Click on the video above to watch Episode 146 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
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The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Bradley: I don't know why. What's up, everybody? This is Bradley Benner with Semantic Mastery, and this is Hump Day Hangouts for August 23rd, 2017. We've got Chris and Hernan and Marco on with us today. Do not have Adam, he's preparing for the end of his life.
Hernan: Something. A little event that he's holding.
Bradley: Yeah, he's preparing for the end of his life. He's getting married. So. Anyways, I'm going to go right on down the line and say hey to … Hello to everybody. Hey, Chris, how are you?
Chris: Doing good, excited to be here and yeah, it's a really exciting week, but Marco will tell you guys more about that.
Bradley: Yes, yes it is. Adam's commenting in Slack, I wonder if he heard me. Hernan's up next, what's up Hernan?
Hernan: Hey guys, what's up? Yeah, super exciting news, super excited for the coming days. It's really good to be here.
Bradley: Awesome. And what about you, Marco?
Marco: Man, I'm working like a Budweiser Clydesdale, dude. Pulling that fucking cart. Oop, sorry, I forgot this is PG, sorry. Man. Working hard.
Bradley: Working hard or hardly working?
Marco: No, man, I'm, you know, it takes a lot of moving parts to get a product like this out. We have just a bunch of things that we have to coordinate, and things have to be right, because we like to treat our people right, and so … But it should be ready on the 28th. Or, sorry, it will be ready on the 28th. No matter what. Come hell or high water, it will be ready, it will be done.
Bradley: Awesome-
Hernan: Sorry, sorry Bradley, but it will be an ongoing training, right Marco? Like, if we can dive a little bit in to that, it will be an ongoing training. You have a bunch of webinars set up for the upcoming weeks, is that correct?
Marco: That's the great part. We actually listen to people who buy shit from us, right? We don't just sell our stuff and then run away and never answer any of our emails or … We have a group that's been supported for two years in Facebook, right? We're in the … I'm in there every day, answering questions, just back and forth with people. And yeah, so one of the things is they'd like more training, they want it to go more in depth into everything, another thing and explore new venues and better ways to manipulate. And so, we have, right now, a series of 12 webinars, which will be held every two weeks that will go on as long as they need to, so that we can get the information out, whether it's an hour, whether it's two hours, they'll just go for however long they need to go so that the information is delivered clearly and all the questions are answered.
If people come up with new ideas or things that they would like to look at and explore and things like that, then we will just add to the list. I mean, I'm open to anything and everything with RYS, and the reason for this is, as I was telling you guys, this is the last course that I'm ever going to … I'm tired of people grabbing my stuff and calling it theirs, you know? You see it all over. You see copycats, you see imitators and just people who are totally unethical. And I'm tired of that, and so from here on out, everything's going behind the user interface and software.
Marco: And that's it.
Bradley: Yep.
Chris: Well, there might be a private high-end meetup with just me.
Marco: Well, yeah, but that's different, because people, at that level, we'll have to … Well, in this one, too, you'll have to sign a document, non-disclosure, non-compete. And that's the way that you try to minimize people sharing and giving out your stuff as if it's theirs. They'll have to license it for anything that they do. I mean, it's just that simple.
But yeah, I mean, if people are open for something high-end, I have some way-out stuff to share.
Chris: Yeah, the potent stuff, don't share it, man, it's too powerful to be out there on the internet. Behind closed doors, we keep that to ourself for now.
Bradley: Keep it in house, keep it in house.
Marco: Alright, so, I'd better stop talking, man. Let's go.
Bradley: Alright, let's do it. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about the launch as well, because Marco's … The last time was two years ago and I don't know why my video's blurry, but anyways, it's been still effective, two years later, which is crazy, so I'm really curious … I haven't even seen what's in the new version. So, you guys are all going to see it the same time I do, really. I mean, Marco said I could have access to it between now and Monday but that was literally just green lighted today, right? Because we just got all the videos up, so. Anyways.
Alright, we're going to get into questions, guys, we've got quite a few, so let's jump into it. Alright, let me know when you guys can see my screen.
Hernan: You have the camera man on? Sorry, [inaudible 00:05:25].
Bradley: Yeah, I just took care of that.
Hernan: Okay, cool.
What IP Should One Use When Accessing Multiple Client PBNs From Different Hosts?
Bradley: Melbelle, she says “Hey guys, could you please explain what IP I should log into my PBNs with? I get the whole hosting and different companies and everything, but I'm still logging in to them to work from the same computer, how do I work around that?”
Alright, there's a couple of things, now, I haven't looked into this in at least two years, Mel, so you'll have to confirm this, but as of two years ago, one of the easiest ways to solve the problem was to do it from Firefox or another browser outside of Chrome, other than Chrome, I meaN, and also to use a plugin, if you're talking about WordPress sites, there's a plugin that you can use called “Remove Google Fonts References.” We can go look it up real quick.
But yeah, when I used to … I don't run … I have very few PBNs right now because I let most of them expire, I just don't use them anymore. So, it's not something that I really worry about too much anymore, but when I had a large PBN and I was managing hundreds of sites, that was back a couple years ago, and this was one of the ways that I would prevent or reduce the chance of leaving a footprint from always logging in from the same IP, right? Which is to remove the Google Fonts references from … Because by default, Google Fonts are part of WordPress code. And so, by logging in with Google code on the site, you're basically given Google access to the IP that's logged in to that WordPress site.
