If G was really going after blog networks,

[rogerv2]

i wonder,
Why didn't they simply de-index all the blog networks homepage?

To me, many SEO gurus blaming it all on blog networks seem to inherently scared of normal people like us getting powerful links without having to stay on their expensive coaching membership, thereby hurting their lucrative "consulting" business. Well, at least to some extent, i think.

If a blog network was indeed G's main target, that means we can kill competitors at will by pointing to their site with garbage contents and 100% identical keyword phrase, right?

Dan Thies just last month or so claimed it's all the blog networks who got hit, and now their recent seobraintrus webinar seems to be taking on a slightly different view by saying "it's far deeper than XXX, it's far wider than XXX.." to me sounds like BS, gurus my ass. Dan Thies, i don't care so much about, but i am quite disappointed with Leslie Rhode on that webinar. He used to praise BU approach and even encourage to apply a manufacturing process approach and building franchise businesses. Sure they keep saying SEO environment has changed drastically, but still can't tell you a single traffic method that is better than or equal to one-way backlinks.

Anyways, i find it kind of annoying to see they easily turn around and say it's 'far larger' than 'what they claimed with such a great confidence just a month ago.' Another thing that's annoying with the webinar was that Dan kept on and on and on about how he does NOT care about building links and how all the natural links come to him because he's so cool and smart and was mentioned on NYtimes and so on and on.

On the other hand, this is all good for us here at BU. We slowly but steadily keep growing even stronger while all the SEO gurus out there confuse the hell out of little guys like us.

[mikedeering]

Thanks for your post Roger

I agree, It's the gurus who can take a simple concept and make it overly complicated and charge a ton of money...

I joined BU because it made sense to me and was based upon a simple concept. Get Relevant back links to your web site and vary the link text.

I wasn't able to listen to the entire SEO webinar because I could only stand 10 mins of bs.

[rogerv2]

Hi, Mike,

yes, indeed.
Fortunately, the amount of time i put up with listening to guru talks is rapidly diminishing nowadays, especially after they started applying all the scare tactic to their newest findings and coachings.

i know i know too little about seo to criticize those big boys, but i don't think they deserve to be called 'seo guru' if they can't (or won't) extract the essence of all the chaos and put it all in simple plain english that leads to clear action steps.

[MasterMind]

While I'm not going to waste any of my time defending gooroos statements you do need to understand that what they do is a typical marketing practice. It doesn't make any difference if they understand the problem or how to fix it, they can still make tons of sales with the technique most use.

First is scare the hell out of people, second is to offer some proof of your scare tactics, third is to provide you with a solution to the problems they have scared everyone with.

It's a standard advertising tactic used by most everyone. Take weight loss for instance. That might go like this. Sugar is bad for you and will make you fat and unattractive. See all these people that got fat on sugar. So they put up some pictures of semi ugly fat people. But hey, if you don't want to be fat start eating our miracle product that's as sweet as sugar. See all these beautiful skinny people, they gave up sugar. If you don't want to be fat and ugly you need to buy our product. Click here now to be skinny and beautiful in 7 days or your money back.

Gooroos are not altruistic, they are out to make money, not help you make money. they don't have to know anything, they just have to convince you that they do.

What I'm seeing in my keyword hunting with MS is a ton of sites with top ten rankings and no freaking backlinks at all. When I go look at the sites they have lots of outlinks but nothing on their pages that should even give them a top ten let alone a top 100. Googles results now are the worst they have been in years.

The only ones who know what Panda and Penguin were meant to correct is the people who wrote the software that does it. Not the gooroos. Google rules webmasters with fear and obfuscation and machiavellian twisted releases.

Gooroos do not have crystal balls and they only understand what's going on as it pertains to their own limited areas of expertise. they search no farther than what their test sites show but if they aren't in hundreds of niches testing thousands of things they really have no more of a clue than you or I but they still try to apply those things outside of their limited areas.

For the most part I know what I know through trial and error and not from what gurus have told me or I've read. Sometimes I agree with their analysis and sometimes not.

If you look at most gooroos as conmen you'd be a lot closer to the mark IMO. The vast majority want your money and don't give a damn. There are a few who aren't like that and I believe Mike is one of them but for the most part gooroos aren't worth the money you pay them.

However it's still your own decision to follow what they tell you and the results you get or don't get are your responsibility.

Penguin still has me confused as it lead to such crappy results in the serps. IMO penguin update makes it seem as if writing good content and getting good links is a waste of time. Yet this is the exact crap they said they want to get rid of.

Googles vision of the net is never going to happen. It's impossible to put up a site and never get a link to it yourself. If you don't get a link to it it's never going to go anywhere but if you do get your own links to it you violate googles TOS. Lol, I know this contradicts what I'm seeing during my research but the serps suck so bad it will have to change.

My biggest suggestion to solve the problem is to try and get links that actually send you some traffic rather than trying to get links that will raise you in the serps. If your links are brining you traffic you don't have to worry about the serps. Lol, now if I just knew where to do that.

