The warning is clear: viral marketing for link development could actually kill a site’s presence on Google.
10 Comments
10 Comments
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Comments
Pfft. If Google’s algo penalizes legitimately gained links from a successful viral PR explosion, then that only makes them less relevant.
I have tested over and over, too many links too quickly and it has never hurt a site of mine. Most webmasters blame that as a penalty, when usually it is too much exact anchor text. Viral links are also a better way to build a unique profile as any competitor can go get in the same directories and TLA’s as you, but they can’t get the same story popular on social sites after you have. Thus giving you a totally unique link profile, and natural anchor text.
well said Chris (97thfloor above) I have seen this as the case too.
I second what Chris says. Its not the too many too quickly - its the too much exact anchor text, or reciprocal links, etc.
Chris, that’s the suggestion about the viral angle, though - that over time, unless you maintain that rate of link acquisition, then your site may be algorithmically determined to be less relevant over the longer term. When you go viral, your temporal link profile changes significantly. Sure, a snapshot may show links from a number of sources, but the warning is that when Google finds a website enjoying popularity, but then this popularity declines, then this may work against the site in the long run. cf. Rand’s suggested comparison of temporal link profiles for DMOZ vs Wikipedia. Btw, when I talk about too many links too fast I’m talking about serious volume. Not dozens, as much as hundreds of thousands of links. Never had a problem with link variation, funnily enough. But after learning my way through the sandbox, I wouldn’t dream of throwing too much too quickly on a website, or else risk delay its ability to rank for seriously competitive keywords. 2c.
iBrian, I have seen sites both personally and from friends go from a brand new domain, to thousands upon thousands of links from seo/smo and ranking for words that people dream of in less than 4 months. Social Media if anything only shortens the effects of any Trust time delays on Googles part. I’m not talking about words like Seattle Jazercise, Im talking words like Work at Home, and Home Based Business, Dating, etc.. I’m talking about words with billions of pages indexed. You don’t have to sacrifice relevance in order to participate in powerful social media campaigns. You can keep your link profiles fairly on target if you do it right.
I’ve been involved in hundreds of linkbaiting campaigns, literally. I can tell you not once has a client or site seen any kind of penalty or decline in rankings because of it. In fact, quite the opposite - just about every campaign I’ve been involved in has shown a drastic increase in rankings. And yes, I’m talking serious volume. Brian - I’m curious what you’re basing this information on. Do you actually have first hand examples of this, or is this purely speculation on your part? From my experience the ones who bash social media/linkbait are the ones who have no successes with it and can’t figure it out.
If you make bad viral campaigns (e.g. all links with exact same link text) then it may hurt you but if you do it well it won’t :)
I’m not saying viral marketing is bad - but I think there is a clear warning that Google’s use of temporal link analysis could end up working against a site’s interest in the long run. This is namely where such a site is unable to maintain a reasonable amount of link development afterwards, leaving a pattern that could be algorithmically perceived as declining relevance on the topic. 2c.
Aaron agrees with Brian - worth reading this: http://www.seobook.com/3-ways-get-screwed-social-media-marketing