Random babble by Paulh

Following on from ways to get links here are some blackhat nasty ways i have seen people use.

The people who use these techniques wont use them on a domain they can’t afford to lose; some of these techniques may be long dead, and some are illegal in most countries.

1. Hijack domains at the registrar level
2. Refer spam
3. Comment spam anything that allows comments, not just blogs
4. Hack sites and insert hidden links in the html
5. Become a host and cloak links within customer pages
6. XSS injection
7. SQL injection
8. Find exploits in well known scripts
9. Find demo accounts, default passwords, or unpassworded accounts to a CMS
10. Bait and switch
    • Eg. frame/proxy a quality site, get links in the ‘white hat way’, then switch to own money making machine that no one wants to link to

11. Buy domain similar to competitors, frame or proxy competitor site, contact places where competitor has backlinks and tell them to link to new url since you are moving domains for X reasons.
12. Lie – eg. Make out it was you who placed a backlink to a site and request they link to a 3^rd site of yours
13. Redirect domain to high PR site, when PageRank changes start a link exchange frenzy before it disappears
14. Give away scripts with backdoors or hidden links
15. Give away templates with hidden links
16. Join a link exchange program, and cloak the links on your site from search engines
17. Capture abandoned free hosting
18. Capture expired domains

This was going to be 25 nasty ways -  but a few scumbag hacker types had objections.

Web developer friend of mine recently asked how he could get links so here you go Stu…

Ask for links

• Get a link from the local chamber of commerce
• Call webmasters on the phone and ask for links
• Email webmaster and ask for links
• Ask friends and family to link to you
• Ask to be listed on governmental resources
• Find articles in your niche and ask them to link to you
• Find sites in your niche linking to dead sites, ask them to link to you instead
• Find sites in your niche linking to inferior sites, ask them to link to you instead
• Find hubs/authority sites in your niche
• Analyze competitors back links - Ask to be listed on there too
• Back a cause and produce something useful for it, contact organizers and let them know

Link Networks

• Create own private networks
  • Create authority hubs - sites that link to your own and competitor sites
  • Create multi tired networks, that feed links into your own sites
  • Build real value niche sites, cross link to other relevant sites in your network
  • Create a public link network
    • Let people trade links
    • Favor your own sites

  Directories

  • Submit to paid directories
  • Submit to free niche directories
  • Submit to the big free directories
  • Submit to free general directories - avoid directories with no editorial process.
  • Create your own directories
    • Link to your own sites
    • 3 way link exchanges
    • Create niche directories, become the authority in that niche.
    • Create general directories - charge a minimal fee to cut out junk

  Buy links

  • Pay for blog posts
  • Pay for reviews
  • Make donations - get listed on charity sites, open source projects
  • Send bloggers freebies
  • Offer bloggers cash
  • Offer DMOZ editors something for a fast review
  • Offer forum moderators cash or freebies for a mention
  • Give away merchandise for links - USB, beer, t-shirts
  • Buy whole sites - monitor places sites are often sold
  • Buy a word in an existing article
  • Become a link broker -pick the best for yourself
  • Sponsor a student project

  Give away stuff

  • Give away tools and geek stuff
  • Templates
  • Plugins
  • Code snippets
  • Stat counters
  • Logos
  • Contribute to open source projects
  • Branded merchandise
  • Offer discounts to people placing links on their site
  • Release an extension or plugin for browsers and other popular software
  • Build a website for a local charity, or university group that can attract quality links - Spend some time getting them links too

  Distribute Content

  • RSS feeds
  • Give away articles
  • Submit an article to industry news site
  • Write for other sites for free
    • ezinearticles.com
    • goarticles.com
    • isnare.com
  • Write for other sites and get paid
  • Publish a distribute white papers
  • Become a guest blogger
  • Become an editor
  • Get listed in Google news
  • Get listed in Yahoo news
  • Create press releases
    • prweb.com
    • internet.com
    • businesswire.com
    • prnewswire.com
    • bacons.com
    • e-releases.com
    • prfree.com
    • pr.com
    • webwire.com
    • marketwire.com
    • 24-7pressrelease.com
    • pressreleasenetwork.com
    • i-newswire.com
  • Track who picks up our articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
  • Publish ebooks laden with links and encourage people to distribute for free

  Exchange Links

  • Join link exchange networks
  • Contact webmasters directly
  • Start a link exchange network
  • Start a webring(come up with a web 2.0 name but don’t call it a webring)
  • Join a webring

  Forums

  • Links in signatures
  • Links in profile
  • Links in posts
  • Post yourself
  • Pay people to post often
  • Ask people you know
  • Entice established members
  • Swap signature links with others

