Insurance Agent Forum

[NDagent]

My brother is in internet marketing and after reading some of theposts on here he thinks he has services than can help a few people.

After reading a lot in this forum it seems the biggest problem most ofyou have is ranking in search engines. You might have a great sitebut it's very hard to get ranked for a number of reasons. There are really two things you can do to control this. First you can optimize your web site - that's unique to everyone and can be done on
A case by case basis.

The second thing is referred to as "off page factors". The easiestthing to control for off page factors is gaining back links to yoursite. The more backlinks - the higher your site will rank. If you think about it from the search engine's point of view it goes like this: Two sites both say they sell insurance in Baltimore. They both have good unique content. However, the first one has 100 other
Websites linking to it and the second one has 3. So, the first one must be better and will get listed first.
Being listed first in the search engines is the difference between receiving 70-80% of the traffic and battling for the remaining scraps.

Not all backlinks are equal. They must be from "do follow" sources so the search engines will follow them and see the link. Many forums, blogs, new sites, etc, do not allow "do follow" back links. Also, "Page Rank" is an attribute assigned by Google to all web pages with a possible scale of 1-10. Most sites are a 1 (or 0). High page rank
Sites.

The service my brother is offering is simple: For $50 you will receive 100 links to your site. Most of these will be PR2 and above. A small portion will be lower to look natural. You get to choose three three-word variations of link text (e.g., "Baltimore life insurance", "annuities baltimore metro", etc) and a short description.

The work will be completed within 5 business days of receiving payment.

Full disclosure: This is what is commonly known as "Black hat". Black hat techniques carry some risk including de-listing by Google.

However, 100 links is a very small number of links to gain in a day or two. It is also all done manually with new accounts and is highly effective. It is against Google's policy to do this but is nearly impossible to detect and since the results are indexed over time they appear natural since they ARE natural and hand entered - not machine
Generated like many backlinking services. To get de-listed by Google you would need to generate a far higher number of back links (tens of thousands) in a short period of time. Even that doesn't mean much - think about how many backlinks a story that hits the front page of
Digg gets - literally thousands to millions in one day.
Can you do this yourself? Yes. It is very time consuming but very doable. The real question is - where is my time best spent? I learned long ago to outsource tedious tasks that don't make me money. I'd rather pay someone to mow my lawn so I'm in front of a customer
For that hour or two every week.

The results from this vary. If your competitor has 1000 backlinks you may need more than 100 (google "Backlink checker" to see how your competition ranks). If that is the case you will want to do it over time anyway. The most recent site I used this on went from not being
Found by Google to rank #1 and #2 for our keywords.
To be blunt - most insurance websites are not backlinked to often. Your business - while extremely important - is not one that generates a lot of interest and links on the web. Fortunately for you that means most of your competitors are not going to have many backlinks and will be easy to outrank.

The exact information needed includes:
1. Your site URL
2. Title(s): Up to 3 randomized during submissions.
3. Description: Up to 200 characters
4. Tags: up to 10 keywords.
5. Email: to send you the completion report. This will include the
6. Payment of $50.00 USD to payments@volcanicmd.com

Payment via PayPal is required to begin. For more information or questions PM me.

Larger packages are also available if you are in a very competative market.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

"Full disclosure: This is what is commonly known as "Black hat". Black hat techniques carry some risk including de-listing by Google"

I think that's a deal-killer for most. I'm a novice at SEO, but from what I read...why jeopardize a good site just for some short-term gratification?

[healthagent]

I know agents with not only 1st page ranking but 1st listing without employing any black hat, so why bother.

[Pangaea]

Originally Posted by CHUMPS FROM OXFORD

"Full disclosure: This is what is commonly known as "Black hat". Black hat techniques carry some risk including de-listing by Google"

I think that's a deal-killer for most. I'm a novice at SEO, but from what I read...why jeopardize a good site just for some short-term gratification?

Usually the term "illegal" is a deal breaker for anybody. I don't want to sound rude, but I don't think anyone who really values the risk their clients take when advertising online would make such a suggestion... Once you're blacklisted that domain (and possibly that server block) is done.

[NDagent]

First - thank you for the comments.
I need to clarify one thing - "black hat" techniques are NOT illegal.
Black hat simply means that you are breaking Google's "ideal" - and
Arbitrary - way of building links to a site.
Google's rules are based on the thought that links should only be
Generated naturally by people saying "Hey, look at this site" and
Posting a link. The vast majority of web sites - including Google's
Main site - break Google's rules one way or
Another.
Some simple examples of "black hat" techniques that many people use include:
-Posting a link on Digg and getting your friends/family to also Digg
The comments
-Adding backlinks via other web sites via link exchanges or payment
(with the exception of paid banners, etc)
-Adding your link to signatures in forums, etc.
These are "unnatural" according to Google and are considerd "black
Hat". However, none of these will get you banned if they are done
Manually and in small scale. In fact, one of the signatures in
Response to this very post lists a website. That website has over
1700 backlinks. A very large percentage of those would be considered
"black hat" because they were gained using a forum signature line with
A website and not "natural" back links.
Moving on - what WILL get you banned is unnatural linking. There are
Tools that can post thousand or tens of thousands of links per hour.
These tools WILL get you banned for one reason - they are automated
And therefore easy to detect.
I understand this service is not for everyone. There are other ways
Of doing this as well which are much more labor intensive and
Expensive such as building mini-nets. I can do that as well.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Is that site mine? It better not be because I have always handled linking myself. And I don't comment on many Forums.

And I thought this (below) is black hat. No?

