Update: Although PBNs still work, they now have a history of being targeted by Google and therefore may not be the safest option. This is why we now focus on creating online businesses that are independent of SEO traffic.
The last batch of standard single page PMDs I put up in July still doesn’t rank for their target keywords. The sites are all indexed, and even rank for some longer tail terms, but aren’t in the top 100 for any of their main keywords. I link built these using my standard news article technique on a small PBN of about 25 sites. The PBN itself shows no sign of being damaged. The batch I did in June this way ranked just fine, but these ones don’t… here are some theories as to why I think that is.
- Thin content. This is probably the reason why, and frankly I’m surprised it took Google this long to act on it. The expired domains I put up in July do rank, but I added 5 pieces of content to them. So going forward I am going to setup more content per site, and urge interns and readers to do the same. This unfortunately does add to the cost and especially the time it takes to create new sites, so coming up with a quality auto-content technique for these sites is high priority for me. More on this to come…
- Too many outbound links on linking pages. I mention this because I notice that Google has changed the way they seem to pass TBPR. I’ve noticed that with the expired domains I have setup, the TBPR doesn’t seem to pass immediately if there are to many external links on the page. I’m still trying to figure out what that sweet spot is, but for now I discount links with more than 50 external links as TBPR passing links. I also ran an experiment a few months ago in manipulating TBPR, and by all accounts it should have worked but didn’t… Now the sites I link built only had at maximum 25 external links on the page, which seems reasonable given that they were within content and part of a 400+ word article. But it could also be a problem, or could be a combination of the above.
It could also be a plethora of other things, but I’d prefer to fix #1 and #2 first before speculating further.
My Action Plan
I will immediately be adding:
- An additional 2 articles to 5 of the existing sites
- An additional 4 articles to another 5 existing sites
- An additional 9 articles to yet another 5 existing sites
I will get these 75 articles up first and see if the existing sites begin ranking. Total cost will be around $200.
If they don’t see changes in rank, it could very well be that the existing sites have already received some kind of penalty for having a single page receive 25 external links, so at the same time I will be using a different PBN to setup a new batch of PMDs targeting the same terms. I will create 7 sites with 3 articles, 7 sites with 5 articles, and 7 sites with 10 articles and begin link building them once all the content has been added. This PBN will be shooting 21 links per article from 20 different sites, which means it will require 20 articles for link building alone.
To see if perhaps the # of external links on the pages are set too high, I will be using the same PBN to build links to another 10 sites with 10 articles. But in this version, each article on the PBN will only include 10 links. All in all, this 2nd stage of the experiment will require 266 pieces of content. Note that if this last version were the only one to work then that would mean each MNS would require 12 pieces of content (10 for the site itself, and then 1 article for every 10 sites that links to it and its 9 friends). Wish to give a shot to slot games? Prior to that, read the review by https://exycasinos.in specialists. They discuss online slots in India with interesting details on the finest games, developers, RTP, and remaining vital atributes. Besides, punters will discover if it’s better to play for real funds or free games.
What This Means for You, Dear Reader
- Consider adding more content before you link build!
- Try different link building techniques.
- Deal with problems logically and methodically. Don’t lose hope!
- Don’t always copy everything I (or others) do to a tee – try out your own ideas and always iterate!
- Look back here to see the results of these experiments.
Wish me luck!
Hayden
Bradley C. says:
When you say that didn’t “rank”, do mean they aren’t ranking for their particular keywords? Didn’t get indexed? Didn’t get any TBPR? I’m not quite sure what you meant.
As a side note, it’s a shame that Google considers sites with less than 10+ pages to have no value. If I’m searching for a solution to a problem, even a one page site would be fine… as long as it solves my problem.
steve a says:
Good point, people always say Google ranks pages not sites – but the caveat i guess is that that page has to now be on a decent site.
Bradley C. says:
Google is trying to make the ultimate omelet, and breaking lots of eggs in the process.
Hayden says:
Thanks Bradley, I updated the post to clarify (they just don’t rank for their target kws)
Steve Wyman says:
“As a side note, it’s a shame that Google considers sites with less than 10+ pages to have no value”
Thats simply not true. Single page sites do rank, make money and have visitors
The 5 page model works great guns.
Proof of concept. Search flippa.com for adsense sites that a) make money b) have done so during june july and august.