And so, by removing that and using a web browser other than Chrome and also making sure that, for example, because there's … And we cover this kind of stuff inside the Syndication Academy, but if you have your default search engine in Firefox, for example, as Chrome, then Google is still seeing … Or, excuse me, your default search engine as Google, in Firefox, then Google is still seeing pretty much what you're doing through the Firefox browser, because they have their search engine and that search bar is sitting right on top of the browser, if that makes sense.
So, what I would do is always make sure, and again, we cover this in Syndication Academy, but I would make sure that Bing or Yahoo or something else was selected as the default search engine for Firefox. And then, for every WordPress site, I would do the Remove Google Fonts References plugin.
This is it here. And by doing that, you basically remove any Google Fonts from the WordPress files on the site and that supposedly, and again, two years ago it worked. I haven't tested any of that stuff in at least two years, now, so I would confirm all of that. Maybe Marco or Chris or somebody can comment on this. You guys think that would still work?
Chris: So, what I … yes, that still works. So what I do is, I use a separate IP and I use Firefox to go and I have a separate user profile in the Firefox To Go. So, I have multiple Firefox To Go versions, each has a separate user profile and on top of that I just swap the IPs between them. So, that way I don't have to worry about any cookie interferences or any other issues that might be anything cached in the browser or whatever, and everything is always clean on every Firefox To Go.
Roman: Could I add one little piece to that?
Bradley: Oh, Roman's here. What's up buddy? You snuck in late.
Roman: Yeah, sorry, I had a … Was preoccupied for a moment.
Bradley: You were tardy.
Roman: Sorry. One thing I would also mention, as well, when you're doing the whole PBN thing, is be very careful about what email you put in to your WordPress platform. Because if you use the same email, it's going to modify your user settings and that user setting can display on posts, so it'll pull back, for instance, like your Gravatar image if you use your regular account and you have a Gravatar set up. Little things like that, if you're not careful, can also leave footprints behind.
So, it can tie the same image back through all your PBNs. So, that's just another area that they can also look at.
Bradley: Very good, thanks Roman. I think he was worth the wait.
Does A Main Domain Ranks Above The G-Site And Sub Domain For It Contains The Original Content & Holds Canonical Power?
Well, I don't know if … It really depends. Will the main domain outrank the G site? I don't know. Honestly, I really don't know. Can one of you guys give some insight on that? I mean, typically, unless … A G site, one of the reasons we use G sites is they're Google sites, right? So, you're piggybacking on the authority of Google and it's easier to rank those, typically, than it is a brand new domain that you've just set up WordPress on or whatever. Usually, that's the case.
Hernan: Yeah, I will leave Roman and Marco chime in on this one because they're definitely more knowledgeable than I am. But if everything else stays the same, I would say that a power site like G site or YouTube video, you're piggybacking on all of that authority, you know? So, it would make sense.
So, right off the bat, a G site would or could potentially outrank the website. Now, at some point, you want your website ranking higher at least for branded terms, right? So, if you're looking, for example, for AMCO site, like, that brand, you want your website ranking higher. In any case, since you control the market at that point, you control the traffic flow and everything can be used to point traffic back to your website, if that makes sense.
Bradley: Yeah. One thing I would say, in re-reading the question while Hernan was talking just now, is he says that he posts the blog posts on the sub-domain. The sub-domain … The URLs for the posts are canonicalized to the main domain's silo pages and then he's mirroring the posts, basically republishing the same posts on a G site.
So, in that situation, what I would do, and again, I haven't tested this method, either, so I don't know without testing, but my assumption would be that the only thing that you could do, really, for the G site would be to place a link saying “This article originally published on …” and then link back to the sub-domain post. The original posts on the sub-domain, right? So, that way, you're passing juice from the G site to the sub-domain post URL, which is then canonicalized to the main domain's silo pages. Does that make sense?
So, essentially, you're doing a three-step juice push, if that makes sense. Because it's going from the G site, initially, to the original post URL, which is on the sub-domain, which is then canonicalized to the silo page on the main domain. Again, that doesn't necessarily mean the main domain's going to outrank the G site, it should at some point, once the authority level is there, but that's not a configuration I've ever tested with. Any other comments, guys?
Chris: No, I haven't tested it. We're concentrating on G sites, their ranking power is amazing and the more that we do with them, the better they rank. But there is something that can be done, but that's not being revealed until … Oh, I guess, RYS Academy Reloaded. Sorry.
Roman: I think there needs to be a little bit more information for me to really answer this question, because I'm curious as to a few other pieces of information to really be able to answer this yes or no. But yeah, I can't really provide too much more than that. It's … I would assume, since there's four of them powering up one, that the money site does have a good chance at pushing past it, but it's hard to say, it depends on the specifics of the configuration.
Chris: Yeah, except that the G site will siphon juice back. Because that's a do-follow link, so whatever you're pushing over to the sub-domain, it'll pull right back. They're really good about doing that. It's over two years of testing with G sites and they're amazing. Google is amazing at pulling whatever trust, authority or juice they can, from everywhere that it's connected to.
Do You Think The News You Publish Via Google My Business Profile Will Only Be Valid Within 7 Days?
Well, yes, they do expire. Now, I haven't tested this myself, yet, I was introduced to it, recently, I can't go into too far details because again this is something covered next week in RYS Reloaded, but I know that the share URLs, you can probably do some pretty ninja stuff with them. I don't know if, when that news post expires, if that URL expires as well or if that post is basically archived and it can still be seen from that URL. Do one of you guys know, yet?
Marco: Well, he's using the Google shortener, and those do not expire.
Bradley: No no, but what I'm saying is, is the post from the Google My Business dashboard, they also have a share URL.
Marco: Right.
