I just realized that my blog is ranking at the top of Google search for this keyword phrase:
“I am useless and cannot complete a task”
LOL! Some days this is quite true, so Google are quite right in this instance to be ranking my blog at the top 
This post is in relation to my previous post about using YouTube videos to funnel visitors either to your own websites or to your affiliate offers etc. I would say that the following information is proof enough that these methods are working very well right now.
The following article is written by Jon Leger (creator of The Best Spinner among other excellent software tools).
If you’re having trouble ranking post-Penguin, go post your content on Blogger, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Yahoo Answers, PRWeb and the like. Google is ranking pages on those sites like crazy because of the authority of the root domains.
Here are a few examples:
1.
Keywords: Pregnancy Miracle
Rank: #5
URL: http://pregnancymiraclereviews.tumblr.com
Monthly Exact-Match Searches: 6,000
It has two pages of content and only one backlink that isn’t NOFOLLOW. “Pregnancy Miracle” gets 6,000 exact-match searches per month. Some data centers are also showing a livejournal blog at #6 (cametennus892.livejournal.com) that’s one page of illegible garbage.
2.
Keywords: Cat Pictures
Rank: #8-#11 (depending on the data center)
URL: http://felinephotos.blogspot.com
Monthly Exact-Match Searches: 33,000
This one is my old Blogger blog that fell by the wayside FOUR YEARS AGO, and yet it’s on page one. The keywords get 33,000+ exact-match searches per month. The blog only has a few dozen different domains linking to it, of which only 14 links are on pages with any PageRank at all. And the links are exact-keyword anchor-text heavy. About 60% of them have “cat pictures” as the anchor text. 
3.
Keywords: How To Make Chicken Soup
Rank: #8
URL: http://voices.yahoo.com/how-chicken-soup-perfectly-340461.html
Monthly Exact-Match Searches: 5,400
Yahoo! Voices is free to sign up for and lets you post content (articles, videos, slideshows). I was surprised at how many searches this query gets each month, but there it is. Care to guess how many backlinks the page has? ZERO!
Here are some others (lesser monthly searches, but noteworthy):
bing seo – A press release on PRWeb.com is ranking #4 (keywords get about 1,000 exact-match searches per month).
studio microphone review – A YouTube video review is number four.
landscaping advice – A Yahoo Answers page is on page one.
YouTube Your Way To Traffic!
I’m seeing YouTube videos all over the search results, especially for queries involving product reviews and the like. So get your YouTube account active and start creating some videos and getting a few links to them.
Google’s Penguin update is heavily favoring root domains with lots of authority. Considering that it’s usually free and very easy to add your content to these sites and get a few backlinks to them, if you were hit hard by Penguin I suggest at least trying it out and see if it gets you somewhere.
Article source: Jon Leger’s Forum
Now, let’s keep something in mind here. Its not to say we focus ALL our time and efforts on crafting content for “properties” such as YouTube, blogger.com and tumblr, etc etc. After all, Google could change the playing field some way down the road and suddenly, all those videos we created that were ranking on the top page of Google are down to the second page.
This is another good reason why we may well wish to create our own websites and then link our YouTube videos etc to those sites. If we throw backlinks at our YouTube videos etc. and those videos link back to our private domains, then we are gaining some very strong and powerful backlinks to our own webpages.
In essence, this would be a double edged sword which is working in our favour.
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Seems like Penguin has made a big mess. It might have cleared the top rankings but it’s open a huge back door to spammer IM’ers.
Not saying that you or the readers here are spammers. I mean, just like we know the “power” that Tumblr, Youtube, Blogspot, etc. have right now, after-Penguin, spammers also know.
Who knows, maybe in a few weeks Google will have to release a “Polar Bear” to catch that Penguin.
(And in case anybody says something, I know polar bears and penguins live in different continents, but I grew up watching cartoons where the former were chasing the latter)
There’s hypocrisy here once again Cristina. Let’s look at the scenario.
Google say they don’t “like” affiliate sites and intend to reduce the number of affiliate sites that are ranking well in search.
Uhu. So, instead we get affiliated YouTube videos that are ranking at the very top, which are doing the exact same job as would an affiliate site that is ridden with ads (or for that matter, an AdSense site which is obviously set up purely for the intention of making money from AdSense clicks).
Do killer whales eat penguins or is it mainly seals?
Even if they drop down the youtube’s and whatnot, the links on them will still be valuable, I believe. Even if google doesn’t rank them, they still work great as web 2s in line with the 40-day methods, as far as I can tell.
Hey Joe,
I just heard your interview over at Adsense Flippers. Very good stuff!
I think everyone is still trying to figure out how to rank while getting around the recent Penguin updates. Based on your comments here and those in the interview last week, I’d say you’re right about using Youtube and web 2.0 sites to create links back to your money site.
Leveraging the authority of these sites, while not a new concept, seems to still be a great way to build high quality links that will improve over time.
I’m doing a little project and building ONLY these types of links to about 10 niche sites that have no prior link history. I’m excited to see the results.