What Hayden is seeing is something different as he has alluded to in his notes. And may have more to do with so many OBL from a single 400 word article.
Also its logical to me that at some point google tweaks the algo to look at domains that have dropped and are re-instated. In the medium terms its logical to block this technique by resetting a sites inbound link count and PR to 0. After all trust is being passed when its not earned.
Im not suggesting that these techniques dont work nor that they wont for some time to come.
As always Hayden you testing plan with additional pages makes a lot of sense.
I for one enjoy reading and learning from your testing.
steve a says:
I for one appreciate your openness here Hayden, and your willingness to test out ideas in the open all the while making clear that this is not a set-in-stone system.
When I got started in building web sites at the turn of the year I blindly followed what one of your fellow IM bloggers was preaching – no, it wasn’t spencer :) – the result for me was around 100 dud adsense sites and 3 months of my time down the drain. He wasn’t teaching based on his own experience, rather a rose-tinted theory/system without any substantial earnings himself from using that system.
Anyway my point is, if this blog was his, he wouldn’t have posted this post as it would have contradicted the paid advice he had been giving previously. So thank you for coming along at a time when new starters need an honest, evidence-based proof-seeking IM’er to learn from!
Matt says:
I know the person you are talking about. He now only builds “authority” sites. Says niche sites are dead and he doesn’t enjoy the business model.
But there is no need to waste time thinking about anyone else, develop your own process, test and scale.
Hayden, your blog kicks ass.
Andre Garde says:
Haha, I think we all know who *that guy* is. :)
JAmieFox says:
WHy not just call him out..
I dont like snipes.
The guy your refering to i bet is
drum rolllll
Trent Dysmid
Onlineincomelab.com
which he calls OIL an i call Snake OIL.
An oily salesman if ever their was one.
Had his “article” on niche pursuits taken down by a hail of protests..
looks like he took down all his s… about niche sites including authority stuff he was sell the “course” for what $97 a month with hundreds of people buying in.
He disclose the numbers
So stand tall and call somebody out at least that way he can respond.
Hayden says:
Thanks guys. I have no idea how one can’t feel accountable to their audience if they are teaching a technique… I felt the need to post this as soon as I found out. I try to take the weekends off and I made the mistake of checking my email, then I literally couldn’t do anything until I posted it lol.
Joe says:
I appreciate the update too. This game is all about being able to adapt. I recently launched a batch of 5 page sites. 15 obl’s on the blogs. They are showing up top 20-50 within ~3 weeks.
Marc says:
Where are you getting 75 articles for $200? Text broker?
Joe says:
Hire a writer. pay them $3 an article
Bradley C. says:
If you are talking about full “articles”, I tend to shoot for 1000 words on average… some might be 800 words, and some might be closer to 1200 (although I have had some as long as 2500 words if I’m really into the subject). All unique stuff. That’s probably why Panda never never looked twice at my sites.
The downside is that each article is more expensive or more time-consuming to create, depending on whether you outsource or DIY. Scalability also suffers when articles are this long, but ultimately I believe that the better and more content-rich your articles, the more “sticky” your site will be. Also, you’ll get more natural links from other webmasters.
Not all my pages are this long though. If I’m doing a bunch of FAQ pages (as a supplement the longer articles), those might be only 300 to 500 words.
Just my $0.02.
Joe says:
I do 1000 words on the front page. 500-600 words for inner pages. The more content the better but makes it expensive to scale. Works great if you only have a few sites though.
JP says:
Hayden,
You mentioned in an earlier post that these MNS don’t always last too long and the reason was probably thin content. If Google is forcing us to build out these sites with more content, then I would think each site would have more staying power as well. So instead of a 6+ mo shelf life, maybe its 12 or 18. At least let’s hope so, eh?
Hayden says:
Definitely. The 6 month timeline expectation was for the 1 pagers.
Phil says:
Has anyone here looked at using Article Builder? Not necessarily for the homepage or even the 1st 5 – 10 posts, but I’ve been really curious about its stated ability to “automatically post content to your WordPress blogs on the schedule you choose (up to 3 times per day, or as little as once a month)”.
Based on the direction that Google appears to be currently heading, if the auto-posted content from AB continued to stay unique, wouldn’t freshly posted articles (1-2/week?) give your site more of what G is looking for?