Bradley: So, but I know that those expire, but you can go in … Because the conversation I had with the person that introduced me to this, he said that he's got a post up that's been up now for weeks or even months because he just goes in and modifies or changes the expiration date. So, before the seven days is up-
Marco: We don't want to give away too much, [inaudible 00:17:27].
Marco: Well, I think you would have to check with the Google shortener, since that's what he's sharing it with, to see whether he's getting a 404 to the origin or what he's getting. This is something that needs to be answered. I can't answer, again, this is one of those, I can't answer that. Do it, check after seven days, check that Google shortened link and see if it 404s or if it's still alive. It's that simple. Test it.
Bradley: Yeah, that's what I would do. And as far as, like I said, you can continue to … That's part of the reason I haven't started playing with this yet, guys, is because I don't want to have to go in every seven days and modify the post dates or whatever. So, that's part of the reason I haven't played with it, because it just seems like a manual process at the moment.
But I would test that, Ivan. Do exactly what Marco said and just do a test post on something and allow it to expire and see what happens, see if you can go visit the URL, if it still can be viewed, in which case I would say yeah, of course, you can do a lot of stuff with it. But if it actually expires and it shows a 404 or not found or whatever, then no, I mean, without having to go in and manually update it all the time, you wouldn't be able to do much with it, so.
“Can we use this link in some kind of press release?” Sure, you could, but again, if it does expire and goes dead, then, to me, that would be kind of a wasted effort. The only way I would do it is if there was a way to keep it alive indefinitely, or at least for an extended period of time, if that makes sense. Okay?
But I know there's some opportunity there, guys. I don't know if you guys know this, but I do, because we run most of our webinars and everything through Google Events and Google+, and the new Google+ is horrid, I hate it, it's awful, and now they've even pulled Events out of the Google+ Dashboard, the menu. You can't even find Events anymore in the Google+ menu and it sucks, because it's becoming difficult for us to even start a webinar now, so, we're looking at changing platforms again, unfortunately. Way still use the Hangout platform, but at least we may be changing from Google Events pages to something else. Because this is … I think Google is finally, really, this time they mean it, apparently, what did Marco say? They're taking Google+ out to pasture? I think they're literally killing it off.
What's Your Best Suggestion (Amazon, Cloudflare, Etc ) To Host Many Domains With The Most IP Diversity?
Probably because it's so terrible, the new version. I don't know why they had to go and fix it, so to speak, but it is what it is. Alright, Jake Turner's up, he says “What's your best suggestion, Amazon, CloudFlare, et cetera, to host many domains as one can with as much IP diversity as possible?”
Well, I don't … You can use Amazon, like, Route 53 and CloudFlare and stuff like that and you'll have a range of IPs that you can get to mask your original or originating IP, right, which would be wherever it's hosted. But other than going out and purchasing A and B-class hosting accounts somewhere, there's not really … I mean, you're still limited, with Amazon and CloudFlare. I mean, look, guys, there's other third party DNS applications out there that you can use, or DNS services that you can use, right? So it's not just Amazon Route 53 and CloudFlare, right? There's other ones as well, you've just got to go look for them and then you can use some of those.
But you've got to be real careful even so. Again, guys, I don't suggest spending a lot of time building PBNs, but if you guys are going to do it anyways, you've got to take into account a ton of things. Like what Roman just said was something that I never really worried about a few years ago, but I'm sure that's a footprint issue now. The Gravatar images, the email that you use for registering or notifications for the WordPress sites, that kind of stuff. That's number one.
Number two, as far as the hosting, we know from vast … From some of the stuff we've done with Server Space and Video Powerhouse and things like that, having a ton of hosting accounts is a pain in the ass, too, and if you go with shitty, cheap SEO hosting accounts, they're already flagged. Those IPs, for the most part, are basically been flagged or put into a bucket of shitty PBN, SEO type hosting, so, and C-class is no longer good enough, that's no longer effective enough, it has to be A and B-class, and there's just a ton of things that can go … Cause problems with PBNs and stuff and that's part of the reason I got away from doing them, because they're just too much damn hassle to maintain and it's getting harder and harder to hide footprints.
Roman, you're probably the one that can speak most on this. What do you think?
Roman: At the end of the day, it really can become a really can become a really technical subject. But just think about it like this, the main goal of what you're trying to do is blend, really, at the end of the day, your PBNs. You're trying to blend in with what everybody else is. So, if you have some cloud, you have some of this, some of that, you're going to achieve what your goal … I mean, when it comes to scalability, that's a totally different ballgame. If you're trying to host up hundreds and hundreds or thousands of sites, then you're going to have to come up with enterprise-level solutions and that takes time and you're going to need to know all the technical pieces to do that.
Roman: Because you've got a lot bigger risks involved with that. The more you have, the bigger it is. But it's … I mean, really, just at the end of the day, it's blending. That should be your goal in mind. So, get some from cloud providers, go get some from shared, get some from wherever you can, anywhere that you know is going to be stable, as in, the sites stay up.
Bradley: Right.
Roman: Outside of that, I wouldn't worry too much. I would pay attention to the IPs that you're getting, specifically, and I would pay attention to your neighborhoods. And what I mean by neighborhoods is, go see the other sites that are hosted on your same IP. Because I promise you, that IP that you're purchasing, you're not the only one on it.
