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Update on Site Rankings – 6 Weeks

July 25th, 2010 · Backlinks

So we settled on a new house and have been very busy painting, shopping, etc, to get ready for moving in. Other than making a few lens (I’ve become obsessed with Squidoo for no good reason) I haven’t done much of anything on my sites. That will have to change soon.

But I did want to leave a quick update on the ranking of the two sites that I did some backlinking of by creating 3 directly-linking properties and then doing mass article submissions to those properties (mass in Carrie-terms, not “Average Genius” mass submission armageddon).

On June 8th when I started my site rankings were:
Site 1: #15/#194 (home/inner – note the home started at #12 and dropped just prior to starting)
Site 2: #133/#284 (the homepage here started at #314 but moved up on it’s own just prior to starting)

Today the rankings are (6-7 weeks later):
Site 1: #5/#49
Site 2: #16/#100

Not bad! And what was great with this process is that I did not see a lot of dancing in the rankings like I see when I do a lot of direct links to my site.

Here is an abbreviated run-down of sites, software, and services I used:
- Order UAW-style articles from GetArticlesDone.com (3 rewrites final)
- Post those articles direct-linking (to my sites) on EZA, InfoBarrel, and Squidoo.
- Submit spun articles (previously submitted to EZA) with backlinks to 3 properties above using Automatic Article Submitter, ArticleBot, Free Traffic System and ArticleRanks (see also my ArticleRanks review).
- Bookmarked some of the secondary article submissions using IMAutomator and SocialAdr.
- Submit links for the Site 2 lens with Link Aloha.

I mention the lens-linking with Link Aloha because that lens has actually seen some good traffic and made an Amazon sale. I am assuming that is also passing some link juice to Site 2.

I’ve only been using Link Aloha for a month so I can’t give much of a review, but it is super easy and that is what I like. Some people think it is over-priced (same with SocialAdr), and that may be true on a cost/link basis, but if all I have to do is plug in a url and be done, I’m happy.

Overall I am pretty happy with these results. A second run of the above backlinking method would hopefully increase rankings further. The only downside so far is that Site 1 is not performing well monetarily so I will likely ignore that site for awhile.

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Earnings and Status Update

July 5th, 2010 · My Earnings

I added my June earnings to my earnings page. Nothing to write home about.

What you don’t see is that my personal site, which I don’t include in my earnings as it is an older site and not meant to be a moneymaker, had a drop in adsense earnings so June was not a good month for me. I don’t expect July to be much better as things seem to be slower in summer and I won’t have time to do much this month.

The two sites I had been working on with backlinks to backlinks have been holding steady in there rankings until today, I see that Site 1 has dropped to #9 after sticking at #5-6 for awhile. The site started on Page 2 (#12-15) so I’m still happy with the bump. Site #2 is holding steady at #42 – I think it started around #314. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve to try and capitalize on the work already done, but haven’t had the time.

I did also get some web2.0 articles up for 2 of my other sites but still need to fortify those properties with links. However, we will be settling on our new house soon and have work to do and then moving so I will probably let this blog go quiet for awhile.

I’ve been thinking alot lately about my earnings and sites and have to admit I’m not happy. I’m willing to put in the work to get my sites ranking but I’m not so confident in my niches. I still look back at the sites that haven’t panned out monetarily and I’m not sure why. If I can’t identify the issues, how can I avoid them?

I would like to start up some new sites in the fall as I think I need more diversity, but I am a bit gun-shy at this point. I like the idea of Amazon sites but it seems like everyone, their grandmother and their second cousin is now getting into Amazon and I worry that the bubble will burst. Seen that happen too many times so I try to stay away from whatever is “hot”.

I think that concludes my therapy session for today. Thanks for stopping by.

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Very Short Update on Rankings from Test

June 29th, 2010 · Backlinks

I have been very busy with house stuff so I haven’t been doing much. But I did want to check in and say that my rankings for Site 1 and Site 2 homepages (didn’t check inners) are holding. I was hoping to see more movement upward but that hasn’t happen yet. But I think it will happen eventually.

The only things I will do now with these 2 sites is some more bookmarking of the outer ring of articles and maybe some RSS submissions for any directories that have author feeds. Otherwise, I’d like to wait and see if these sites move up more in rankings with some time. Last time I did this for a site I saw a second movement after a month or two of starting the process, so I think this link juicing takes time to show results.

Anyway, we will be preparing to move soon so I will be MIA for awhile. I am getting a few things done for some of my other sites, but I plan to have a more organized plan of attack ready for September when I can go back to a more full-time schedule.

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Article Backlinking – Free Traffic System Worked

June 22nd, 2010 · Job

Just a quick update. Last time I did a couple of spun article submissions I submitted my spun article to Free Traffic System (after it had been submitted elsewhere). That article was not approved so I kinda blew off FTS.

But for kicks I decided to post my 2 spun articles for this BL test to FTS and they were both accepted! Only took about 5-10 minutes to submit those articles and now I am getting even more submissions from just one spun article. Cool!

FTS is a bit confusing at first and you have to watch their videos to know what you can or can’t do, but I believe you cannot submit links with “?” inside which rules out links to EZA (I may be remembering this incorrectly, though). So I just used a link to IB and Squid.

Also, I had trouble last time submitting a link to an inner page b/c I use the “.html” on my posts and FTS only accepts “site.com/inner/” formatting for links.  So there are limitations, but heck, it’s free so I’m not complaining.

RANKING UPDATE!

Just check rankings on my test sites and Site 1 is #5 in Scroogle! But will it hold?? Site 2 hasn’t budged yet (still #42)

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Article Backlinks – Ranking Update

June 21st, 2010 · Backlinks

So it has been 4 days since I started submissions for Site 2 and 3 days since Site 1 submissions. By submissions I mean I sent out two spun articles (using 2 article submitters and ArticleRanks) which each  contained links back to 3 corresponding articles (EZA, InfoBarrel, Squidoo) which had links to Site 1 or 2. So each of my two niche sites has their own EZA, and IB, and a Squid linking to them (homepage & inner page) and now those 3 properties (per niche site) have article/blogs linking back to them.

It’s still a little early but so far rankings haven’t moved much (from the recent submissions). Before I submitted the initial three direct-linking articles by rankings were:

Site 1: #15/#194 (home/inner – note the home started at #12 and dropped just prior to starting)

Site 2: #133/#284 (the homepage here started at #314 but moved up on it’s own just prior to starting)

Today the rankings are:

Site 1: #11/#59

Site 2: #42/#108

So Site 1 has moved up to #11 which isn’t much as it had usually been stuck at #12, but the inner page has moved from #194 to #59. Site 2 has made good progress for both the homepage and inner page. I will say that much of the movement came after I posted the direct-linking articles. I’m not seeing much effect yet from juicing my backlinks but I think that will take more time.

In the past when I set something like this up for a CB mini-site, I still included direct links to my site from some of the top directories and then pointed the lower tier directories at the links. Next time I think I might trying to point just a few more links directly to my site, but we’ll see where the rankings for these sites settle in a week or two.

I’ll check in every few days with an update.

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