It's great to be here...
it's great to be "back" in the bomber zone...

I'm also glad that Kurt has created an "elite group".

I'll make my first contribution with an IMPORTANT post...
EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED IN THE SEO WORLD.

I was actually the person who gave Kurt the:
tin->silver->gold site strategy a couple
of years ago in our "behind-closed-doors"
SEO meetings. Back then, this was BLEEDING edge.

And some of it still applies...

BUT, I'VE GOT SOME GREAT NEWS:
SEO JUST GOT A LOT SIMPLER.

Forget having 10 sites, or even 5 sites in a market.
GO FOR THE 1 MEGA-WINNER (and I would say no more than 3).

If you really look at the BIG TIME SEO champs
such as about.com or even wikipedia.com
they are THE MONSTER AUTHORITY SITE.

And in my opinion, forgetting about mini-nets
and all of that jazz is exciting!

And it makes SEO cheaper...
Why because you can pour all of your resources
into a handful of sites.

All of your content...
All of your linking...
All of your thinking..
into ONE MONSTER SITE.

Now, there's A LOT to discuss about
what constitutes a HIGH QUALITY monster site.

The days of low quality sites are over.

Google looks at the bounce back rate (how
fast someone leaves your site what % leaves your site)
and other "human factors" (including the upcoming
"rate the ranking" feature).

So, although Kurt has the most advanced genius
methods on earth for creating trillions of different pages,
I think that HIGH QUALITY HUMAN CREATED CONTENT
is now A MUST (content that links to the site on other sites
is another story for another post).

Kurt, what's your thoughts on this?

Keep on bombin,
Virtuwul

Here's something I want to point out.

Matt said:
>Google looks at the bounce back rate (how
>fast someone leaves your site what % leaves your site)
>and other "human factors" (including the upcoming
>"rate the ranking" feature).

This is what I called "People Rank" years ago and have theorized for years about Google using real humans to influence their ranking.

And actually on my Big Page of SEO:
http://www.tuelz.com/big-seo.html

I wrote that the best way to deal with People Rank and the SEs is to have User Generated content.

Both Wikipedia and About.com use User Generated Content, with About.com paying certain users to write for them.

And I agree with Matt that the end goal of all of this is to point to a huge, quality web sites.

Where I disagree is about how many sites...To me, the reason to build the networks is to build a self-linking strategy, with the ultimate end goal of pushing links and traffic to the huge, quality website.

For example, www.lizardz.com could be this type of site. The main goal of my network is to send links and traffic to Lizardz, or to sites that send links and traffic to Lizardz.

Lizardz needs something like a forum, etc, where users can interact and create content. But if you want a prediction from me for 2008, it will be to forget about "VRE" and instead concentrate on User Generated Content and Niche Web 2.0.

Who is going to be the Myspace for people that like to cook? Or a YouTube just for sports or music or real estate agents or your city/country?

Start a wiki just about your favorite sport, install a program that allows you to give WP blogs to those interested in your niche. Create a Flickr just for Disneyland.

To get huge traffic, you need a lot of writers to put lots of words on lots of pages. The best way to do this is to get your visitors to become contributors.

But I believe your own network is a huge asset when it comes to promoting your one, main site by building links, sending traffic and branding.

This network is just part of the over-all SEO/linking plan, but a valuable one, IMO.

