Linking To The Top In Google

Four years ago with very little experience and a lot of time on my hands I was able to put four baby sites and two gift sites on page one of the SERP's for their main keywords. And you know what? Back then it was easy, the main things were your meta tags and getting some links, it really was that simple. Once a week or so I would send out around a hundred link request and would get around 20 to 30 links within two days. That's all it took, it was so easy!

It had to happen eventually, the secret got out and everyone else knew to put their best keywords in their links, and bam, page one SERP's. Then the reciprocal link boom took off like a rocket. Link exchange services and software popped up like mushrooms after the rain.

I had to get ahead of the pack again, so in addition to link exchanges I started buying text links. I'd have my best keyword in the anchor text on every page of a large site. I'd do this wit a couple of websites, and bam, right back on top. This was fantastic! I could put almost any site I wanted in a top position on Google for a paltry investment of $50 - $100 a month. Life was good, especially when you consider that a lot of my competitors were spending that much per day with AdWords for a fraction of the traffic I was getting.

It wasn't long before every webmaster knew about buying text links, soon it was like an arms race only with links. When a lot of people get their hands on something that powerful abuse is inevitable, which attracts the attention of the SE's, then it's usually downhill from there.

So I looked at top ranking site's for terms like shoes, clothes, gifts etc. Everyone was trying to get more links faster than their competition, so software was released to help meet the growing need of more links. At this point I'm starting to get real excited because I have figured it out again, all I need is relevant content pages linking to me. But how am I going to get lots of people to give me a one-way link from a relevant content page?

While brainstorming one day, I thought what if I created a linking triangle where A links to B & B links to C then C links to A, everyone in the triangle would get a one way link. How difficult can it be?

Very Hard!

Talk about a nightmare!

First problem after sending hundreds of e-mails and finally lining up two other relevant sites they wanted to put my link on an overcrowded links page four levels deep. Second problem site owners who insisted that two of their site's be in the triangle but both sites have same IP, what's the point it's just going to look reciprocal to the engines. Then there was quite a few shady operators who were actively seeking triangle links who wanted a good link from you, but wanted to link back from a link farm. What a nightmare this was turning into, almost a month and not one decent link. Just shoot me now and put me out of misery.

Now besides the headaches involved in trying to trick the search engines with schemes and black hat seo, there is a very real risk of having your site banned. Took a while for the light to come on, but real content is a sure way to get quality one way links. Plus if you have quality content it makes soliciting for one way links much easier. I must admit though ot takes a lot patience to create content and wait for others to link to it.

In the next article we'll discuss legitimate ways of getting one way links.

Mark Dietzel is the creator & producer of the popular new ebook and video
series "Natural Linking"
Discover how to explode your SE rankings with .edu & .gov links. Get a
complimentary copy of his five part course today at www.naturallinking.com.
You can also catch some of Mark's articles, tips and advice on his blog
www.MarkDietzel.com