The Shocking Truth Behind Blog Networks
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been intrigued to learn more about SEO. To learn, try, tweak and experiment with hundreds of different SEO strategies, tools, and software. Ok, maybe not hundreds, but a lot of damn stuff! Anyway, SEO used to be really hard for me. When I first got started, I thought I had to do everything manually. After several months of writing full 500-word articles for one measly backlink, I had a breakthrough. Not quite a breakthrough, but I stumbled across a couple of blog networks. Networks that allowed me to miraculously submit hundreds of variations of my articles to thousands of their websites.
Yes blog networks, I know you’ve heard of them… who hasn’t? If you don’t already know… Blog networks are paid services you sign up for that allow you to submit content to hundreds or even thousands of their high Page Rank websites. The concept is really simple: you pay a monthly fee, and you’re able to submit an unlimited amount of articles into their network of usually high-page-rank and aged websites. Of course, you’re allowed to include a couple of links to your sites within each article you submit. Honestly, blog networks aren’t as great as they used to be.
The Sad Blog Network Truth…
They basically have a timeline. They open up with several hundred domains that are aged, high PR, and have a few hundred pages each. Then a load of marketers join, start submitting spun content into the network which slowly gets dripped out to a few hundred sites. For the first couple of months, everything is “gravy” and everyone is seeing great results from using the network. All because the sites are all high PR, old, and authoritative. Not for long though…
What’s been happening is sites getting de-indexed and entire networks getting banned from the search engines. As Google is seeing the same obviously spun content sent to several hundred sites. Eventually, Google and “the others” recognize hundreds of these sites receiving similar variations of the same content. The content sucks, and no backlinks are being built to the thousands of internal pages being created. This results in sites losing Page Rank and becoming pretty useless. So, I’ve found that most blog networks share a sad fate.
However, they can in fact last. Now I’ve got that negative crap out the way, listen to this…
There are some networks out there that are actually building links to the pages created on their blogs. Ok, so I don’t have a list of anything, but I know it’s happening. There are also a few networks that aren’t accepting spun content. At first, I wondered what egghead conjured up the stupid idea of no spun content. When really, it’s far more effective, let me explain…
The number one problem with blog networks is them accepting lots of badly spun content. A lot of the time, they accept duplicate content that’s been automatically spun using some tool like The Best Spinner. When they spread duplicate spun or just badly spun content throughout their network of sites, they get devalued, rendering them useless. So there are a few networks that don’t accept spun content. They only accept snippets of UNIQUE content. When you submit the unique content, it only goes out to one site. As I was saying, what idiot conjured up the unique content idea? When really, one unique snippet of content with a contextual backlink sent to one high PR and aged domain is five times more powerful than submitting a spun piece of content into a bad network. I think that’s where blog networks are at right now. I’ve personally tested dozens of networks; in the beginning, they were great. After the masses join, they start to get massively devalued. It’s just all that terrible spun content. The sites lose Page Rank, and they even get de-indexed.
A great example would be Unique Article Wizard. The thing worked like crazy in early 2010. Over the last year, UAW exploded and thousands upon thousands of spun articles are getting submitted into their network of “high quality” blogs daily. Now… the network sucks. Although new sites are added daily, I see poor results from my UAW submissions. Most of the sites have no Page Rank, are full of ads, fairly new, and full of spun content.
With all that being said, blog networks are still great for building one-way backlinks. Think about this: contextual backlinks are the best. Backlinks within content, so in order to build contextual backlinks, you need to produce content. Then you need to submit that content to a load of websites. Once I produce a piece of content and spin it, here’s where it goes:
- Article Directories
- Web2.0 Sites
- Unique Article Wizard
- My Article Network
- + more blog networks
So really, the more blog networks you join, the better. They’re just extra backlinks you can get from one piece of content. Why only get 500 backlinks from a piece of spun content when you could get 5000? Although the spun content networks slowly get worse, they’re still extra backlinks, right? You only have to take the time to copy and paste your spun articles into them. Now here is a list of the top 4 blog networks:
- Build My Rank
- Article Ranks
- Unique Article Wizard
- My Article Network
There are a ton more, but those are the four I’ve had good experiences with. Article Ranks, UAW, and MAN all accept spun content and are sort of traditional blog networks. Build My Rank is very different, they only accept unique content. They accept snippets of 150+ words. Each snippet goes out to one of their high-Page Rank blogs. Also, the reason I recommend them is that they actually build links to your snippets. They bookmark your backlinks, submit the RSS feeds, and syndicate them on a bunch of web 2.0 sites. They’ve really “fixed” what all the other networks have wrong. Duplicate content and weak sites. I honestly believe BMR will remain strong as long as they accept unique content and build links to everyone’s submissions.
Blog Network Tips
Now that I’ve filled you in on the whole blog network situation, there are some tips you can follow to supercharge your results. Here goes it…
- Energize Your Links – Energizing your links basically means syndicating them. I use a tool called Backlink Energizer for that.
- Create And Submit Feeds – If you don’t know, RSS feeds can help get stuff indexed fast! The best thing to do is head over to Links2RSS and paste in all of your blog network backlinks. Links2RSS will allow you to create a big RSS feed out of your backlinks, which you can submit to RSS aggregators.
- Comment Blasts – Comment backlinks aren’t the highest of quality, but they sure do help get stuff indexed. They also sort of supercharge your links.
- Forum Profile Blasts – Same concept as the comment links. Forum profiles can be created in mass with the help of a few tools. Just blast your blog network backlinks with profiles, and you’ll see superior results!
In prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.
Comments
Linda Thompson
This post is absolutely amazing, David! I’ve been trying to figure out why my SEO results have been stagnating lately, and now I understand. Thank you for your thorough explanation of blog networks. It really opened my eyes!
Mark Edison
I’m honestly a bit skeptical about the whole blog network thing. Do you have any concrete examples of results? It sounds like these networks have a very short shelf life, and I’m worried about investing time and resources into something that could soon be devalued.
Sandra Lee
This post is super informative, but I do have a few questions. How do you personally ensure that the networks you use are building strong backlinks and not just distributing spun content? Also, what tools do you recommend for checking the quality of the backlinks generated?
James H.
I think you make some valid points, but I feel like there are still some benefits to using blog networks, even if they are becoming less effective. The key might be to use them in combination with other SEO strategies to maintain a balance. What do you think?
Alice Martinez
Hey David, it’s been a while since we last caught up! Great post, as always. Let me know when you’re free for a chat; we should meet up soon. I’m curious to know how things are going for you with SEO nowadays. Hope you’re doing well!
Paul Anderson
This is exactly what I’ve been struggling with! I’ve been using several blog networks for my SEO, and lately, I’ve noticed that they aren’t performing as they used to. Your explanation about de-indexing and poor content is spot on. I guess it’s time to rethink my strategy.
Michael Gray
Have you heard about Backlink Energizer? It’s a tool I’ve been using that helps me power up my backlinks from blog networks. You should definitely check it out if you’re looking to energize your links more effectively.
Emma Roberts
This post was a real eye-opener for me. I’ve been blindly relying on blog networks without realizing how much their value can drop over time. Thanks for explaining the risks so clearly. Now I know how to adjust my strategy and improve my backlinking process.
