Sunday, October 27, 2013

Niche website search engine update

After about 3 months of developing a niche website which generates a little cash, this is my first update on how my websites are actually doing in search engines. I have been working on 2 websites, but I'm really focusing on just the one. The other one I'm actually leaving to try out things, so for the purpose of this post, I'll just refer to the website I'm currently focusing on.

Surprisingly, there is a massive difference between Google's results and other search engines for my primary keyword. It's been 3 months since I've started this website and I'm 13th in Yahoo, which is great. On Bing, I float between the 2nd page and the 5th. On Yandex, I'm on the 1st page at 10th position!

Google's results are completely different though... my website doesn't even come in the top 1000. So on most search engines I'm starting do rather well, but it's Google which is the obvious target though. I can only assume that it's Google's shift towards authority that is the main difference. Authority is certainly something I'm focusing on, but this will take time to build. How long and how much effort this will be require, I have no idea.

So where to from here? I've sent a few questions off to a friend of mine that's an SEO expert for some advice. I'll definitely post back any useful from that discussion. In the meantime, I'll be trying to develop more authority and create more useful content for my website.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Putting "Purchasing High Pagerank Domains For Backlinking" To The Test

I've been trying some proven SEO techniques, but as we know, Google's algorithms have been changing. Building backlinks through article submissions, social bookmarking and guest blogging may be working for my ranking, but I'm certainly not noticing it. Whatever anyone tells you, SEO is not simple nowadays... well not at least for us.

Some so-called experts have claimed that the best way to rank quickly, is to purchase domains that are already ranking well, create a website relevant to your niche, and then drop a few well placed backlinks. I thought I'd put this to the test.

The higher the domain pagerank, the better obviously. But unless we want to be forking out quite a bit of cash, we should really be starting out with pagerank 2 or 3 domains. These can be picked up for about $20 from GoDaddy. To do this, go to the products->auctions section and search for "closedouts". These domains can be bought outright and you don't have to enter a bidding war. GoDaddy won't give you the pagerank of any of the domains in the resulting list, so you'll need to extract the domains and enter them into a bulk pagerank checker (just Google for one, there are a few). I use Market Samurai's SEO Competition area to get the domain stats.

I've purchased 2 domains, both pagerank 3. So far only 1 has been transferred over (it takes about a week) and I've created a website and linked back to my main website. I'm looking forward to the next domain to be transferred, so I can do the same. I want to still find a 3rd domain to purchase to at least give this theory a full go.

I'll post back once I've done the 3 domains and hopefully with some positive results. I've put a lot of hard work and time into ranking, so it'll be great to see things moving forward.