[Nanny Rose]

So I thought I’d start a thread to see what members who cancelled their HPBL networks think. There seems to be a lot of people saying they’re doing or considering doing this lately.

Now there’s lots of talk about HPBL networks, de-indexing, and lack of quality in terms of the sites themselves, the content, and the actual backlinks the sites have when they are bought. I thought it would be interesting to have a thread about what people think is wrong with HPBL services and what can be improved. Obviously it is/was the latest fad, but with all the de-indexing and frankly the proliferation of low quality products, people seem to be (and rightly so) jumping the HPBL ship!

I’d also say that this is a public forum, so a balance in what people say would be sensible. Let’s not give the kitchen sink away!

Lots of sites have been and are getting de-indexed. The big problem is lots of network owners don’t give out the network sites and say you can see them in spyglass. Of course, this is total crap as many people are in multiple networks. If a network gets fully or partially de-indexed, it’s impossible to know which ones, and who to stop paying! Of course there are lots of owners of quality networks here, but from the user perspective it’s impossible to know the good from the bad! We plan in future to not only tell our members our sites, but send a welcome pack detailing sites, age, PR, Mozrank, and even the actual spyglass files!

HPBL's done right are still going to work IMO. As people here know, I run my own networks with Lando over at the homepagelinkcollective (see my sig). This isn’t a thinly veiled sales thread and we don’t have a network available at this time, but if anyone wants to find out what we’re about then go and join our forum and join the waiting list!

Now I'm not saying we do things perfectly, far from it, but we do try to offer a quality product. I definitely think the days of 1 page HPBL's with spun crap and 100 OBL's are almost over. We want to increase the quality further and eventually get to the point where we work with a very small group of people and what are basically REAL money sites instead of network sites.

I think that give it a year and the type of quality HPBL's starting to become available now that are a reaction to current de-indexing, will be looked at possibly as spammy. Things always change and we all have to improve if we are to survive. The old style sites were a joke and just plain lazy. I'd never join a service like that!

G. wants you to have such good content that sites organically link to it, i.e. freely given editorial links based on merit. Now we all know that in most niches that’s just not going to happen!

Their algo is heavily based around backlinks. It's always going to be based around links (although social signals will play a part). So why not give them exactly what they want. Rather than creating sites as typical HPBL sites, create them as if they were genuine money sites! I think (although we don't do this [yet]) they should even be monetised (obviously not adsense!) in some way and actually go after easy keywords and thus appear in the SERPS. It doesn't get more natural and normal than that. I wonder how many HPBL sites actually feature in the SERPS for actual KEYWORDS?

So, IMO, the best of the best HPBL networks will evolve to the point where they are basically genuine money sites. The OBL's will probably be capped somewhere between 5-10, the content of the sites and the articles will all be related to a specific niche, the content will be unique and super high quality written by native English speakers who are good writers, and the money sites that the network links out to will also be in just that niche. THAT'S the future of HPBL services in my opinion..... Our network sites, whilst they are in my opinion very high quality and do offer unique quality content, aren’t at that stage yet. One day very soon I hope they will be!

They won't be cheap for sure with such low OBL's and high quality standards, but I believe they'll pack an awesome punch!
We don’t do any more OBL's that 44, but realistically I think that's too high. I'd like to see it in the 20's or less, with the aim of getting it to around 10 or lower at some point. We may drop to 30 per network at some point soon.

I'd also like to do niche related HPBL sites eventually. The footprint of around 100 links on the homepage all to different niche sites is immense. How many real sites have an outbound link profile like that? I’d say not many...... and it’s a massive footprint in my opinion!
Of course all of this comes at a price. The current model is sustainable with lots of members per network and rubbish content. Our sites aren’t cheap because they’re good sites and we enforce only top quality content. I wonder if the market would take super high prices for less sites, but with impossibly high standards and low OBL’s?

I think in all fairness this is where it’s going to go, and it will price out of the market people going for niches not big enough to sustain the spend required to offer that level of quality. For those in niches that can support this I think it could look pretty good! Anyways, that’s all my opinion and I’ve written more than enough. I’d like to hear what people here think....

Would you guys as customers bare the price of networks of real money sites with less than 10 OBL’s per site?

Would there be anything else you’d like to see?

What would you change with the current set ups that are common here?

Edited by Nanny Rose, 10 February 2012 - 12:36.

[Insurgo]

Excellent post and I have cancelled 4 HPBL subscriptions this week because of deindexing and the fact that I just don't think they will work for much longer (or at least not as well).

The problem, as you quite rightly said, is the footprint. Each site in the network with the same number of outbound links on with links to the exact same pages with the same anchor text. I don't care if all domains have super duper privacy and are hosted on seperate A class IPs on different hosts. That is a massive footprint!