Bradley: Yeah, and that's part of what I was getting at earlier, was the fact that I know so many SEOs that want to go out and buy SEO hosting, but that's what every other mediocre SEO does, right? And so there's a ton of shitty, plain PBN blogs on those sites, which is obvious. And so, if you do a neighborhood check on those IPs that you get assigned from your PBN hosting company, you'll see, there's a ton …
First of all, those IPs are way over stacked with sites, because those SEO hosts know that those are PBN sites that aren't supposed to receive any traffic, really, they just don't generate any traffic for the most part, so they way, way, way overload the IPs with sites, so that if any one or a handful of the sites all of a sudden do start getting traffic, it basically suspends … All the other sites won't load. It overloads the bandwidth and all of a sudden, like Roman just mentioned, all of your sites starts going down, and that's one of the hugest things, guys.
If you've got a ton of sites that are linking back to your money sites that are constantly going down, like, the servers are going down because they're overloaded IPs, the bandwidth issues, all that kind of stuff, that's a clear indication of bad links, as well.
So, that's something else. Like he just mentioned, going with cheap hosts because you think “Oh, well, I need the IP diversity, I don't care if it's a cheap host.” Well, no, that's not true. Because if the sites, first of all, were hosted … They're kind of associated with all these other riff-raff, all the other crappy PBN sites on that same IP, that's a bad signal. And then the bad signal is constantly the sites going down. And so that's something that I recommend that you just … You try to avoid that, if possible.
Roman: The very first domains that I had ever lost to Google, because I had always been extremely clean about keeping up with them, were due to bad neighborhoods. Somebody else got hit on the same IPs and caused me to lose my sites, as well. And it was just a small cluster of them, but that's just to give you an idea. That is built in to their automated algorithms. So, the neighborhoods. So, that piece and keeping your IPs too close together, those two pieces will get you auto-sweeped. The rest of it, it's a bit more complex.
Bradley: Yeah. I think the best way to handle something like that, Jay, if you're insistent upon using PBNs regardless, then I would say one of the things you could do is get your own server, your own dedicated server and have some VPSs set up, various … You can have just your own dedicated IP, so that it's clean, and then you can use a lot of DNS services, as many as you can find anyways, to try to mask some of your IPs to give you some IP diversity. But there's … I mean, there's not really a whole lot that I would say about … I just, personally, I got away from building PBNs because it's just too much hassle and we're able to produce results without them, now, so, that's my thoughts.
“Related, I have a local business client who has six sites, each is a location, not yet merged and siloed. I'd like to merge and silo, but I'm hesitant because some lesser locations are mailboxes at risk of shutdown. I'd like to mitigate risk here. If one were shut down by big G, if the site were merged and siloed, could that shut down and jeopardize the entire site?” Yes, Jay. Don't do that. Especially if you're using mailboxes for some of the locations. I suggest that you use sub-domains. So, you put up a root domain for the brand and then you use sub-domains with the city names as the sub-domains with the city names as the sub-domains, or whatever you want. Typically, I just use the city name as the sub-domain, and I would put each location on its own sub-domain.
And the reason, I … So, you're still managing six sites, and in fact, you're managing seven, but the seventh site, which would be the root domain, could literally just be a one page HTML site. That's what I'm doing with mine now. I don't even put a WordPress on the root domain anymore, I just put an HTML site up, page up, and that's it. And then everything else is all WordPress on sub-domains, for multi-location businesses that I manage or lead gen sites, right?
So, I recommend that you mitigate that by always using sub-domains, because if a sub-domain gets slapped, it should stay specific to that sub-domain, the penalty. It shouldn't affect the root or the other sub-domains, okay?
Alright, next, Mohammed says … Oh, by the way, and Jay, if you're planning on building PBNs to link to these sites, you absolutely want to separate them. I don't mean separate domains, I prefer to have everything on sub-domains, so that they're all still tied together and the domain authority, that's not a metric I care about, guys, and I don't mean Moz Domain Authority, I just mean the authority of the domain itself, actually rises with each subsequent sub-domain that you add. So, the overall domain builds an authority so that every time you add an additional sub-domain, a new location, it's going to borrow from some of the authority that has accumulated from all of the sub-domains and the root domain itself. Does that make sense?
So, it's logical to have everything on sub-domains because they all benefit from each other, but at the same time, they're all considered separate sites, if that makes sense.
Roman: Completely. As evidence of that, that's why parasite pages work, right?
What Do You Guys Think Of Using Data Highlighter From Google Webmaster Tools To Improve Search Appearance?
Bradley: Yep. Yep. Okay. Mohammed's up, he says, “Hey guys, what do you think of using Data Highlighter from Google Webmaster Tools to approve search appearance? I currently use Project Supremacy plugin for all schema-related tasks, but it's missing article schema, which the highlighter has, or is article schema not in the plugin because it's useless?”
I can't speak about that plugin at all, I don't use it. So, I honestly, I have no idea. I don't use that plugin at all. I still do all my structured data stuff manually, guys. I prefer to do it that way. And one of our Mastermind members, he's like a schema savant, that's what I called him, a schema savant. Ryan Rodden, he's got … He does all his stuff manually as well, so I suggest that's what you do. Personally, I don't like the plugins.
Roman: I would say, get a consulting session with Ryan if you want to know more about that, because you're not going to find a better person.
Bradley: That's right. Ryan Rodden, he's really, really good at schema stuff, probably the best that we know. So, I would definitely reach out to him, and he does consulting and he'll also … He'll write structured data code for you and everything. You can hire him for all that kind of stuff. So, I would reach to him, Mohammed, for sure, he's not part of our team but he is a Mastermind member, so.
As far as using the Data Highlighter, I haven't played with it much, so I don't know how good it is. Any of you guys got comments on that?
Hernan: I would say it's pretty good. I would say it's like … It will help you pinpoint … It's not bulletproof, but it will help to pinpoint where the data is, or what are you actually missing. So, I would say it's a graphical representation, it's a tool, right? So I would say it's pretty cool.
