Julia Logan | ZANGOOSE.DIGITAL
Greetings to everyone who attended our panel at CasinoBeats. As promised, some additional information below.
Top 10 Things to Keep In Mind When Building a Private Network - the word cloud explained:
Purpose - what is the reason for building the network, what goals are you trying to achieve. A network built with the purpose of ranking the money making site via links from the network sites is built using entirely different principles than a network built to help with an online reputation management project.
Control - your own private network gives you unlimited control over the sources of your links, but buying links from somebody else's network may create a lot of additional risks. Even getting guest posts or buying paid links on third-party owned sites will likely put you into the position of getting links off somebody else's network, and who is in control matters a lot as you depend on that third party's skills and diligence.
Exclusivity - the whole point of building and owning your own private network is in geting exclusive links from domains you control which your competitors cannot replicate - these are the links which give you competitive advantage when all else is equal.
Domain age - not a crucial factor per se but matters in combination with other factors such as ranking history, content history, live links. We research all of the above in detail when looking for suitable domains for a client's network.
Relevance - when given a choice between a topically relevant domain and something completely unrelated, I will always choose a site which can be logically linked to the topic of the client's site.
Footprints - avoid them in any form or shape! Anything that can be randomised, should be - CMS (or lack thereof), registrars, hosting, whois details, etc.
Confidentiality - this means several things, and all of them are important for the longevity and effectiveness of your network. The less people know about a network project, the better. We treat each of our clients as if they signed an NDA even when no actual document has been signed. Confidentiality also means not using Google products while dealing with a network building project (e.g. Google Sheets, Google Drive, Google chat, Google-powered email etc.) - Google is very hungry for data, do not give them more than they need to know. Blocking all link tracking tools from the network domains, however, does not help with confidentiality as it creates an additional footprint, while there are still ways to see a site's links using other tools.
Some additional links:
- Parasites vs sponsored content
- Tracking the rankings of 4 mainstream media sites in the gambling SERPs
- Domain metrics myth: The trouble with the links and domains market
Still got questions, need to know more, want to talk about a network project for your site or training for your team? - Contact us!