Build My Rank Alternatives

BMR was what is called a blog network. In order to get a backlink users had to write an article snippet of at least 150 words. Snippets had to be unique and were posted to just one blog. Although there was automated checking to ensure that content was duplicate, there was very little editorial control.

On the 22 March 2012 users got a message when they logged in saying that Google had de-indexed 90% of their network and that they were shutting down the business, and offering pro-rata refunds for the current month.

I must admit I was surprised that Google had been so brutal. But I was even more surprised and the ethics demonstrated by the owners of BMR who not just owned up to the de-indexing but offered refunds! In contrast there are some other networks who have been deindexed in the past, who never stopped taking people's money (LinkVana, SEO Nitro, SEO Link Vine - are some I've heard are in this situation).

Google destroyed BMR because it worked. It was ranking websites. At least it had been, I was not the only user who had seen its effectiveness reduce in the last few months. So its possible that Google had already devalued links from the sites to some extent.

Mass deindexing this visibly is rare though. Why did Google do that? In some ways in makes my life easier, I know BMR is finished, I can move on. But from Google's point of view - what they are doing is sending a clear message:

• to send a clear message to link build networks - we are after you; 
• to send a clear message to their customers i.e. their big Adwords buyers, we are cleaning up the search results, so it will be easier for your sites to rank.

To me though - the important message is very, very clear:

BACKLINKS ARE STILL IMPORTANT - BACKLINKS HELP YOUR SITE RANK

Build My Rank had a fairly obvious footprint. If I was checking backlinks I could recognise BMR articles. As a human I saw:

• all blogs were very general - they covered every possible niche 
• almost every post was under 200 words with one link out to a non-authorative site 
• some sites had 1000's of links from JUST BMR blogs - so you analyse one site's profile and reverse engineer the BMR sites
• the blogs were "dead" - there was no community, no comments, no social media shares, no one home.

BMR blogs were also owned by one company. They used privacy to obscure the actual ownership, but its long been speculated, that because Google is a domain registrar, they could get access to this information. Whether this is true or not - I have no idea. To be honest the points above were more than enough for a manual review to find most of the sites.

So what are yoru options. Well as I write this - a few days after the initial fall out - its fair to say its a fast moving environment. I'll be updating this! Keep an eye out for updates on my Build My Rank Alternatives blog post.

Alternative Blog Networks
I can't recommend any of these at the moment. Whether or not they'e been hit - Google is on the warpath - so personally I won't be using a network for quite a number of months, until the furore dies down.

Web 2.0 For Backlinks
Sites such as Squidoo, HubPages and Wizzley all provide backlinks if used cleverly. The good networks are fussy about the quality of your content.

Guest Posting For Backlinks

Guest posting has always been part of the Internet, always will be. Guest posting is NOT the same as a using a network. If you are guest posting you are providing content for a blogger who has an active site that they promote and interact on. That's as different as it gets from blog networks built solely for backlinks.

Finding guest posting opportunities can be a pain - but I do find quite a few using the Keyword Academy forums and resources. Check it out - free for the first month - so you have nothing to lose.