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LinkNabber claims it’s tool will “supercharge your link building, boost search engine rankings rankings (yep they put rankings in there twice) and bring you ultra targeted traffic to your site. What they don’t tell you is everything their tool offers is something you can do yourself for FREE, and it’s not that difficult. But the real question here is if their tool is effective at getting your site good rankings?

The Relevant Theory

They don’t come right out and say it, but they subscribe to the theory of backlinks to your site should be relevant. Example if you own a hotel site, backlinks to your site should be from hotels, motels, resorts, etc. According to them, Google will bless your site with good rankings if it’s algorithm senses relevant baclinks to your site. Go ahead, try to convince your competition to do a one-way link back to your site. I can’t think of a single instance where someone in my niche would want to promote my site by linking to me and give me better rankings. Granted, if I were able to secure this elusive backlink, it may help drive traffic to my site, but not necessarily help my organic search rankings.

It’s not only linknabber drinking the KoolAid when it comes to this theory; I personally know many SEO’s who will argue this false claim until they are blue in the face. You’ll frequently hear SEO’s/SEM’s write or talk about how 10 good relevant links are better than 1000 non-relevant ones. So I ask these SEO’s, what 10 relevant links do I need to secure for each niche out there? Impossible to say??? So in other words, unless you hit the lottery by securing the exact “10 relevant links” in Google’s formula, you will need to build thousands of links from many sites to have a chance? Answer: YES! There goes that theory.

How LinkNabber Works

I’m not going to spend to much time on this – it’s rather silly. After you pay the one time fee of $20 per domain, you will be able to download your purchase. The tool acts as a mini search engine which goes out and for sites relevant to yours and pulls up their contact information. From here you can contact the owner of the relevant website and email and try to convince them to link to your site. That’s it!?!

How many times have you received emails from other site owners begging for a backlink from your site? Well, you can thank LinkNabber for the SPAM.

Verdict

Here is yet another paid service that can easily be accomplished for Free. I mean, how hard is it click on a websites contact information and email them, begging for a backlink? What website owners need is someone who can secure  backlinks for them. It’s not easy work and that’s why there are so few of us legitimate SEO’s out there.

With the explosion of online businesses comes a huge increase in the number of people trying to make a quick buck by selling and buying websites.  Because there are so many choices to the buyer, it becomes difficult to weed through the legitimate sites and the crappy ones.  One marketplace popular among vendors is Flippa.  Their platform allows website owners to sell, and prospective buyers to browse and purchase a piece of internet real estate.  The challenge is to know which sites have value and which ones will leave you feeling cheated.

Flippa doesn’t care about Quality

This is the first thing you need to accept when it comes to buying sites on Flippa.  They are in business to make money and could care less if someone’s getting ripped off.  With each sale, Flippa makes 5%, which is either paid by the buyer, seller, or split between the two.  Besides the 5% success fee, they charge vendors a listing fee, and have multiple upgrade options so the site for sale will get better exposure to the marketplace.  There is no discount for selling a quality site.  Cash is King.

Most common sites For Sale

Flippa offers a variety of sites for sale. But I’d say 99% of them are cheap Word Press template sites created in about 5-10 minutes. Vendors are able to create sites quickly by utilizing an existing Word Press template or reusing the same design and only changing colors and widgets.  There is usually nothing unique about the design (which is not that big of a deal), but what about the content?

Unique Content

While browsing the marketplace for a site to buy, you will see a section on the sales page stating if the vendor is “claiming” the content to be unique.  While most sellers will claim their content is unique, one must understand what their definition of “Unique” is.  For example there are hundreds of article spinners that rewrite existing content by changing around sentences, moving words, using synonyms, etc, etc.  Most will claim once the article has been spun, it is now unique content. I dissent.

If you decided to rewrite a classic book like Tom Sawyer, using the same storyline but changing a few sentences, and words, do you not think people familiar with the story will call you a plagiarizer? You can tell the story about how Tom Sawyer “painted a fence white” instead of “white-washed the fence” – but it’s still the same story.  In fact Google is familiar with multiple versions of the same stories (content) and if they hear one more, they are going to lose their mind!