Bradley: Okay. Marco, any experience with that?
Marco: Nope, don't use it.
What Will Happen If Twitter Stops Syndicating Posts To Google Plus?
If you're using RankFeedr, I would make that my primary content engine for the Google+ posts, if that makes sense. Because your RankFeedr, you have more control over than the Twitter triggers. And with the Twitter triggers, with using the advanced search options in Twitter is, excuse me, in Twitter, you can figure out the best combination of the search … Whatever search you're using in the applet, inside of IFTTT to cause the triggering of the, pulling the Twitter in and sending it to Buffer, for example, because that's what it does. It doesn't post automatically to Google+, it sends it to Buffer and then Buffer posts to Google+.
What I've found is luckily, a few of the projects that I've set up using that method, I've been able to just, by playing around with different search operators or search strings, I should say, inside of the Twitter advanced search, I've been able to find a relatively … Not an over-active search string that causes too many tweets to be added. Because you don't … I mean, personally, I don't care about over-posting on the Google+ pages anymore because Google+ now sucks and it's a ghost town. Nobody goes to Google+ anymore because it's just so terrible.
And so, I don't think anybody even sees the Google+ pages anymore, but as far as, if you're not able to get your RankFeedr posts to push out because your queue is always full inside, insider of Buffer, because of the tweets, I would reduce the tweets. I would change your search string. Play around with it, using Twitter advanced search to find … And just go scroll through the results when you try different search strings. Look at the results that it pulls back, the tweet results, right?
And look, if you're getting 20, 30 tweets per day or more, then that's a bit excessive, in my opinion. So, I try to find a balance of where I'm doing anywhere between 1 to 10 or 15 tweets per day. And again, it's just a matter of playing with that search string until you find the right mix, if that makes sense. But I would make sure that the RankFeedr feed is the primary content source for that, because you have more control over that. Okay?
How Long Should I Wait To Order More Instant Map Embeds From Serp Space?
“On August 7th, I'd ordered 20 instant map embeds from Serp Space, how long should I wait to order more if there's a limit beyond the number of credits?” Well, I don't … Personally, I don't recommend doing instant map embeds, guys. You can, don't get me wrong, 20's not bad. 20's not bad. But I always do … I do everything on drips, schedules, guys. And I usually always just start off, and I've mentioned this many times before, Mohammed, so this may benefit you now, as well, but I always do like, 50 map embeds, but I do it dripped out over 7 or 14 days. I do the same with the Video Powerhouse posts. So, either video posts or map posts, I usually do 7 to 14 days and I typically always just start off with 50. I do order secondary embeds. I select the proper categories and then run it, and then I go back in a few weeks and check on results and then I'll go submit another embed blast if I need to. But I like to kind of have it drip out so that it's not instant.
Now, 20 instant map embeds, I don't think's going to be an issue.
Hernan: Yeah, I-
Hernan: I don't think so either. I don't think it's an issue. What he needs to do is go check and see if it started dancing. If it didn't do anything, then just, you can hit it with more map embeds, but just make sure you drip it, because it's just totally unnatural to pop up in 20 different places all of a sudden.
Bradley: That's correct, I agree with that 100%.
What Are The Best Ways To Feed Juice To A Client Site Using The RSS Authority Method?
Okay, next, Columbia, she says “What are the best ways to feed juice to a client site if they insist on having you promote their site but you still want to keep as much control over the authority as possible?” Well, Columbia, that question alone means that there's obviously a … And I'm not saying this in any derogatory way, but there's a breakdown in your communication with your client. Because the client should not be aware of the fact that you've been trying to keep control over link juice, period. That conversation should never be had. That's not something that …
I've never had to have that conversation with a client because I've always been really, really careful about how I present the work that I do, so that that's not an issue. It's not a conversation that comes up. Because in all reality, the client, for example, I talk about cloning a site and then doing 301 redirects for the cloned site onto my domain and then I do off-page link building to my own domain, because it's all 301 redirected to the client site.
But if I'm doing content marketing for the client, right? So, I'm blogging, which we do a lot of that, that's our primary monthly service is content marketing, now. Because we do all the front-end SEO work, it only takes us two, three months, whatever, to get results for the client. Once the client's ranked, then it's just a matter of maintaining that rankings, which is typically done with just content marketing and the Syndication Academy method. And that's it, that's all that it really requires. Every now and then I'll have to do some citation building or some press releases and things like that, but typically, once they rank, it's just content marketing. So, when it comes to that, and this question has come up many, many times as well, but how do you keep control over it when you're doing content marketing?
You don't. You don't. You post content to their blog, which gets syndicated out to their branded network, which links directly back to their money site, and that's what it should be. That's what they're paying for, you know what I mean? As far as the off-page linking stuff, being able to try to maintain as much juice as possible … If I'm doing additional in-bound linking, so, I'm building links to … Outside of syndication networks. Press releases is a good example. I'll use the 301 redirects in the press releases because they redirect to the client's domain anyways, right? But then I can always pull that redirect if I need to or re-route the redirect to another destination if needed to, if the client decides that they don't need me anymore. But that only counts on in-context links that are on third-party sites that aren't syndication or they aren't citations or they aren't part of an NAP, like, in the press release itself.
