The purpose of this case study is to try and understand the Google Panda algorithm by manipulating it to read nine ccTLDs within a blog farm each of which is to empower its main money site and propagate PR juice. The money site is within a competitive niche.
Kindly note that the material listed below is accumulated tasks which have been covered over three weeks. The notes in this post have been made on a daily basis.
This testing environment will use the following components to carry out the case study.
- 9 x Exact Match Domains that are .IN ccTLDs.
- Shared Web Hosting Environment with unmetered resources.
- 9 x C Class IPs distributed over various available ranges.
- Content for articles, blogs, press-releases & web 2.0 properties.
- WordPress Installation + Required Plugins.
- Dragon Dictation
- Traffic Travis (Non Pro Account) & SERPIQ Premium Account.
- SickSubmitter for Bookmarking.
- MarketSamurai (On Loan)
- BacklinkGenie (BLG).
- Manual Social Bookmarks & Link Wheels.
Day 1 – Registering 9 ccTLDs
Since this case study requires no form of monetization, I shall not be looking at CPC or CPM. Instead, I shall be focusing on Global Monthly Searches over 4000 exact match queries a month. I shall be using Google Adwords Tool for the same.
Narrowing down to 9 EMDs can become particularly difficult especially when it is in a competitive niche. I shall try to focus on CI using TrafficTravis and SERPIQ. I have noticed that most ccTLDs are not responding well to competitive indexes with SERPIQ. I purchased a premium package from SERPIQ at $29 a month just raise my limits on the otherwise free limit.
The screenshot below showcases the CI for 4 specific EMDs. I have blanked out the CPC and Keyword Group for obvious reasons. Averaging with a CI of 35-40, it should not be an issue with recording higher SERP boosts than previously anticipated.
As this case study does not require me to work on a tight budget, I shall be opting for a Registrar that I am well acquainted with. My total bill for the 9 EMDs has worked out to $95 with each registration for one year. Opted in for privacy protection.
Since I would need to eventually place these EMDs on different C Classes, I would need a host that can offer me the same. After much-researched decisions on a number of forums, I have decided to opt-in for SEOHost. SEOHost took a while to set up my account and propagate my nameservers. Got my nine Dedicated IPs from different C Class IP ranges. Looks beautiful to see how I can use these babies to manipulate the SE’s. Created a ticket with SEOHost to assign each EMD with a single C Class IP. I shall have to give this at least 24 hours to resolve the right IPs. Will do an IP check-in 24 Hours.
Day 2 – Tweaking the Basics
So, the IP’s have started resolving properly. I will now have to spend the day tweaking the small little things that make a difference. Let’s get started with cPanel and then manage installations of WordPress on all Domains. I have used Fantastico to get them done. Once the installations have completed, I updated each installation with 3 additional Plugins.
- All in One SEO
- Contact Form 7
- WP-Cache
I have configured the now created websites to showcase 3 pages with a sidebar. The homepage will not be a posting page as I do not need to update these with blog posts. As I have no plans to monetize these 9 sites, I have used the default twenty-ten theme which came bundled with WordPress. It’s clean, simple, and yet good enough to get the job done.
I have been much debating the fact on whether in the long run, I would want to monetize this site or not. If I plan to add them as a potential revenue generator, I would need to add a terms and conditions page along with the privacy policy page to go along with the new rules of Adsense. The CPC for each of these domains is around the $6 mark. It would definitely be great to develop these with a good Adsense WP Theme. Unfortunately, there are bigger plans in the pipeline.
I will now need to configure my plugins. Starting with All-in-one-SEO, I shall need to get a list of EMD KW. Of course my first priority would be to go in for the exact matches. However, If these can work out for long-tail KWs as well, then good enough. I shall be using Analytics to ensure that I can find a good low volume CI long-tail keyword for each EMD. This has been tremendously unsuccessful due to the limitations of the Adwords interface. I will need to get in touch with someone that can lend me his MarketSamurai Account. I would have purchased one myself but that would throw the budget out of line.
Interestingly, I have a client that was helpful enough to get MarketSamurai for me. However, this would not be free. I would have to spend $10 a day to use the product. Let me not argue on this as I just needed it for a day. Took it up. MarketSamurai has helped me find three long-tail keywords for each EMD. This was beyond my expectations and at just $10, it’s been a steal. Although the long tail KWs have a comparative lower search volume for local results, I cannot complain as they have an amazingly low CI. I have successfully managed to input my research into All-in-one-SEO. Thought about making a donation. But, not now.