Hayden says:
AB was and is a great idea. Unfortunately, it is too popular and that is it’s downfall. I used AB when it first came out, and it worked well. But after a few months so many people were using it that there was dupe content all over the place. It is worth building your own content tool and keeping it to yourself.
Adam says:
Hi Hayden, if I remember correctly, you mentioned Josh the intern started to follow the same approach in July. Is he also seeing similar results?
Hayden says:
Still a bit early to tell as his link building is only partially done. Will update everyone on that though.
Syed says:
Hayden, do you think the length of the article could also be a problem?
Joe says:
I would go with 700 words on the main page. 4 other 500 word inner pages. I also roll all pages no posts. Posts do not rank as well. sorry… If you hire a writer that will cost about $16. Plus, $10 for domain costs. So, a total of $26 per site. Not bad IMO.
You will also have the cost associated with the blog nets but that can be spread out over a lot of sites. After 1 month of earnings the site is paid for.
jon says:
Are these sites all hosted out of the same data center. Just my first thought when I have sites not ranking I have seen them rank once host was changed.
Andre Garde says:
As for the posts vs. pages comment, this doesn’t matter in my experience. I have similarly ranked sites (rank #1) using either/or. Although these days I try to silo so I point posts to pages and link build using multiple targets.
I agree with Steve W above, it seems likely that it’s a function of too many OBLs on too little content on the private blog. I’m not sold on too little content on the money site as Google’s shown many times that parked domains can rank (lol). However more content never really hurts. Do a search for “what time is it”; I’ve got the #1 site as the US naval page with 7 lines of content, whereas the #2 site has tons. Of course there are other factors at play, but this is just an example.
## OBLs is fine if you have a good pillar post, I think. If you’re doing small posts like 500-1000 words then it’s more common to have less OBLs. Look at other news blogs like the NY Times. They typically have a mix of internal/external OBLs around 1 per 100 words.
Marco says:
Try to change Page Title to make it too natural and change some content on the homepage.. I had a similiar problem and now the site is on second page.. after 2 months
Tony says:
Not pbn sites but!!! Might be relevant
In the last week of August and up until a few days ago
I have built 9 Emd sites for adsense. All the sites have 5 freshly written unique Articles on them.
All built on different days.
All of them indexed.
All of them no sign of ranking even close for the search terms. They are just nowhere to be found in the serps (at all). All nine of them. There moz difficulty is 42 and under – one is 25.
Now here’s the interesting part –
Two of the sites were built in the last week of Aug. ranked straight away #10 and #8 , but i messed something up on the sites and took it down for a few days. When i put it up it never came back in the serps.
What i am thinking is that google made a change to how they are ranking new sites in the serps.
I have bought another reseller account and will test if thats the reason, but because the others still rank on the old reseller i doubt thats the deal. They were all on one hostgator reseller account. That account has 5 other sites that are getting good rankings for adsense #2 #2 #4 #4 #6
And because every body else seems to be having a new site problem with ranking I thought this might be relevant.
If the new server makes a difference I will post here.I will be adding 12 to 15 sites on this reseller this month.
Has anybody else had the same experience with the emd’s ?
Niche Wolf says:
From my personal experience, I have not seen any different in the way Google is ranking new sites. I built 4 Micro Niche Site in Aug .
2 of these sites is already ranked No 1 for their main keyword and the other two are doing great too.
So I don’t agree with the claim that Google do not rank brand new sites any more .
Well like I said this is my experience.
Dori
Arwin Adriano says:
Well, Google is unpredictable just continue what you are doing and I’m sure you’ll be able to achieve your target.
Luke says:
Hayden was this batch all EMD’s?
Nancy says:
Hi Hayden,
Any update on those sites? Did you see any change after posting the articles (prior to the EMD update)?
Thanks!
Nancy
Nick says:
Hey Hayden,
I am starting to get into buying expired domains. I have picked up 2 so far and put content on one. I was a little confused on how to initially build these sites. The first one I 301d my 404 pages with a wordpress plugin. I put 2 posts on it. I am still waiting on the results. What would be the best way to start off a domain after you buy it? 301 it? Dont 301 it? Build replica pages/urls of the highest authority links pointing to the site?
Thanks,
Nick
Rod says:
“I will get these 75 articles up first and see if the existing sites begin ranking. Total cost will be around $200.” – you only pay $3 per article? Is it total rubbish?
GregNunan says:
Fulltime VA writers.