  Reviews

  • Leave testimonials on other sites
  • Review and recommend local businesses and ask for a link back
  • Review products services and ask for link back
  • Provide graphic. Eg. Voted best website 2007
  • Get your own site and products reviewed by others

  Blogs

  • Become an expert
  • Give interviews on your industry
  • Interview well known bloggers
  • Leave real comments on other blogs
  • Leave feedback without spamming or trying to sell.
  • Point out helpful errors
  • Make suggestions
  • Flatter someone on their success
  • Compliment someone on a great post
  • Link to people likely to link back
  • Trackbacks

  Too lazy to categorize

  • Hire a link building expert
  • Start a flame war
  • Become an official partner
  • Build a list that others will link to
  • Get paid to build a website and get a link back
  • Submit great designed sites to web and css galleries
  • Perform surveys and studies
    • Publicize survey results - Publish several articles from same survey, controversial or unusual results
  • Become and editor of DMOZ and other sites
  • Make media contacts, provide stories for links
  • Find sites doing website of the day, recommend your site
  • Find top site lists and submit get listed
  • Get financial sites listed in Google finance
  • Cartoons - include link code
  • Sponsor events - small meetings, put money behind the bar - Others will blog and thank you
  • Set up a Squidoo page
  • Provide web hosting for a link
  • Provide web software for a link
  • Join an organizations and associations and get listed a member
  • Become an expert. Contact editors and writers, and let them know you are available as a source
    • Try and a link on each article, or each time you are quoted
    • Try to get your own bio page
  • Drive affiliate links to your own sites
  • Make it a requirement to link to your site in all contracts with:
    • resellers
    • partners
    • subcontractors
    • vendors

  Photographs

  • Of yourself with celebs
  • Of something stupid
  • With well known people in your industry
  • Be the first to post pictures of an event or product

  Social

  • Create diggable stories often and submit to social sites
  • Study what works for each social sites
  • Give your story a push from friends
  • Entice top members
  • Create bogus accounts and push your own stuff

  Link bait

  • David and goliath
  • Taboo, sex
  • Outrageous
  • Unusual
  • Tell a secret - Be the first with the news
  • Humor
  • Lie - make up a number like 1002

  Link building is a constant ongoing task even for sites that are already number one. Keep record of all efforts, sites submitted to, people contacted etc.

  Lot of this list comes from other sources, mostly arron walls, and Brandon Hopkins To be honest i dont remember where some of these came from, so if i have stolen your ideas then let me know.

Left casino.com last week! Didn’t work my notice since I thought it best to leave before burning those all important bridges – once you tell people you are quitting your job they no longer have the same patience for sarcastic emails about… best stop!

Spending my remaining time in Spain working on several projects for Doug’s sweat shop at Car Rentals , and seeing some more of Spain.

Today I decided to go out on my mountain bike and see some more of the local area Plan was to cycle to a town called casares up in the mountains via the Roman baths. Not really done much cycling since being in spain, far too bloody hilly, and most of the time it’s too hot to do more than eat, drink, and splash about in water.

Word of warning if you have satnav and are in spain, be careful you don’t end up venturing on the minor roads, they are shit. Unlikely you’ll be insured on these gravel roads if in a hire car.

Well I got as far Manilva when my bike got a puncture. Great! Took me an hour to walk back, but at least I made a friend. I called a few people who might like a dog, but no one was interested except for a crazy girl called Carmen who wanted me to look after the dog in my apartment until she finished work. I obviously said no, but seeing as my Landlord as just given me a months notice to leave I kind of wish I had the little mutt stay and trash the furniture.

So if you’re reading this doug, now you know why I haven’t done any work today.

Lets make the magic happen!

More vegas weddings! Evilgreenmonkey to marry Lisa Ditlefsen in vegas and broadcast the wedding night live and unedited!

Cheers Mike

Working my notice period!

Been a slow 11 months, doesn’t really feel like I achieved anything. Shame really, was very hyped up about coming to work in the casino industry for one of the best domains around. Was an exciting challenge, had a ton of ideas and was very enthusiastic. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get on with my job, and spent most of my time planning the new site and working on other ideas. Wont go into details of why so lets just blame the corporate world.

Was going to wait a few months before resigning, wanted to see if things changed for the better, and I like being in Spain. Also wanted to be around for the new site launch, with the amazing CMS we were having developed. I can hand edit a page quicker than I can use them CMS - a great example of what happens when software developers don’t consult end users and just concentrate on functionality.

Anyway, I am off to head up the SEO for Car Rentals who I had a brief spell with last year. They are very big in the travel sector, with new sites such as their travel comparator. They also recently bought fly.co.uk – if anyone has any cool ideas for this domain then let me know Best of all I work very closely with owners who have great understanding of online marketing and SEO - and i get to spend January in OZ , then back to sunny Lichfield in england.