Link Research Tools
Third-party toxic links incur Penguin’s wrath: IphoneFixed.co.uk analysis
March 6, 2014
IphoneFixed hit hard by Penguin 2.0 and 2.1
You have to feel sorry for IphoneFixed.co.uk. Since May 2013, their search traffic has plummeted. Though the site and its backlinks look fake, they’re a real business. Even the BBC and O2 recommend and use them. They could use some RCS. But, looking generic is the least of their worries. Rick Lomas takes us through a deep dive of their site, and why this unfortunate site’s traffic was gutted by Penguin 2.0 and 2.1.
9 Ways to Check the Quality of a Link
May 16, 2014
Learn how to check your website’s link profile in only 9 steps
So many Google Updates and websites losing visibility on search engine results have made most SEOs question themselves. “What still works to improve a website’s ranking?”
On-Page and content marketing are a trend, but they are not enough. As long as Matt Cutts says backlinks are relevant to ranking, you’ll have to keep building links. However, only high quality links can boost rankings, and that’s why you have to constantly check who is linking to your website.
Rick Lomas presents 9 very practical ways to check the quality of your backlinks, including detailed how-tos on using the LinkResearchTools for your link check.
WilliamHill.com Bet Big Stakes on Spammy SEO…and Lost
April 9, 2014
Toxic Subdomains and Paid Links Penalize William Hill
The house doesn’t always win. The UK-based gaming behemoth, William Hill, bet on paid links, toxic subdomain links, hidden image links and worthless sitewide affiliate links. It cost them dearly. In January, their search visibility plummeted. Was it an algorithmic or manual penalty? It took some digging to uncover why their SEO went broke.
Rick Lomas uncovers the dark secrets buried in WilliamHill.com’s link profile and uncovered multiple abuses. Tragically, they could have been avoided with closer scrutiny and regular link audits.
Vivint.com SEO Visibility Plummets from Manual Penalty
July 3, 2014
Did Google Deliberately Penalize a Nest Competitor?
In January 2014, vivint.com’s SEO visibility plummeted. Was it a common penalty or something sinister? Some accused Google of assassinating the site, putting Matt Cutts on the defensive. After all, Vivint specializes in home automation, just like a recent Google acquisition, Nest.
Is Google really assassinating sites’ search rankings to boost its own products? Many people are quick to believe it. After all, Google isn’t exactly transparent.
But the real story is far more complex. Getting to the truth is going to take us down many different paths. Fortunately for us, Rick Lomas is an expert guide of the back alleys and hidden passageways of SEO. You may be surprised where he leads us.
Creating a Powerful PBN with LinkResearchTools
September 3, 2014
How to find high quality, used domains and recover their link juice
SEOs are nothing if not creative. Though Google frowns on using Private Blog Networks to build links to your Money sites, PBNs still work. Just don’t get caught using them.
Instead of wasting hours of your life trying to find high quality domains for your PBN, automate it. This guide is a lifesaver for helping SEOs quickly find thousands of used domains for sale, easily finding their Power*Trust, and testing their value for your PBN.
How to find the best link building opportunities
February 4, 2015
Using Footprints with the SERP Tool
Finding good links is not getting any easier. Long gone are the days when you could write a load of articles and post them in article directories and enjoy the benefits of the backlinks. The same goes for all the Web 2.0 properties that got so heavily abused in the past. So what is left, is link building dead? No, of course it isn’t. It’s just that Google wants you to play fairly and not buy or trade links in order to manipulate their search results.
Is that a link you really want? Make sure it’s a great one!
March 6, 2015
Finding Link Opportunities and Evaluating Them
In a previous article I looked at ways to build links by using SEO footprints to find great places to engage with your audience and find link placement opportunities. I also mentioned that you could combine this with Link Detox in the ‘Link Opportunity Audit’ mode to be absolutely sure that your link sources are going to have a low DTOXRISK™. This article will describe the process in more detail, so that you can use this as a blueprint for your own business.
Discovering ways to improve your Google rankings
By Rick Lomas | February 23, 2015
Understanding what Google wants
The secret of SEO today is to understand what exactly Google wants. You may hear some SEOs saying that you need social signals, press releases, editorial links etc. etc. To guess like this is inaccurate and dangerous. The only surefire way is to analyze your competition and see what they are doing and see why they are successful.
Google uses many signals to calculate search engine positions. This information is, of course, top secret, but by looking at the sites that already rank we can look at
How to Perform a Disavow File Audit
March 16, 2015
You May Have Some Great Links in Your Disavow File
Website owners upload Disavow Files to their Google Webmaster Tools account to remove Google Penalties and keep their sites safe from harmful and unnatural inbound links. During this process the disavow file tends to get overwritten with a larger one each time. This is normal, but what if some of your disavowed links, later become good links? How do you get them back?
Why You Need Links Similar to Your Competition
May 18, 2015
Find your competitor’s best backlinks
What makes a neighborhood good or bad when it comes to link building?
The answer is: co-citations – a really important ranking factor for Google. The search engine identifies a relation (or link) between two websites based on a third-party webpage that mentions both websites. Co-citation refers to link building without it necessarily involving actual outgoing links. They make search engines understand what other sites your site is similar to.
In this article we look at the backlinks that your competitors have and find out how to use the good ones to increase your website’s authority and relevance in SERPs.
13 Ways to improve backlinks that you already have
June 26, 2015
Improve the backlinks you have
Getting links is never an easy task when you have to approach someone out of the blue and persuade them to link to your site. But what if they are already linking to you? Reaching out to someone who is already linking to you is so much easier than cold calling.
So how can you improve the links you already have? We had a late night discussion in the LRT Associates Forum and came up with 13 ways to improve the backlinks that you already have. Some strategies might be more obvious than others, but I’m sure you will have at least one ‘light bulb moment’ during this article.
Interviews
29 SEO Experts and Their Experience With the Google Penguin Updates
April 24, 2015
Rick is from the UK, but has lived in the French Alps since 2001. Rick built his first website in 1997 when the main search engine was Altavista and the word Google didn’t exist. Since then he has learnt SEO from the ground up and has lived through every update Google has thrown at us. In 2012 his income was decimated by Google Penguin 1.0 and a Manual Spam action. In 2015 he has an SEO business which involves removing Google Penalties.
SEO & Link Detox One Interview with Rick Lomas
July 29, 2015
In this interview we aim to get an insight from Rick as to what webmasters should be focusing on today and in particular some of the tools available from LinkResearchTools.com including their recently released Detox One tool.