>It's great to be here...
>it's great to be "back" in the bomber zone...
>
>I'm also glad that Kurt has created an "elite group".
>
>I'll make my first contribution with an IMPORTANT post...
>EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED IN THE SEO WORLD.
>
>I was actually the person who gave Kurt the:
>tin->silver->gold site strategy a couple
>of years ago in our "behind-closed-doors"
>SEO meetings. Back then, this was BLEEDING edge.
>
>And some of it still applies...
>
>BUT, I'VE GOT SOME GREAT NEWS:
>SEO JUST GOT A LOT SIMPLER.
>
>Forget having 10 sites, or even 5 sites in a market.
>GO FOR THE 1 MEGA-WINNER (and I would say no more than 3).
>
>If you really look at the BIG TIME SEO champs
>such as about.com or even wikipedia.com
>they are THE MONSTER AUTHORITY SITE.
>
>And in my opinion, forgetting about mini-nets
>and all of that jazz is exciting!
>
>And it makes SEO cheaper...
>Why because you can pour all of your resources
>into a handful of sites.
>
>All of your content...
>All of your linking...
>All of your thinking..
>into ONE MONSTER SITE.
>
>Now, there's A LOT to discuss about
>what constitutes a HIGH QUALITY monster site.
>
>The days of low quality sites are over.
>
>Google looks at the bounce back rate (how
>fast someone leaves your site what % leaves your site)
>and other "human factors" (including the upcoming
>"rate the ranking" feature).
>
>So, although Kurt has the most advanced genius
>methods on earth for creating trillions of different pages,
>I think that HIGH QUALITY HUMAN CREATED CONTENT
>is now A MUST (content that links to the site on other sites
>is another story for another post).
>
>Kurt, what's your thoughts on this?
>
>Keep on bombin,
>Virtuwul

bye,
faraz

I heard this many times... that Google is applying this, BUT how can they know. When you click on 1 link you leave them. They can't know when people closes the window of that link(site), they can't know when people click on the "back"-button.

It seems a good way to calculate the quality of sites, but isn't really possible (I think).
If it is possible, should you then go to your competition and quickly leave their site ?

Tasari

yup I'll be interested to know we can effectively create sites that take user generated content. I suppose a way is to merge a forum beside a content site.. I think there is also a open source script that works like digg.. forgotten the name..

christopher

Just a few quick thoughts:

- Yes, creating a 2.0 experience goes a LOOONG way
in building a "Diamond site".

Really anything that builds a COMMUNITY:

- forums

- blogs

- FUN TOOLS (this area can be explored endlessly
Remember, MOST people are online to BURN TIME.
In other words, they want to have FUN).

- Useful free tools and services (Another HUUUUGE
area that can be taped into).

User content: I have recently executed some HIGHLY
successful strategies to get over 80 original articles
(and counting) from highly qualified prospects in
a contest. (I'll start a thread to explain this strategy).

===========================
My main point that I wanted to illustrate about
building your own network is that it's no
longer WORTH IT or even necessary.

There are so many new ways to get links that
trying to "fake it" is a waste of time.

Let me be clear, I don't consider HubPages
or Squidoo.com "other sites". We could
call them "tin sites" or we can just say
it's part of the linking strategy.
These sites are a POWERFUL part of the arsenal.

However, buying ANOTHER domain...
Buying hosting...
Trying to fake the registrars...
Putting up low quality content...
Worrying about Google making the connections...

ARE NOT WORTH IT ANYMORE... IMO.
They used to be, but now it's a different ball game.
The odds are almost 99% that you are going to be BUSTED.
And you've lost: the time, the energy, the money, the links
and the content.

And even if you DON'T get busted: what if you had
poured these "extra" resources into your MAIN site?
Would it rank higher? Would it have 3X more traffic?
I would venture to say: yes.

A powerful paradigm shift is: Stop trying to "beat" Google...
instead, just understand what they want and give it to them on a silver
(or golden or diamond) platter.

Let's continue the dialog...
Matt

Actually this is CHILD'S play.

3 simple ways that I know of:

1. They cookie EVERY visitor and they see where they go.
(cookie tracks them)

2. They record EVERY I.P. address and "build a database" of
it's actions. For an example, I.P. 123 searches for "dog training"
and clicks on link #3...

I.P. 123 returns to Google within 5 seconds. BOOM, the bounce
rate is recorded instantly.

3. Any site that has adsense on it gives Google A TON of data.
Scary amounts... as far as the behavior of the "IP".

Like I said: FORGET TRYING TO FOOL GOOGLE.
It ain't going to happen...

I could share some SCARY stories from some of my close
friends, but I'll save them for another time.

Rock on,
Matt

One thing I've experienced is diminishing returns for more work so maybe I'm doing something wrong or trying too many different things.

I wonder how successful some of us would be if we had just concentrated on a few sites and used the money we spent on scripts, books, etc for ppc instead.

The danger , of course, is putting a lot of time and effort into a site that just doesn't work for some reason.