I have been in a few different networks and I am personally not a fan of the networks that use a generic chunk of text with links randomly inserted. I try to go for the networks that post a new article for each link but even that is creating another big footprint!

I think the way HPBL networks need to go is random OBL amounts, to different sites, with unique articles (or at least very highly spun content) Of course this is going to make things a lot more expensive but I dont think there's any other way to go.

[seodisaster]

HPBL works but you need to keep you external link extremely low < (5) in order to fly under The radar. Building your own network is the way to go for 2012

[mofoe]

Even if you build your own net you will still be linking out to the same sites. Need to think about these things.


Anyway, with our net we add pics, vids, get content done that is unique, get some people to do guest posts, swap some posts with people in other nets ( another potential footprint, so do not overdo it). I can say contextual links work really well, you should make your site look like real blogs or whatever. Even better than that as mrs slocombe says above even try and make money from them.

Edited by mofoe, 10 February 2012 - 15:22.

[Fixer]

Well firstly let me thank you Nanny Rose, this post raises some very good points (although I disagree with some of them:)).

Ok so the current state of a lot of networks out there at the moment has been driven by a few things IMO. For starters more people have started networks and keep lowering the prices to beat the competition, thus creating a snowball effect with prices dropping networks are started with lower quality sites to get them at the right price to make money from the network.

This has been driven by the consumer blinded by the PR's of sites and thinking it is a bargain.  Well as with most things if it seems to good to be true then it probably is. I could go out and buy a load of PR domains, throw out a network and make a killing, would it last, no but no doubt people would still buy into it!! (I wouldn't do this BTW:))

Other influencing factors are people releasing products showing people how to set up their own network (not naming any names here ). So a lot of the newer networks could be set up and run by inexperienced people, you just don't know.

I agree that they should offer some sort of report and I like the idea of the spyglass report but Mozrank can be manipulated quite easily so not so important IMO.

When you mention the future of networks this is where I really disagree with you.  I know that things need to change and are already starting to but to have a network with only 5-10 OBL's is not something that is sustainable or a business model that would work.  For the cost to subscribers it would make a lot more sense to just buy your own networkif sites and have full control of them.

Having a network niche specific is way off the mark IMO as I don't think you would ever reach enough people within a niche that would be willing to spend the subscription to sustain the network.

I honestly think this is taking it too far and too low and this is more at the higher level seo companies set up networks with very low OBL's but they can do this with the spend of the companies they work with as usually quite high profit niches.

I think that there are things that need to be changed in current networks although do not see this happening too soon, but should be a lot different in say 12 months. So networks need to be using different platforms and not just on the main one most are using, some HTML sites need to be used and other platforms. Sites need to have different OBL's both numbers and sites (a few ways to do this) and I would say that as long as OBL's are kept below 50 they should be fine. Most now do 80 so this is an easy thing for G to pick up on.

The key to networks is mixing it up as much as possible not just within the network but compared to other networks and of course getting back to real quality domains. I also think smaller packages are key, the larger packages e.g. 100+ can be a massive signal to G with more sites with similare if it the same links plus similar content too.

Anyway these are just my thoughts on it all so would be good to hear others too.

[akula]

HPBL will either have to evolve like blog networks like ALN and FBL with some intelligent algorithms and programing done smartly.

Or stay simply as a private function for those of us that have a need for one.

The entrepreneurial HPBL networks set up as pay per month as part of the same crowd is simply doomed eventually. It may take 6 months but it is not sustainable. I bought into the hype myself, but found out the hard way they're doomed.

The resources needed to spread links around properly without leaving a footprint can only shouldered by a large majority like the community blog networks.

[clickbumped]

Yes, HPBL services are going to need to go in a new direction if they want to remain a sustainable business model. I, myself, have used many HPBL services, but ended up canceling them merely off of their short term value to me and/or the deindexation of sites in the networks. I watched tons of back links go away at once, and cancelled 3 services because, as you said, I couldn't tell whose were taken down.

The way I see it, HPBLs work well, for a short term investment. In the long run, they don't really keep your site ranked where you want it to be. Yes, they do provide that initial "boost" that you need to break that competitive term that you just can't seem to break with all your other methods, but after a while, the site seems to fall down again, and you're still paying that monthly fee.

Services like ALN and FBL will be the true HPBL networks that last, because they really can't go anywhere. The only thing I think should be changed is the number of posts with actual links in them on the site. If there were some sort of algorithm that stripped links out of half the articles that were actually posted, or even posted 30 articles instead of 15, with 15 actually including links, then maybe these services would work even better.

As for HPBL services with "unique content" and 100 OBL and all that sh*t, I don't see much of a future anymore. They are far too easy to spot, and cost way too much to run properly. Your new "twist" using real money sites seems very interesting, though, and could take this kind of business to an entirely new level.