My point is, any time like a … If you're building citations, as another example, right? So, NAP is listed, name, address, phone number and web address. You can't use a redirect domain there, either, because you'll screw up your NAP data, right? You'll have inconsistent details out there on the web, so that'll actually hurt your ranking. So, my point is, there are certain things that you have to build links … You have to build them or complete the tasks pointing directly to the client's domain, and that's perfectly acceptable, even though I try to maintain as much control as possible, I can only do it where it makes sense to do so and where I can kind of hide the fact that I'm doing it.
And when I say “hide,” it's not that I'm trying to keep it from the client, but they don't need to know that. They don't need to know what I'm doing, as long as I'm providing results, right?
Roman: You're the expert, at the end of the day. Everything that you have is proprietary, that's the end of the conversation. That's where it needs to start and where it needs to end.
Bradley: That's right.
Roman: If you have to get in to any technical detail, they're not going to understand any of it and it's going to waste your time and confuse them and it's not going to be the direction that you want to go.
Bradley: It's like, if you're working with a roofer and all of a sudden you start questioning their roofing practices, and “Oh, well, why aren't you laying the shingles this way?” And “Why don't you do flashing that way?” The roofing client of yours would tell you to go shit in your hat, you know what I mean? Like, really. And they, rightly so. So, why is it that our clients, and I know because I get these kind of questions too, Columbia, but why is it that our clients think that they can ask us to reveal all of our secrets and our methods and that we're just going to freely share it with them. You know what I mean?
Roman: Yeah. Where everything is brand … For what I like to do is if it's branded, it should belong to the client.
Bradley: That's correct.
Roman: At the end of the day. But if it's not branded, it should belong to you.
Bradley: That's correct. Totally agree. Alright, she says “For example, using your RSS authority approach, it seems you can keep that control, am I correct about that?” Yep, you can do that, to a degree, there's no doubt. “Could you explain, hopefully, other methods? Thank you.”
Yeah, so, just like Roman said, that's exactly right. Any type of citation, any type of syndication from their blog, press releases or anywhere where NAP is mentioned is part of the NAP. Now, if you're doing contextual links or anchor text links from within the content of … That's posted on third party sites, then you can use redirect URLs there, there's no doubt. Okay?
What Are Your Thoughts On Interlinking Guest Posts On Different External Websites That All Contain Links Back To A Money Website?
Okay. As far as I'm concerned, if they're guest posts from the same author, then it kind of makes … I don't even know if they have to be from the same author. If they're the same author or they're the same topic, so, the relevancy is there, it makes sense, to me, to be linking from one to the other. Because here's the thing, guys, a lot of authors will link to their other content, even if it's not 100% related. The link to their own content on other … If they can …
And remember, guys, good writers are always able to find a way to create an angle of connection between two unrelated things and you see that a lot in blogs, like SEO blogs for example. And I don't mean like PBNs, I mean like, Search Engine Land and all that kind of stuff where you'll see links sprinkled throughout all the content, right? And a lot of the times, they're linking to their own content. And that's … The reason why is because it helps to boost their content. They're basically boosting their own ecosystem.
But likewise, if it's related, then it would … If it's relevant, it's related content, then it would make sense to link to that, as well. So, in my opinion, that's perfectly legit to do, but I don't do a lot of guest posting, so I'm not sure. Does anybody have any …
Marco: Yeah, if I may, before he goes and destroys and bombs somebody's money site, why don't you go and test?
Roman: Yes.
Marco: Very simply, you go, you take this outside of something that matters. You isolate the single thing that you want to test. This way, and now I'm getting into testing methodology, which I shouldn't even give away, but you need to isolate the variable that you're testing for. So that you go, and you do this one thing, to whatever it is that you don't care about, and you need different things that you don't care about, so you can test the variable. And so, if you see that it tanks from what you've set up, then you don't want to do it to money site because the same thing's going to happen. You try to …
Bradley: There you go.
Roman: Yep, there's patterns out there that are going to work. I can tell you that. Few things is internal and external, that's another hit towards your testing. Internal links and external links, in terms of linking patterns, aren't the same. So take a look at that and play around with that.
Where Do You Recommend Getting Sape Links?
Bradley: Yeah. Yep. Okay, next up, “Where do you recommend getting SAPE links and in your experience, how are they working out?” Alright, whenever I used to use SAPE links, which I did a lot, I used them very heavily for quite some time, I would always buy them from … What the hell was the name of that SAPE link provider I used to use? I'd have to find them, now. But I bought them in bulk, so it was rather expensive, because I'd buy packages of, cost three or four hundred dollars per month but it would give me two hundred SAPE links or whatever. That kind of stuff.
They worked really, really well. Again, I got away from all the traditional link-building stuff, guys. We just don't need to, we're able to produce results without it, using the methods that we've developed on our own, right? So, SAPE links, as far as I know they still work, but I don't … I haven't been using them now, for about two years. I stopped using SAPE links about the same time I stopped building PBNs and stopped using PBNs as a primary ranking strategy.
So, I know that they used to work, I can't really speak about the efficacy of them today, because I don't really use them. I'm assuming that they work because, as Marco always talks about, if a link is powerful enough, it will push rankings, whether it's related or not. But it has to be particularly powerful if that's the case. And if you can get them where they're relevant, like they're coming from relevant sites, related-type content sites, then that's even better.
Now, I know Hernan, Hernan was buying links manually. So, he was going to the SAPE.ru or something like that, going to the different Russian link providers and purchasing them direct, himself. Because you can get the for dirt cheap that way, it just requires research on your part, and personally, I needed enough of them that I didn't want to go through and do it manually, so I just hired a third party to do it for me, if that makes sense. Comments, guys?
Hernan: Yeah, I mean, once you have the process-
Bradley: Your audio Is pretty terrible, dude.
Hernan: How about now?