I know they have a ton of data from your adsense sites but a few things puzzle me. For instance, I've had sites banned/deindexed. I've had TOS warnings and adsense serving disabled. I've had WH and BH sites banned. YET, I still have some really crappy sites and splogs still up that generate revenue from adsense. I've even seen old Traffic Equalizer sites still up with decent pagerank.

HI Faraz...

There's a variety of types of sites for User Generated Content.

A forum is probably a good place to start. If you can get a very active and vibrant forum going, you can use it to build any of the others.

There's free scripts to start your own wiki, flckr, craigslist, forum and more.

But you need to get traffic first...

Don't ask me...
I certainly don't pretend to know Google's logic or algo.

However, I have taken a long hard look at TOP sites
for BIG keywords and they are MONSTER DIAMOND SITES.

As far as putting in more work and getting less return:
WELCOME TO IT.

The truth is, the SEs have almost wiped out all of the
"push button" SEOers. If you still have sites doing well,
you are among the exception (And maybe the bombs saved
you because of their "uniqueness"?)

Nowadays, only SERIOUS, HARDCORE SEOers are in the game...
or newbies who haven't given up yet.

I'll share more BUSINESS BUILDING information soon because
I feel that JUST doing SEO is NOT a very "solid" way to live.

Just recently, the greatest SEOer I've ever met personally
just closed shop (had some cash flow issues that wiped him out).
This guy is a TRUE LEGEND.

The point is: it's harder and harder and it's only going to get
HARDER.

That's why you: PICK your battle wisely and you go DEEEEEP.
That's the process of building the monster site.

And this applies to ALL NICHES and soon will apply to micro (The Monster "Pug" sites will rule for "pugs") and even NANO-niches (The diamond "Pug gear" site will rule)...

Kurt has always helped us SEE THE FUTURE OF SEO.
If you can BUILD FOR THE FUTURE, your site will stay alive
for the long haul. If you don't... well...

You can resist the inevitable or go with it and win.
The choice is yours...

Rock on fellow bombers!
Matt

Mike brought up a very good point...These big web 2.0 sites are the biggest gamble. There's a good chance they will bust and it takes a lot of work over a period of time.

But on the other hand, if you can create a huge community in a major niche, you could be talking millions of dollars.

As I said here a while back on this page:
http://www.tuelz.com/big-seo.html

The future of SEO is User Generated Content. IMO, SEOers should be collecting content just as email marketers collect email addresses.

If you have money, you could pay writers to write for you...But to get a lot of words a day, it will cost you a lot.

UG content is unique and original. Sites that get return visitors will win the People Rank battles.

Here's just one example...If you have the Google bar installed, they can tell if your are typing into a web form and posting at a site.

If you're posting at a site, that's probably a pretty good site. And if you select the site from your bookmarks, visit it many times AND post, it's probably a very good site.

This is just one example of what I call "People Rank", where real people influence SE results and it isn't all some math algo.

If you combine the need for massive amounts of good, FREE content with the concept of People Rank, the only logical conclusion are sites where the users create tons of content and keep coming back.

I will tell you is is right, you need to listen to me.

Sure you can read what they have to say, but I have the best advice for you.

It's a 2 part system. And for some, even me, it is not alway easy to follow.

Ok, ready.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Part 1: Pick a system, one of their or your own

Part 2: Which ever one you picked, get started.

That's it.

We can all talk, and talk, and debate, and study. But many of us fail at the starting line.

You cannot go wrong by following my simple 2 step system.

BTW: They are all right.

kelvin

Let me add this: this MY OPINION, not Kurt's or anyone else's...
I just thought I would share what I'm DOING and hopefully
someone else in here will get some value.

I certainly hope Bob is making a fortune with his method.
There are black-hatters making killings out there -- no doubt
about it.

Kurt - you are right user-generated content is the way to go.
I'll start a new thread soon and reveal a GREAT strategy that
got me loads of VERY high quality user-generated content
for very little money.

Rock on bombers!
Matt

It's kind of funny, you add "diamond" to the type of sites...I was talking with Top Hat and we had to create another type for some of his pages at the bottom: plastic (Blatant spam pages). LOL

So now we have:
Diamond
Gold
Silver
Tin
Plastic

...With tin and silver sites making up the bulk of the workload when building an SEO network.