My best social media traffic comes from stumbleupon, not twitter or facebook or google +.

Now days it's a crap shoot and no one really knows what the hell is going on. Follow your favorite money grubbing gooroo at your own risk. Me, I'll stick with Mike as he doesn't pay much attention to the bs others put out as scare tactics.

As for killing other sites with bad links. Lol, that's a sure way to break the net beyond repair and it will mean googles demise in the long run.

[rogerv2]

Thanks, Mastermind, for a very thoughtful and helpful comments.
I am not even fat, but almost felt tempted to buy into your diet copy phrase there. lol. i clearly get it now. yes, no matter how long i listen to those webinars, tactics and whatnot.. it's far less worth than the time spent building my own sites. i guess the mindset of being drawn to guru talks is the needs (or wants) to be reassured that my direction has no flaw or a serious risk. But then again, when i think about it, who can truly do that except myself working on my own business? So i am very motivated to move on, make error and learn from my own errors in my own chosen market.

oh, by the way, when you say social media, stumbleupon, how do you actually use it? do you create a random fake id and linkback to your main site or build it as part of your marketing campaign? i have created a bunch of web2.0 pages (all with individual fake id) filled with plr contents and now wondering if i should start linking to my main sites or not?

[mikedeering]

Yes, there are many guys in polyester plaid suits out there.

I am a prior victim of the 'Shiny object' syndrone. Where I would try one product after another and hope to make enough money to quit my day job, have lots of time, and have my business run on auto pilot.

Like any business you need to put in the time to build it up.

I am fat (big boned) and know what to do if I want to lose weight.

Another great selling tactic is used by Ron Popeil. Your not going to pay $100, not even $50, but only 3 EASY payments of $14.99.

[MasterMind]

Lol, gooroos as used car salesmen.

Hace you seen the coomercial about the cockroaches? It's a perfect example of selling through fear. They defined the problem and showed some monster cockroaches, they scared people with the string of dieseases cockroaches can cause, offered their solution to get these deadly, killing monsters out of your house.

Fear sells, sex sells but it's still basically fear that's being alleviated and having better stuff than your neighbors(high quality) sells.

[mikedeering]

Lol, gooroos as used car salesmen

LOL, They don't use the term 'used car' anymore, it's 'Pre-Owned'

I get a kick out of my wife, who buys something and then tells me she got %15 off by signing up for a store credit card at 24% interest. Then takes 3 months to pay for the items....

[MasterMind]

Lol, I'm old so it's used cars to me. I don't care what name they try to pretty it up with. Used cars is used cars. Every car a dealership sells is a pre owned car. The new ones were owned by the dealer or manufacturer so in my head pre owned never ment a thing to me.

Lol, was thinking, I've been married a few times so that makes me pre owned if I was a car but then I got serious and thought wow, I had lots of shrrt term leases.

[admin]

To me, many SEO gurus blaming it all on blog networks seem to inherently scared of normal people like us getting powerful links without having to stay on their expensive coaching membership, thereby hurting their lucrative "consulting" business. Well, at least to some extent, i think.

Lotsof good points!

People reacted very poorly to what happened when this update first started rolling out. They did exactly what Google wanted - create confusion and panic.

People also did a lot of RATTING OUT by passing on URLS and such and even by playing along with the "bad link" warnings which were VAGUE and GENERIC and designed to get people to DO MORE REPAIR than they actually needed.

They hoodwinked people into doing lots of unnecssary cleanup.

There was no benefit to be had by holding hands with the devil but some people thought it would help them. WRONG!

They wanted to get rid of spam and clean out their index of wasted garbage. It was panic and big noise that made it into more than it really was.

Certain types of sites got hit hard indeed - some even that were NOT guilty - but it wasn't the type of site so much - but the QUALITIES of the kind of sites they wanted OUT

Weak content on the home page - overly optimization and LACK of diveristy and social signals caused the sites to be looked at and inspected.

It was an algorhytmic thing and from what I can tell they did NOT delete all the sites they followed if the sites had some value.

[admin]

First is scare the hell out of people, second is to offer some proof of your scare tactics, third is to provide you with a solution to the problems they have scared everyone with.

Sounds like you have a winning concept for a new IM product - just make sure you charge at least $999. for it

[mikedeering]

Having a short term lease though, you get to drive a new car often.
Keeping the old car, you get stuck with maintenance and the paint starts to fade...

[MasterMind]

The leases and rentals were always fresh. No paint or body work needed. After I had the first one for 11 years I rented for a long time. After the second I rented on a 3 day basis for a few years and then finally went for a long term lease which now needs some body work and antique plates.

[MasterMind]

First is scare the hell out of people, second is to offer some proof of your scare tactics, third is to provide you with a solution to the problems they have scared everyone with.

Sounds like you have a winning concept for a new IM product - just make sure you charge at least $999. for it

If I could do that I doubt I would. I prefer logic but logic doesn't work very well. If I could talk to people for an hour I could convince them but in a web page I don't have that down at all. That's why I liked adsense so well. No selling required.