Bradley: There you go, there you go.
Hernan: Yeah, sorry. What I was saying is that once you have the process, I think I recorded a video back in the day to the Mastermind students, but honestly? I haven't used SAPE in a while now, so I wouldn't know. As usual, we, back at that time, when I recorded the video< I used say that A, you point them to tier 1 properties, B used 301s, you know? Just in case. And right now, I would suggest even more so, you know what I mean?
So, but it has been a while since I used SAPE, but they used to work really well, mostly to pump metrics, you know? But right now, I wouldn't know. So, use … Just make sure that you're not pointing them to anything that you deem worthy.
Bradley: Well, I mean, I did … I don't do it any more but I used to, I would point them direct to money sites. I would go through a 301, though, a redirect that I had control over. That way, switch-box SEO, that way if anything happened, if all of a sudden I tanked because of a bad link, then I would remove the 301 redirect and it just cuts it off, just like that, or point it somewhere else. Again, anyways, personally, it depends on what you're doing.
I know in other markets you can get away with a lot spammier stuff. I don't … I just don't use them now, I just don't need to, but this is the provider that I used to … It's SEOlutions.biz, these guys are the ones that I bought all my SAPE links from for about two or three years. I spent a lot of money with these guys, but they always produce … Provided really good links, so, and I've dropped that link on the page.
Next is, a question from [inaudible 00:48:00] Support, “How can I get more traffic to my videos? I'm able to get them ranked but do not get many views, if any views to the videos, please advise.” Well, you know, if it's just views that you're looking for, just set up a simple YouTube ad. AdWords for video, right? And there's a few things you can do. If you're just looking for views, then you can set them up as an in-stream ad, using whatever video it is that you have ranked or want ranked and then select …
Because you're getting the local relevancy, the local views from local IPs. Google and YouTube are tracking all of that and it's a great signal for ranking videos for local terms. Also, you can do topical targeting and you can do what's called layered targeting, which is a mix of both topical and geographic targeting, location targeting, which is incredibly powerful.
And I do that, that's kind of my secret sauce for ranking local videos, is I do all the SEO stuff that we typically do as well as the syndication networks and all that other stuff, Video Powerhouse, all the stuff that we typically do, But then, I always end up, if needed, which usually within the first 30 days I know whether or not it's going to need an AdWords campaign set up, but I will set up an AdWords campaign and localize the geographic targeting as well as add some topical layering on top of that and usually that's all it takes to push it and then I just end up reducing my ad spend, my daily budget for … I might set it at a dollar or a dollar fifty per day to begin with, just to get that initial view count started going, and then once I get …
You'll usually start to see some movement with the video relatively quickly, as far as rankings and then, once ranked, I usually back it down, first of all, start lowering the max cost per view down. Inside AdWords, it'll give you a average cost per view value, right? So, let's say you've got your max cost per view set at 15 or 20 cents to begin with, and I usually start around 20 or 25 cents for my average cost per view, excuse me, max cost per view. So, I'll set it like 15 or 20 … I usually set between 20 and 25 cents.
So, then, after a week or two and I've got several hundred views, which are all the type of … They're all coming from the IPs in the locations that I want, that kind of stuff, then it'll give me an average cost per view and a lot of times, the average cost per view might be, say, 13 cents, right? So, then what I'll do is I'll start going in and I'll start backing it down from 25 cents max cost per view to maybe 23 and then 21 and then 19 and then once I start to approach that average cost per view value, then I start decreasing my max cost per view bid by one penny at a time.
So, let's say I get to like, 17 or 18 cents max cost per view and the average cost per view, you'll start to see the average cost per view go down as well, which is kind of cool. And then, so I'll just start backing it down one cent per day over the course of the next several days and I'll get down to, say, ten cents max cost per view, and you'll notice your average cost per view will invariably go to like, nine cents or eight cents. And so, just keep backing that down and then I also back down my daily budget, from say, originally a dollar, a dollar fifty, down to like, 50 cents.
That way, I'm still, I basically am training AdWords, that ad campaign, to still serve my ad, but for less cost per click, or cost per view, I should say, and also my budget goes down because I'm getting cheaper views, so I don't need as much budget. And then it's just a maintenance thing, right? So, you know, if you've got 50 cents a day, guys, to maintain a video ranking, that's 15 dollars a month. That's totally worth it.
So, a lot of the video production companies that I do wholesale SEO, wholesale SEO stuff for, I charge them $100 per month per video, for ranking, and I have AdWords campaigns set up for every one of them that might cost me $15 a month. So, that comes right out of my $100 a month, but it helps to maintain those rankings, to where I don't have to do a damn thing. That make sense?
How Can I Get More Traffic To My Videos?
Bradley: I have a question that I want to ask Kate or Kata, I'm not sure if it's a he or a she, but my question would be, are you … What's your keyword research showing as far as traffic for these videos? It could be that you're targeting videos that just don't have the traffic to support the views.
Bradley: Yep.
Marco: You're getting rankings, how can you get rankings if there's tons of views for whatever niche you're in? It could be that the video quality could be just a … A bunch of things. The thumbnail that you're using is not attractive enough, the titles, maybe there's a bunch of things that you need to do to get the person to click on that video and watch it. But YouTube people will usually watch a video if there's traffic for the video. So, my question is, what does your keyword and niche research show?