Yes, I agree with this Brendan. Many web2′s do not rank as well as they did 2 years ago when I first did the Warriors thing. But, the main thing is that you can build up their link juice – that’s more important than getting the web2′s and article directory submissions to rank high.
Hi Vin, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the podcast. Hopefully my comments were intelligible to most folks who listened to it.
Yes, I think if you are trying to rank sites for anything more than very low competitioned keyword phrases, then using outer tier sites has to be considered as one of the main approaches. It works, it works well, and its Google safe. I no longer use any other methods to link to my money sites because everything else I’ve tried tends to lead to a Google penalty or de-indexed links (a la BMR).
Hope your own link building project goes well for you Vin!
Joseph
“I am useless and cannot complete a task” hmmmmmm I resemble that remark!
It always for the same reason too – the tech. The internet and IM world is smothered over with experts telling you everything you could ever want to know about WHAT you need to do….
But trying to figure out HOW to do it – a total nightmare. The problem is the technology – for non-tech people its a disaster as figuring out how to do even basic stuff ends up taking hours.
Terry, thanks for your comment! I remember when I was first learning about this IM game some 10 years ago now and it all went over my head at the time due to the techie geek talk. I really wish I understood it because back then it was much much easier to make a huge amount of money than it is now since the amount of competition was much much lower – who says that competition is a good thing?
Then when I came back to the IM scene, it was still fairly techie. I spent about 3 days creating my first WordPress site due to the technical learning curve. Then, I couldn’t work out how to add Amazon affiliate links – they were (and still are) such long links – which part was actually needed? And as far as setting up a new subscriber opt ins on a site – well, that has me all over the place and it can take me hours even now.
There’s no doubt that being less technically inclined is a stumbling block because unless you can afford to outsource the work, it either takes you hours or days to work out what to do, or you give up entirely.
I emphasize with you entirely!
Joseph
I hear the pain of the people who are not very comfortable with the tech part.
Last weekend I built a blog for my sister. Theme, Links, plugins, navigation bar, opt in boxes, header, footer, social proof elements… Everything. It took me less than one day. I did it on my spare time.
If she had had to do it… well, she would still figuring everything out.
Another great point from your post. Glad to have them at hand and adjust another strategy for this Penguin.
philippines outsourcing
Cristina, if you had not worked on my new subscriber opt in plugin a week ago, I’d still be figuring that out too
Thanks Jeane for your feedback!
Fiverr has really become the downfall for my bank account, but I can’t even tell you the amount of time that it’s saved me with regard to certain backlinking and content writing
As long as you are seeing a good ROI or you truly believe that you will, then dumping a lot of money on Fiverr is probably a good thing. Here’s hoping it all pays off for you!
Hi Jo
If google can truly tell good content from bad AND detect link building then the search results will be based on quality of content.
Also it will mean people dont need to worry about the technical nature of building and ranking a website.
So in a very real sense Google is trying to help business with NO technical skill and NO clue what they are doing to rank highly. But thats unrealistic. We live in a technical age. The technical people solve technical issues so the users can do stuff.. To assume you can run a business with out understanding the technology is flawed unless you hire people to do it. Another major issue no doubt.
The net effect now is they have clearly moved to returning search results from large sites (logspot etc) where the page has little or no backlinks. But that is no measure of content quality! why should an article on blogspot be of higher quality than on a users domain.
The net results is we have rubbish in the serps and everybody with great content that did build links (just so we could compete, even i don’t want to build links for any other reason) are now penalized along with the rubbish.
It seems to me that Google has to address the issue where I can now just go to blogspot etc create average content and out rank the good stuff that would have in the past taken me months and $100+ to get past!!
So i n a real sense maybe google will save us all money in the medium term!
In the short term they have destroyed many valid business’s who’s white hat sites have been hit. And many more that had no idea of the consequence of engaging in back linking.
I read elsewhere Fraser Crain talking about building a website over many ears and expecting no real rankings in the first year using pure white hat techniques! well that’s certainly one way to go…
Hey Steve, Fraser Cain’s methodology is most definitely workable, but I suspect for 99% of folks, they’d fail miserably.
I think most folks come into IM with the desire of making a fast buck, and if that fast buck takes longer than a few weeks, a sense of failure sets in and all is then doomed. However, if you already have a good income from a job of sorts (or from your IM work through niche sites etc), and you enjoy your job, plus you have a sincere passion for something that can become the focus of a website, and you have some technical ability where creating and adding to websites is concerned (or you can learn to outsource that side of things) then there’s the foundation for a truly long term successful business. Well, providing of course that you also have some familiarity with the concept of how to actually make money online from the particular niche you wish to venture into.
As for Google search becoming a ton of shoddy nonsense. Yes, they really are going to have to act fast and get this mess sorted out. Have you seen the amount of YouTube videos in and around the top ten recently? Its becoming crazy. I know YouTube videos can be a very useful resource for the searcher, but not in EVERY niche, for goodness sakes!
Have you heard of a network called “Empowered” Steve? I’m starting to see some of their sites ranking very nicely in search. Empowered is a concept that was started up only about 4 months ago or so but it became massively popular very quickly. Google are now seeing this and starting to rank the sites from that network. Worth paying attention to I would think.