[ARVolund]

seodisaster, on 10 February 2012 - 13:08, said:

HPBL works but you need to keep you external link extremely low < (5) in order to fly under The radar. Building your own network is the way to go for 2012

Where did you pull that number from? Any testing? Evidence? Any info at all other than just pulling it out of thin air?

[amul]

I like the idea of spyglass reports, backlink/mozRank reports monthly for all sites in network and randomizing the anchors/quantity.
In the end folks buying thin pr3/4/5's with weak backlinks.. to throw into their networks - deserve to lose.

[Offliner]

There was a time when I had 13 HPBL subscriptions active, many with multiple links. I kept a full record of keywords/anchor text and a few months back spent a whole afternoon doing various checks using SEO Spyglass and Market Samurai and found that more than half of them were useless.

One particular provider who I was paying nearly $700 each month to and had been doing for over a year, I’d found their WHOLE network was de-indexed. Yet they were happy to carry on taking my monthly payments with no problem. From what I can see there are still 80 odd people who are unknowingly paying for something they clearing are not getting ANY benefit from.

Since then I’ve cancelled 7 HPBL services and have 5 which are still active. However I keep a monthly eye on these to check the network is still indexed and the PR integrity of the network is near enough to where it should be.

Although the way things have been going my plan is to start my own private network just for personal use with unique content on the page and a handful of outbound links.

[Rainmak3r]

Having been at the brunt of a few High PR (Non performing) sites, I would definitely be the first to hope into any network that has the potential to boost my site's rankings.
Right now I'm battling to find the right combination and qualityof backlinks with the potential to rank.

With profile links being out of the picture, and scrapebox links being too spammy and not as effective, I've spent the past couple of months tweaking my wordpress .css and php files.
To my amazement, most of my sites have actually gained SERPs as a result of merely tweaking the very framework called wordpress.

Most IMers might not know that, but most plugins, instead of aiding your sites, serve to lower their SEO potential.
I've actually done away with seo platinum as well as all-in-one seo.
I've had to change the search.php as well as the header.php files so that the results shown in the serps are seo optimized.

Been an interesting exercise, and thanks to firefox, one doesn't need to know coding to tweak their wordpress blogs; with extensions such as firebug, seo doctor etc, you're literally your own doctor when it comes to tweaking your own sites.

The question then remains, what type of backlinks to use, when your site then becomes a mean ranking machine.

Looking forward to the future of HPBLs...

Aluta...

[ARVolund]

Offliner, on 11 February 2012 - 11:26, said:

There was a time when I had 13 HPBL subscriptions active, many with multiple links. I kept a full record of keywords/anchor text and a few months back spent a whole afternoon doing various checks using SEO Spyglass and Market Samurai and found that more than half of them were useless.

One particular provider who I was paying nearly $700 each month to and had been doing for over a year, I’d found their WHOLE network was de-indexed. Yet they were happy to carry on taking my monthly payments with no problem. From what I can see there are still 80 odd people who are unknowingly paying for something they clearing are not getting ANY benefit from.

Since then I’ve cancelled 7 HPBL services and have 5 which are still active. However I keep a monthly eye on these to check the network is still indexed and the PR integrity of the network is near enough to where it should be.

Although the way things have been going my plan is to start my own private network just for personal use with unique content on the page and a handful of outbound links.

Seriously dude for that kind of money you should set up your own network. I started building my own way before I reached that kind of cost level.

[Offliner]

ARVolund, on 11 February 2012 - 13:35, said:

Seriously dude for that kind of money you should set up your own network. I started building my own way before I reached that kind of cost level.

Yeah I wish I had done that, however the first few I joined I started to see results (these are the ones I’m still with) and assumed they would all be like that.

Looking back it now, spending around $1600 each month on HPBL’s was madness.

[ARVolund]

Offliner, on 11 February 2012 - 14:23, said:

Yeah I wish I had done that, however the first few I joined I started to see results (these are the ones I’m still with) and assumed they would all be like that.

Looking back it now, spending around $1600 each month on HPBL’s was madness.

"........................................................................................................................................................................................................."<-me rendered speechless!!

[neutrinoburger]

Offliner, on 11 February 2012 - 11:26, said:

There was a time when I had 13 HPBL subscriptions active, many with multiple links. I kept a full record of keywords/anchor text and a few months back spent a whole afternoon doing various checks using SEO Spyglass and Market Samurai and found that more than half of them were useless.

One particular provider who I was paying nearly $700 each month to and had been doing for over a year, I’d found their WHOLE network was de-indexed. Yet they were happy to carry on taking my monthly payments with no problem. From what I can see there are still 80 odd people who are unknowingly paying for something they clearing are not getting ANY benefit from.