Age of a Site …Not of a Domain Name

The age of a site is important in my opinion.  There is nothing like finding an old site (3+ years old) that the owner had no idea what he was doing with.  For some reason, Google places great importance on aged sites, and it shows in the search rankings.  That’s not to say you don’t need to optimize the website.  In fact the only reason you may get a bargain on an old site is because the owner didn’t know what he was doing, (i.e. never built backlinks or added content).  You have to be quick and lucky to nab one of these sites at a discount.

WARNING:  Do not confuse old sites with “aged domains”.  These are two totally separate areas.  Just because I secured the domain www.Icanshowyouhowtogetyourexbackinnotime.com back in 1994 doesn’t mean it is worth a penny.  Unless you actually put up a website with unique content and kept it active the entire time, it is worth nada, nothing, zilch; and if anyone tells you different they’re a liar!  With that said you will see hundreds of “aged domain” claims on Flippa…it means nothing!

Should you buy a site on Flippa?

If you are experienced, you can get lucky once in awhile and find a diamond in the rough. It’s like gold mining trying to find a decent site for an experienced SEO like myself.  If you are new to the world of online business, Flippa is a horrible way to start.  For a newbie, it is easy to get sucked into a snake oil salesman pitch and ending up with a piece of junk. 

With all the crooks in the world of online marketing schemes shouting at you, it’s hard to determine which voice to listen to.  If you have any questions about SEO or online business, I sincerely hope you ask me before you waste your time and money.  Best of Luck!

Every once in awhile a cool link building service comes around and gets us excited. Buzzstream.com isn’t one of those times.

Social Networking….…..Again?

A few years ago Social Networking shot off and it was all anyone could talk about. So many tools were created like Facebook ,Twitter , MySpace , LinkedIn , Nexopia, Bebo, Hi5, Hyves, StudiVZ, iWiW, Tuenti, Nasza-Klasa, Decayenne, Tagged, XING, Badoo, Skyrock , Orkut , Friendster, Mixi, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, renren, Cyworld, email, Digg, RSS Feeds, blah-la-blah-blah-blah.

Hypnotized like Sheep

Once word got out, bloggers and website owners were hypnotized and saw a quick way to gain rankings and make some money. Unfortunately for them, the only ones making the money were the creators of the Networks and slimy SEO’s selling customers a Social Networking platform. I like to compare it to the Gold Rush in 1849. When one man found gold, word got out and attracted every swinging $@!% to go West and seek his riches. They found out real quick, the only people getting rich were the one’s selling the Gold Claims and Supplies. The same can be said about Social Networking as an SEO strategy.

What is it?

Buzzstream.com is nothing more than a cheap algorithm that searches articles, blogs, comments, posts, etc, for your interested keywords. Their claim is you’ll find other sites with the same niche and be able to make a social connection. For example, if I was in the diet pill business, I would search for the keyword phrase [diet pills], and depending on my plan I would receive 10,000 – 80,000 searches per month I can store in my buzzstream account. Does it sound confusing?

Like-Businesses don’t Socialize

What I have found when it comes to business is nobody wants to associate socially with their competition. For example, my father owns an auto repair garage. He doesn’t call up his competitor from “Mike’s Auto Service” and discuss how they can mutually scratch each other’s back. They are there to make money. How does this relate to SEO? OK, let’s say I subscribed to Buzzstream and found 10,000 articles/blog posts about diet pills. My goal would be to get a ONE-WAY Backlink to my site from their site to improve my rankings for a particular “diet pill” phrase. Why in the world would the owner of another diet pill site want to help me, his competition, rank better in Google and make more money?

Breaking the Bank for??

Their service is quite expensive for what you get. They offer four packages all billed on a monthly basis. The prices are $49.99, $99.99, $199.99, and $399.99. Of course they have “custom plans”, whatever that means? The point is these prices wouldn’t be bad if it was a program that would actually work, but it’s not, and that makes it outrageously expensive.

Verdict

Of course topseos, which is a scam, has these guys ranked high for link building software. Which is even more reason to deem topseos.com a joke. Our recommendation is to avoid this tool and company at all costs.

While drinking Santa’s milk and spying on a few of my competitor’s websites (oops), I noticed they had a fancy graphic of an award claiming their link building tool was in the “Top 5 for Best Link Building Software and Tools”. Suddenly milk shot up through my nose and I started laughing hysterically.  I thought to myself, “Surely these guys just made this award up on Photoshop and inserted it on their website.”   I’m very familiar with their crappy “Link Building Software” and there’s no way in Hell it’s even in the Top 5000+.

