Power of Backlinks Demonstrated
Note: Before you read this post I am not in anyway saying you should do this. This is purely an example, with proof, to show what backlinks can do.
Do you know how powerful backlinks are? Sure they can help you rank well in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs), but did you know that with backlinks alone you can maniuplate the SERPs?
I have in the past shown examples of ranking a website for a keyword phrase that is not included on that site, and that alone goes against the very nature of what we all learn about SEO. Now there are reason why this can be done, the more competition in a niche the harder it will be.
However I can show you something even more amazing, ranking a site for a keyword that is both not mentioned on the website AND has no relevance at all to the websites content.
Go visit Google and search for:
st louis aids cure
And you should see something like this:
What we have here is 4000 forum profile links with the anchor text 'st louis aids cure' being pointed at www.stlouisautoglass.net, and that has resulted in them ranking for this phrase. They obviously have NOTHING to do with this search phrase.
Now you are not going to get results like this from some dodgy Xrumer blast on Fiverr from some noob, so don't rush off and order 10,000 profiles (done wrong you can really mess things up).
However I hope that helps to show you how powerful just backlinks can be. Imagine if you added them to a consistent and high quality backlinking structure...
Recent Comments
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So this phrase is used only as a link from the forums? I find that interesting, in theory then a good auto poster could buy you a high ranking and contrary to popular belief the same text in a link does not hurt you? I would never have guessed, but how long before Google daddy gets wise to that?
Amen to that, and a nice clear example. PS love the Mr. T Potatohead. "PITY TH' FOOL THAT DON'T KNOW SEO!"
FYI the above has been page 1 in the SERPs for 13 months now. It was position 1 before Panda...
@jatdebeaune: well this is an extreme example, and its partly down to the fact that Google likes to show some results rather than none. If you tried doing this in a competitive niche you could rank still but you would not get a page 1 result, well not so easily... the point being it is not as black and white as many people say...
@Labman ... with regards to local search I am using Google.com.au ... so while the local search element of 'st louis' is valid the fact it turns up here in Oz is not. Also if you think they are ranking for the term 'st louis' then you would be wrong, it is the whole term... the company actually no longer exists, which was one of the reason that URL was picked to test this out.
Looks like local marketing strikes again. St. Louis Auto Glass probably has a local SEO link workin for it.
@The Dressage Husband: you must remember it will not work on a niche with traffic... not on its own. All we have shown here is that Google does really look at backlinks... we actually ranked that site for about 30 different terms... but unless WA has a certificate 18 I cant really mention them!!!
Why did we do this? Well it was an experiment in negative SEO... i.e. would a lot of bad backlinks, using bad terms (various things to do with sex, drugs etc) harm a sites real organic listings... this was tested on a number of different sites in differt niches
So the results... no.. it did not harm their proper rankings at all.
Which again takes us to a fact that if it was as easy as creating backlinks to put somebody in a 'sandbox' or harm their rankings then we would all be running negative SEO on our competitors...