Since then I’ve cancelled 7 HPBL services and have 5 which are still active. However I keep a monthly eye on these to check the network is still indexed and the PR integrity of the network is near enough to where it should be.

Although the way things have been going my plan is to start my own private network just for personal use with unique content on the page and a handful of outbound links.

I could have written this post.

[ryanjm]

It's simple, we kill the batman to prevent sites getting de-indexed, you need 2 things:

1) Unique content
2) Varied OBL

That's it. Ever since I did that like 4-5 months ago I've never had a site de-indexed on any of my networks.

With regard to varied OBL, if your network has perhaps 50 sites in it, you can only sell 30 links per person. Those 30 links go on a random set of 30 of the 50 sites in your network. That way every site has a different set of OBLs. There's no need to limit yourself to 10 OBLs per site or whatever, you're not trying to pass a manual review. The juice is good with 50, 60, 70+ links on a page. Hell, there are tons of legit sites that have pages with hundreds of links, as evidenced by the link profiles of some of the high PR sites I buy. Lots of government and/or resource sites will have listings of hundreds of links on a page linking out to various resources. The number of OBL has no bearing on the legitimacy of a site.

Now unique content. That's another tricky thing because if you take a 500 word post and spin it to 80% uniqueness, then put that on 50 sites, I can guarantee you that copyscape will detect almost every variant. If copyscape can detect it, then so can Giggle. Any site that doesn't either have 100% unique content, or what I would refer to as "super spun" content (short paragraph with tons of sentence and word level spinning), is going to get detected and de-indexed.

If you do those 2 things, that's all that's needed. Any extra effort spent beyond that is probably a waste of time.

[BurgerKing]

Interesting conversation, and it brings up some good points.

1. If your HPBL provider is not sharing the list of network sites with you, then I would give it a miss. Deindexing is obvioulsy a big issue, as is hosting going down & links simply not being placed. If they don't make this easy for you to check, then I would give it a miss. As a HPBL provider, I have my own strategies for avoiding being deindexed (and so far, touch wood, they have been successful) but I don't expect anyone to simply take my word for it.

2. As for the future of HPBL, I think it is whatever gets the rankings. This might mean making each network site look like a 'normal' site as much as possible, or it might mean staying spammy but with less OBL (or more, depending on the next Algo update). The testing goes on....

[seodisaster]

ARVolund, on 11 February 2012 - 01:46, said:

Where did you pull that number from? Any testing? Evidence? Any info at all other than just pulling it out of thin air?

If you are having the same exact OBL,  same CMS platform  on every network you are leaving a footprint and yes I am constantly testing things out in my lab to see what works and what not. Evidence? I prefer to keep things in the file cabinet.

[Parto]

Wouldn't it just be better to buy High PR domains and do link exchange on them pointing to your money sites? You won't have the same control, but your links would end up on different hosts, in different countries, in different content, obl? Or am I missing something here?

Edited by Parto, 12 February 2012 - 05:11.

[Fixer]

ryanjm, on 11 February 2012 - 18:29, said:

It's simple, we kill the batman to prevent sites getting de-indexed, you need 2 things:

1) Unique content
2) Varied OBL

That's it. Ever since I did that like 4-5 months ago I've never had a site de-indexed on any of my networks.

With regard to varied OBL, if your network has perhaps 50 sites in it, you can only sell 30 links per person. Those 30 links go on a random set of 30 of the 50 sites in your network. That way every site has a different set of OBLs. There's no need to limit yourself to 10 OBLs per site or whatever, you're not trying to pass a manual review. The juice is good with 50, 60, 70+ links on a page. Hell, there are tons of legit sites that have pages with hundreds of links, as evidenced by the link profiles of some of the high PR sites I buy. Lots of government and/or resource sites will have listings of hundreds of links on a page linking out to various resources. The number of OBL has no bearing on the legitimacy of a site.

Now unique content. That's another tricky thing because if you take a 500 word post and spin it to 80% uniqueness, then put that on 50 sites, I can guarantee you that copyscape will detect almost every variant. If copyscape can detect it, then so can Giggle. Any site that doesn't either have 100% unique content, or what I would refer to as "super spun" content (short paragraph with tons of sentence and word level spinning), is going to get detected and de-indexed.

If you do those 2 things, that's all that's needed. Any extra effort spent beyond that is probably a waste of time.

Yes to all this Ryan!  You must spread your links or change OBL's some other way.  Content is key and you need to have very well spun stuff to make sure the links are fully counted and sites are not deindexed.  To see a network have anything deindexed would indicate the owner has been taking shortcuts with they content and/or site setup, so I would stay clear of those networks all together, IMO.