Bradley: Yeah, that's true. Because if you can get it ranked and you're not getting views, I mean, there is an issue there that I would first work on that. I mean, your question made it sound like you just were looking for views, so that's what I was trying to answer, but I agree with Marco. If you've got it ranked and it's not getting natural, organic views, then it's either those keywords just aren't something that people are searching for or there's a problem with the headline or the meta … Or something, the title, the thumbnail image, something is causing them not to click on it and you'd have to do some research to see if maybe the second or third ranked video, if they're getting views and you're not, then that's a clear indication that there's something wrong with the thumbnail or the way it's displayed or something like that, if that makes sense. But if you notice that those videos, second and third place, aren't getting views either, then it's probably the keyword, you know?
Alright, we're almost out of time guys. We don't have another webinar, so I can go another five minutes, but we are going to shut it down in five minutes.
How Do We Fix The Error For Local Business That Insinuates That The @type For Business Type Should Be An Image?
So, Dan is up, Dan, it looks like you didn't get this question answered last week so I wanted to make sure we got to this. “How do we fix the error for local business that insinuates the at type for business should be an image? Screenshot.”
Marco: That looks really similar to the time when we had that problem, where it was … The quotation marks. They weren't the same throughout and so I would look at the quotation marks, just drop that in to a text file and make sure you just correct the quotation marks in a text file and load it back up and see what that does, because there's absolutely no reason why the value field for at type should be image.
Bradley: Yeah, Ryan Rodden-
Marco: So, something in there, something in there's wrong. A comma. You have to really go through it, you have to get really anal with that and I can't see it from the image, Dan, but … Isn't he still in our Mastermind? Isn't Dan in our Mastermind?
Bradley: I don't know. If he is, I would say definitely post in the Mastermind about it, because I think Ryan would be able to comment on something like that because, he, Ryan actually … In one of the Mastermind webbers, excuse me, webinars, he went over this and showed how using the text editor on his Mac, I think it was, the quotation mark, so, that wraps the value, the quotation mark was like an inverted quotation mark and that's what caused an error message. And it said that he was banging his head against the wall trying to figure it out, he said he couldn't figure it out and eventually found out that there was an inverted quotation mark that was just, I guess, unique to the text editor that he was using on Mac, and once he corrected that, which by the naked eye you couldn't tell there was any difference, but once he corrected that, then it solved that error code.
And that's, structured data is very much like that, where it could be … You know, for example, when you save something in a text file, you can save it as UTF-8 or ANSI, that kind of stuff, sometimes depending on how the encoding was produced within the text file could actually cause that kind of an error. Does that make sense? Alright, so, hopefully that helps, Dan. I would check that.
Would You Suggest Display Or In Stream Ads For Running Video Ads To Help Boost Rankings Using $1/day For Top Of Silo Video Url?
“What do you suggest? Display or in-stream ads for running video ads to help boost rankings for a dollar a day, top a [inaudible 00:57:32] video or URL.” Well, again, it depends on what you're doing. If you're doing local stuff, I like to use in-stream because it forces the view, from a local IP, whether they want to or not. When you do a display ad, an in-display ad, or a video discovery ad, I don't remember what they call it now but those are the ones that are at the top of the search results, right? So those are like, the ads that you place at the top of YouTube search.
Those, somebody actually has to click on that, so you've got to have a compelling title and a compelling thumbnail, right? For somebody to click on that. Which means they have to be searching for that type of a term, too, whatever your targeting is. Typically, you're going to do keyword targeting for that, right? So, they're going to have to be searching for that term and then see your ad and click on the ad in order for it to register as a view to help with the SEO of that video, if that makes sense.
But when you do in-stream ads, basically, they don't get a choice. The view is still going to occur, whether they click the skip ad button within five seconds or not, the view still registers, it just doesn't count as a paid view if they click the skip ad button within the first five seconds, but it still registers as an actual view from a local IP. So, it really depends on what you're trying to do.
But as far as strictly for an SEO strategy or method, I would say the in-stream ads is a better way to go. Okay? Last part of this, then we're wrapping it up, guys. It's five o'clock. I'm sorry to Kingslayer and the rest of you guys, sorry about that guys, but we're not going to be able to get to them.
Will The Wayback Machine Still Give Us An Earlier Date For Expired Websites?
So, last one is “If a domain is expired, will the Wayback Machine still give us an earlier date for expired websites to sacrifice the site structure and maybe use WPTwin to duplicate?” I'm not sure what you mean by that. The Wayback Machine, as far as I know, the Wayback Machine, the only thing you can do with that is go in and download the files as HTML. Every page. Like, if it's a WordPress site and archive.org, the Wayback Machine has indexed that site, right? And it's in their archives, their database, it's as HTML files, not a WordPress page. Does that make sense?
So, if you like using the Wayback Machine's downloaders, there's several of them now, Bluechip Backlinks is the one that we always use, then, when you download that it's going to come back as zipped up HTML pages, or HTML files in a ZIP drive. So, I don't know how you would be able to use something like WPTwin on that, Dan.
Does anybody else know what he's talking about? Okay. Okay. Very good. Well, guys, we're going to wrap it up. … Yeah, my Gainesville site, Dan, I haven't done anything with in over two years and I really don't care to. That site's not producing revenue, now, because I let that one go. So, I really don't care, but thanks, I appreciate that, but I'm not going to go fix it because it doesn't matter to me. Okay.
Alright, guys. I don't know, everybody else dropped off, so I don't know what happened, but we'll see you guys-
Marco: I'm still here.
Bradley: Next week? Alright, cool, thanks everybody.
Marco: Bye everyone.
Bradley: We don't have any other webinars this week, do we? We've got Mastermind tomorrow, for Mastermind members, but other than that, I think we're good. Okay, guys, we'll see you all next week. Thanks.
Marco: Alright, man, bye.
Chris: Bye.
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