Page 3 - 17.000 coop weight to (dis)proof Google Bowling

Just an OT FYI, the server you host the php file on does not have to be the same as the site you are checking.

Yah, I don't think there's nearly enough links to hurt yet.

I agree that we should wait a little more than the current 4 weeks before any conclusion are drawn, but since there are already 10.000 links pointing to the site while before there were only 30, it would seem that the number of links are not really the issue.

But anyway, the experiment will last for a good few months more, so the number of links will increase as well and we will have a better view of things.

I think the real test will be when we get another algo update. When there's a major shake up, SEO forums light up with posts like: "Help my site fell from page 1 to page 14".

/*tom*/

I'll take that bet. In fact, I already have. I put my money where my mouth is, literally. That test site is my main business site (well, one of them). I think more likely, the links will have no significant effect.

I think longcall911 is right, we'll know more after the next big SERP update.

this thread is great - i always wanted to know what 10K IBL's would do - Now we know a jolt for the first month and soon we will see what will happen in the next 3 months.

tfbpa - very nice of you to share this test with all of us here.

Rock solid!




MSN: 6,170

It's been a little while, but since there were no big changes I thought an update wasn't neccesary. Rankings remain good and no sign whatsoever of a penalty of any kind, just some minor flux which might be due to some weight problems 2 weeks ago. Has been back to 16.000/17.000 since last week.





MSN: 5,411

I think 10k is certainly enough, especially when compared to how many it started with.

I've said for 18 months, and now put my business site on the line as a test case to provide evidence, backlinks alone cannot harm a site. I don't care if you throw 100,000 at my site from porn, gambling, viagra, etc. The only way backlinks MIGHT hurt is if the site already has trust issues. I'm not convinced they will hurt then either, but it wouldn't surprise me in that case.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if we changed the anchor text on all of those links to something competitive that the site has not ranked for in the past - maybe "user centered web design" or just "web design". I'd bet the site would improve for those terms upon changing the anchor text, temporarily, and then fall back to where it started.

You're on Brandall!

You deserve some extra clients for letting me use your site for the experiment!

All weight has been taken off the previous keywords and "Web Design" is used instead.

It will be interesting to see what will happen to the rankings of the previously used keywords as well.

This also means that the second experiment isn't neccesary, as the site is now trying to rank for a very competitive keyword, maybe too competitive but we will see.

At least you got the right attitude

Not much happened the last few weeks. It has been 10 weeks since the beginning of the experiment and still no penalty given for 10.000's of unrelated backlinks.

What I've learned from this experiment sofar:

1) A whole lot of unrelated one-way links to an established domain with very few original backlinks doesn't seem to hurt.
2) Unrelated one-way links can get a site ranked, which indicates that themed linking is not neccesary.
3) MSN is first to respond with rankings due to backlinks, followed by Google and Yahoo response time is by far the biggest, but it still responds.
4) All 3 SE's rank single keywords to some extend, even when all anchortexts used are 2 words.
5) Both MSN and Google give higher rankings for those single keywords than Yahoo. Meaning it seems better to focuse on precise anchortexts if you want to rank well in Yahoo.
6) allinanchor for Google and inanchor rankings for MSN seems to have the same rankings as the regular keywords. Meaning they both give a whole lot of importance to backlinks.
7) It doesn't seem neccesary for the links to mature in order to rank, as most of them change every time the page loads.

This is what I've learned so far, please tell me yours as well. The backlinks will be pointed to the domain for several more weeks, minimum. As it would be interesting what will happen to the more competitive keyword "Web Design".




Backlinks according to MSN: 6,350

In other words folks, as many of us have been saying all along, google bowling (in this way) is a myth.

I'm sort of surprised these links don't show up in "contain the term" results....