry my question didn't come out clear. FreeHostingDirectory.com used to rank top 10 for 'free hosting directory' for half a decade (even with a godaddy not foud page). Once we bought it, we put up a site and made some tweaks. Soon, after the rankings dropped off the map and I'm trying to figure out what did it. One of the tweaks was linking the site from our forum (so instant 15,000 backlinks). We also had our other sites linked from the same forum. I'm wondering if those back links hurt more then it helped?
I remember when we just added those links, our yahoo rankings went up a good amount. So with those links gone, I'm guessing that will be the first to fall. But I'd be willing to take that lose if the google rankings go up significantly at the same time.
The problem is that google understands that you bought the website, it's different than what they expect and they're going to pull you out of the SERPs for a while. Just keep building links(including your forum links). And eventually in 2-6 months you'll start to rank again. This is to be expected with purchased/expired domains. Also understand that there probably isn't going to be much traffic for that search term. While I'll admit it's nice to be on top of google, it's much nicer to be on top for search phrases that will get some traffic. Have you done any wordtracker studies on keywords, I show "free web hosting directory" only gets 14 searches a day, and no direct numbers for "free hosting directory".
Traffic isn't as bad as word tracker shows. Freehostingdirectory.com was #7 for that keyword for the first week after buying the domain and during that time received 10 hits/day from it. The more popular keyword we are targeting is 'free web hosting', but I want to get back to what we were for the easier one before trying to climb for the harder one.
no matter what google says and others think, i still find sitewide links to be working. i was using them before with success and listened to all the talks about they dont work anymore and you will be penalized for buying sitewide links, i still see my competitors use them successfully and they are ranked high and me not anymore. so i myself am considering sitewide links again
We also sell side-wide links on free hosting member pages (6million of them).. and that works very well. Most of our advertisers have done very well. So I'm sure they still work. I just don't know in the case of the forum.. It doesn't seem like too many forums sell text links.. especially since so many of them have tens of thousands of indexed pages. Might be something specific to forums..
Hmm.. that might be right.. I think they stopped counting link juice on the inner pages. Yahoo seems to still count it though. Would google go beyond not counting them and penalize the site for forum links?
4 days after removing the forum backlinks all the sites that were previously linked dropped in raiting on Google. There doesn't seem to be an effect on Yahoo, but I'm going to try to put the links back to see if the Google rankings return.
In the past I've found sitewide links to work - but one thing is for sure its not a long term tactic as its blatantly obvious they are not natural. This is even more noticable if you've got all the sites on the one IP.