The next plugin I need to tweak is Contact Form 7. This is pretty much self-explanatory and just needs to have its shortcode embedded onto the Contact Us page for each website. I have taken the liberty to add my money site’s mailing list as the preferred contact form email so that I can gather up leads.
The final plugin to tweak is WP-Cache. Done.
Day 3 – Content Matters
I’ve seen the way content behaves on the web. Creating oodles of content for these 9 sites can become a real pain in the ass. However, it has to be one. With a tight schedule, my question is how the hell do I get the time to create over 100,000 words of content in a day? Should I outsource and get lower quality? Fuck it. I shall do it myself. Let Dragon do the writing.
I set up Dragon Dictate a long time back. This should be perfect right about now.
After writing up a grand bunch of web page content, I have narrowed it down to 3 pages per site. So now, each website has three pages; Home, Information and Contact Us. Each page has around 450 words of content with the exception of the Contact Us page.
Uploading the content to the site was done in a jiffy. With the content up, the only thing left to be done is adding a few images with alt tags. Created basic images with the help of a quick banner creator.
Now that all the sites are completed with content and images, I shall bookmark them on Digg for each URL. I shall leave them for 24 hours to see if they get indexed.
Day 4 – Indexing
5 out of my 9 EMDs have been bookmarked. For the rest, I shall try submitting some more bookmarks to other sites. However, I do not wish to spend too much time on this as I require to build backlinks as well. While I start building articles and blogs for the sites, I shall be placing each domain on a rotational basis on BLG. This should propagate for the next 3 days.
Day 7 – Rank Checking
With basic links setup for each EMD, it’s time to run a rank report. I shall be using Traffic Travis to monitor the ranks due to the fact that Mozilla’s Rank Checker is having some stability issues.
Ranks seem to be working out perfectly fine. This is the status of the ranks on Day 7.
Perfect.
Day 10 – Link Building
I have created around 40 pieces of articles, 20 blogs, and 10 PR for each site. This should suffice for now. I shall not be submitting any of my articles to ezine. I know many of you may be wondering why not. But the fact of the matter is the approval limit from ezine is a bit too much to wait for. I would have done it if I had a premium account. However, my previous premium accounts got suspended. I shall hence be concentrating on ArticleBase and PubArticles as my bases.
PRLog will be my only source for press releases. I shall be using my blogs to create 2xWeb 2.0 properties each with 3 backlinks. I shall be using the following Link Wheel for its propagation.
Day 13 – Bookmarking
I shall now have to bookmark every property, article, and press release that I have submitted. This can take a while. I shall hence be doing 50% manually and the remainder with the help of SickSubmitter.
Day 16 – Rank Check
It has been a beautiful two weeks and since the last rank check, all of my 9 EMDS are ranking within the top 10 SERPs. I need to stabilize this and I may do this with the help of Jays C Class IP Blog Posting Service.
Jay has been kind to help me with one unique blog post with 2xBacklinks on his SEO Network of Blog Farms. While this should be good enough to boost the rankings by a heavy margin, I would want to bring each EMD to the top.
Day 21 – Stabilization
I have exactly nine days more to complete this case study. This means I have one day for each EMD. What better way to do this other than with the help of BLG. I shall be using BLG for their Blog Commenting and Angela & Paul’s Profile Backlinks. I have already created the targets to be completed in a week. BLG should take care of this on autopilot.
Day 28 – Missed Out Implementations
When I started out this project I missed out on some basic tweaks. Although this has not affected the rankings, I will go ahead and do them as they would only boost up the ranks further. To complete the final minor tweaks, I shall be spending the rest of the day adding TOS, XML Sitemaps, and Analytics to each EMD. Additionally, I need to also add Webmaster Tools to these babies as the Yahoo Link Explorer service has been terminated.
Day 30 – Final Rank Check
Here it is. Traffic Travis has coughed up its final report for the end of the month. It has been a long month and I can assure you that the wait has been well worth it.
Results & Inference
- 8 out of 9 EMDs currently rank at #1
- 1 out of 9 EMDs currently rank at #3
- Each EMD is well established in the SERPs
- Each EMD has an average of 800 High PR Backlinks
- BLG continues its drip feed blasts.
