Summer Of Broken Things 2.0
Originally sent to the GrindstoneSEO email list.
By Grind — Founder of GrindstoneSEO. Building links since 2006. @GrindstoneSEO
Yeah, I know it's late fall..almost winter. Don't care.
I'm finishing this story. Read it or not, I'm writing it.
But before I get into that, let me get the two things of value out of the way first. Then those of you looking to be (maybe) entertained can keep reading.
First, the second test I mentioned in Part 1 (three months ago lol wtf):
One of my smart friends showed something to me and we discussed it and then I went straight to testing.
Lot to unpack there and I'd be lying if I said I knew what every one of those attributes was actually measuring so I just dove into testing, as I'm known to do.
Our hypothesis was that this part 'penguinEarlyAnchorProtected (type: boolean(), default: nil) - Doc is protected by goodness of early anchors.' was a quality signal.
IE, how good was the site you got your first anchor with that keyword on. Easy peasy to test, I had a parasite on page 3 for a nice term with zero linkbuilding at the time.
Went and found a really good placement...like really good...like another parasite basically, one that typically marks your shit sponsored and no followed but also one I had a good relationship with and I asked them if they'd let me pay more for a one time anchored link without the covenants for 'research purposes'.
Money talks, bullshit walks and $1200 poorer but with a sexy ass exact anchored link from DR93 site to DR85 parasite, I'm now on page 1, position 4.
Cool cool, that's fun but that's not the test. The test is can my good early anchor 'protect' the spam I'm about to drop on it.
10 PBN links, all the same anchor. Not exactly a high quality network, everyone buys these and they're likely some % toxic in general. The type of network I never build anchored links on for reasons that should be obvious if you've ever read any of my previous emails or tweets...
Zero movement. Not up. Not down. Nothing.
I wait a week and then run them through Colinkri just to make sure they got crawled.
Nada. Zilch, Meh.
Ok, what about higher volume spam? Let's find out. Fire up GSA SER and my super quality high filtered settings. Gets me 212 links over 4 anchors, roughly equally.
The same exact anchor I built before and 3 other similar terms it ranks page 1/page 2 for.
Plan is to wait a week and then Colinkri them.
But I don't have to...main term goes from 4 to 2. Yeah, you heard me. GSA SER direct to the parasite moves the needle while the probably clapped PBN did nothing.
And, here's why you're still reading this...the other three terms all went down. Significantly. Page 6 or lower. Almost like a good old fashioned -50. But I've been told those don't exist any longer. Snicker.
So did the strong early anchor protect the page from further anchor bombs? Small test needing both further exploration and some reverse back testing to prove or disprove the contrary but early indicators are yes, a really good first anchored link can protect you down the road.
On this particular test we'll never know because Google wiped this parasite off the map in the August update, thanks loudmouth SEO bloggers who constantly talk about parasites in the open.
Second, I turned the consulting option back on over at https://clients.grindstoneseo.com/
My schedule has finally chilled out enough that I can start sharing some of my time again. If you were on the waiting list for this, there you go.
Third, there will be a Black Friday email on Friday. Or maybe a Cyber Monday email on Monday if I go snowboarding on Friday. Which is likely.
That's it for useful SEO stuff.
What follows is me documenting the weirdest summer of my recent life. Read it or not, I don't care. This is more for me than you so I don't forget all the shit that went down.
Actually, strike that. I'm just going to hit send and write that one over the weekend. Hopefully it'll help me get in the habit of mailing more often again.
Hope the universe is treating you all well and you have a fantastic Thanksgiving. Or whatever the rest of the world is doing tomorrow.
Cheers,
Grind
P.S. Still building kick ass link campaigns, link to buy is just above so I won't repeat it again. If you're not filtering your placements by ranking quality of the site you're linking from, you're really really doing it wrong. Stop building grenades, start building skyscrapers. Do the needful.
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