Time to Investigate

After cleaning up the spilt milk and drying my eyes from the tears of laughter I did a little research. 

It turns out the so-called “independent authority on search vendors” is a company that’s been around for a few years.  They go by the name of topseo(dot)com, and they claim to go out of their way to review various seo software tools and SEO consultants; and by looking at their site, they would have you believe they do this out of the kindness of their heart. 

SEO companies, all you have to do is submit your information – name, website, company name, email address, and phone number and one of their representatives will contact you to rank your site.

Maybe I’ll give it a Shot

After filling out all the required information I submitted the electronic form.  Almost instantly a pit hit my stomach.  I’ve been snookered before by some low-life’s selling “Theatre Quality Home Speakers” out of the Back of their van…ouch! My Spidey-senses were tingling albeit I waited to see what would arise.

The Email

The first piece of evidence I’ll present is an email with some good news.  After a quick scan, topseos.com was confident enough to deem my site in the Top 10, Number 6 to be exact.  Heck, they even sent me one of those cool badges to post on my site!  But then my excitement turned to sadness.  One of my so-called competitors were still ranking above me…how could this be?

The Phone Call

Lucky for me I received a phone call from topseos.com to fill me in.  He said he was the owner, (he had a weird name I can’t quite remember – something like “Jeeves”).  Anyways, I expressed my concern about my site only being #6, while less worthy sites were in the Top 5.  He calmly explained to me they had a formula to figure out the rankings, and there were easy instant ways to improve my sites Spot.  My Spidey-Senses were tingling a lot now!

The Van with the Speakers arrives

The first thing he wanted to do was analyze my site in depth, and this was going to cost me some money!  Second, he assured me after the in depth research was completed my site would rank higher, but I would have to pay $X,XXX per month to ensure my sites rankings were advertised on topseos.com.  He insisted his top clients pay good money to be ranked on his site, but he was willing to let my rankings be advertised over my competitors if the cash offer was sufficient.

WTF? This is quite the racket Jeeves has here.  Topseos would want you to believe they are an “Independent Authority on Search Vendors” when they are nothing more than a cheap thin affiliate site extorting money from SEO companies!

Verdict

What a scam!  I have now decided I will review and investigate every SEO Tool for myself and let you know if they really are valid.  Whatever you do, don’t buy or try anyone on their list until you do diligent research.  Heck, you can even ask me first and I’ll let you know if you should proceed or not.

Like one “positive” reviewer stated on the BuildMyRank.com website, “I’ll cut to the chase.” This review is by no means positive, but it will inform you of what you really need to know.

For those of you who don’t know about BuildMyRank.com, it’s an SEO company that has created a tool that allows you to conveniently place keywords into your articles, which will then lead to more clicks and ultimately rank your site higher up in the search engines. Search engine optimization is the all the rage these days and has been proven to increase traffic to websites and build website ranking much faster than before. Companies like BuildMyRank use this to their advantage by creating a “tool” to help the site owner with links, but they also charge you for something that has not been proven to work.

The Hype

One thing a company will do to promote their website is to either pay for positive reviews or give their services away for free in return for a positive review of it – this is the case with BuildMyRank.com. Not only are their reviews positive, they’re over-the-top positive – almost as if they were planned. Here’s how easy it is to write a positive review:

“I’ve tried all the other SEO services out there, but no one has been able to help me build my rank faster than BuildMyRank.com. Not only has traffic increased to my site, but it also has gone from page 4 rankings to the top of Google’s page one ranking! Thank you BuildMyRank.com!” – Pippy L.

The Review

It would be nice to get a crack at this SEO tool and see exactly how it works; after all, the video on the website uses a “test” website and never actually shows you the end result or the page rankings. They do show you how much you’ll be paying for the service: $2.00 per link added to your article and what looks like a $50.00 subscription fee.

BuildMyRank.com is no longer accepting new customers based on the fact that they’ve grown too fast and can’t service their customers. How bizarre. Normally, a company that grows quickly turns their profit into paying to increase support – they don’t close their doors and say they’ll be back later. This really looks like they’ve either hooked some people, took the money and left, or their software really doesn’t work.