• Invisible text. Don't put white text on a white background. In fact, don't put even very light yellow on a white background. The engines aren't stupid; just because the colors aren't exactly the same doesn't mean they can't figure out there's no contrast. Yes, there are clever ways to try to fool Google about what the background color actually is, but Google is probably aware of most of them anyway, and I won't cover them besides.
• Cloaking. Google knows what's on your site because periodically its automated robot called Googlebot visits all the pages in its index, and grabs all the page content so it can analyze it later. Cloaking means showing one page to Googlebot and a completely different page to real human visitors. Google despises this aplenty.
• Keyword Stuffing. The engines want your pages to be natural. Finding every place to cram your keywords onto your pages -- or worse, including a "paragraph" of nothing but keywords, especially if they're repeated ad nauseum -- is a big no-no. Do you consider pages with lists of keywords to be high quality? Neither does Google.
• Doorway pages. A doorway page is a page built specifically for the purpose of ranking well in the search engines and without any real content of its own, and which then links to the "real" destination page, or automatically redirects there. Doorway pages are a popular choice of some SEO firms, although Google has cracked down on this and many webmasters saw their pages disappear from the index. Some SEO firms call their doorway pages something else, in an effort to fool potential customers who know enough to know that they should avoid doorway pages. But a doorway page is still a doorway page even if you call it something else. Some engines may decide that an orphaned page is a doorway page, and if so then the page or the site might suffer a penalty.
• Spam. Spam has a special meaning with regards to SEO: worthless pages with no content, created specifically for the purpose of ranking well in the engines. You think they have what you're looking for, but when you get there it's just a bunch of ads or listings of other sites. The webmaster is either getting paid by the advertisers, or the page is a doorway page, with the webmaster hoping that you'll click over to the page s/he really wants you to go to.

(You can Google and find this online)

[Aaron_4SIGHT]

My general rule is that if you do a good job focusing on the needs of your human visitors FIRST, your search engine visitors will more-or-less take care of themselves. This means having lots of good content on your topic, titling your pages correctly, building your site so it's easy to navigate and structured correctly, and promoting your site where your relevant audience will see it. If a backlink isn't somewhere where a real human could see it and might want to click on it, it isn't a good backlink no matter what the PageRank.

[Alston]

I don't think the thread starter realized how sophisticated this audience is.

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

That's true. We owe our sophistication to posters like you, Dave, Val and others that have provided enough free SEO information to write a best-selling book!

[NDagent]

I don't think the thread starter realized how sophisticated this audience is.

I did realize how sophisticated this forum is, which is why I am a part of it. I had some replies today from people who want the service, I will have them write about their experiance with the service after. I know when I have done this with other websites in the past it has helped tremendously with traffic.

[dmiller90]

Originally Posted by NDagent

I did realize how sophisticated this forum is, which is why I am a part of it. I had some replies today from people who want the service, I will have them write about their experiance with the service after. I know when I have done this with other websites in the past it has helped tremendously with traffic.

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[Pangaea]

Originally Posted by dmiller90

913 People also Drank the Kool-Aid that Jim Jones provided!
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YouTube - Kool-aid man(Family guy)

[CPACINS]

ND, I appreciate your wanting to help get your brother business and attempt to help us as well. But why try to offer us a service that potentially could get us delisted? Even if there was only a small possibility that would happen, it doesn't make good long term business sense.

[healthagent]

I don't think you can have it both ways. If a small about of "illegal" back-links won't raise Google's suspicions then it likely won't improve ranking. I think by definition if something improves ranking Google's going to take a look at it.

[CPACINS]

Is being a little bit illegal like being a little bit pregnant?

[jeremyeast]

I am so confused, I would assume that the op is just saying that his backlink service (or his brothers) is just unnatural backlinking. Except in the case of most of us, we do the unnatural backlinking ourselves, here someone else would be doing it. I don't understand why this is considered any more black hat than going to any website and registering and then posting your backlinks. Unless I am missing something.


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[jeremyeast]

Where does the guy say anything about three way backlinks? Also where does it say and more importantly who is saying that PR 1 and 2 sites don't help you with backlinks?
If you do not understand what unnatural backlinks would mean let me try to explain natural backlinks. This would be the ideal backlink like link baiting or getting someone else to link to you as an information source. An unnatural backlink would then be me putting my backlinks in my profile as a way of self promotion. Not wrong (I do it all the time) but not natural backlinks. I hope I have been clearer!
Also why is it wrong to have someone do your backlinking? I have paid people (my secretary is one) to do my backlinks for the last couple of months. I would much rather have the time to spend writing content than registering for a ton of sites that I am not interested in anyways and getting their annoying emails forever.


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[Frankie]

Originally Posted by Aaron_4SIGHT

My general rule is that if you do a good job focusing on the needs of your human visitors FIRST, your search engine visitors will more-or-less take care of themselves. This means having lots of good content on your topic, titling your pages correctly, building your site so it's easy to navigate and structured correctly, and promoting your site where your relevant audience will see it. If a backlink isn't somewhere where a real human could see it and might want to click on it, it isn't a good backlink no matter what the PageRank.

Your general rule is a very good one Build something that is of real value to people and the SEO will take care of itself Of course there are ways to help things along a bit and to optimize but I agree that your rule should be the primary focus of any site owner and long term, that will get much better results than any black hat methods.

Build something of value and develop meaningful relationships with those visitors and you'll have not only visitors but converting visitors. All the visitors in the world won't do much if they're not converting into sales.

[jeremyeast]

Of course backlinks never hurt!

[Pangaea]

Originally Posted by jeremyeast

Of course backlinks never hurt!

Couldn't resist could you?