Way back in March 2006 I launched a website called pyramidlinking.com (now offline) that offered users a new way to build static, one way links for free.
A couple of years down the line I thought it might be interesting to look at what happened and most importantly what went wrong.
Please note that the web was a lot different in early 2006. Low quality links and automated solutions worked much better than they do now. Also Google hadn’t started a war on paid links. I certainly wouldn’t think of doing something similar today.
The idea was to create a method of automating the link exchange process. Users would register with the site and it generated a list of 10-50 websites to link to from the users links page – the number of sites people had to link to depended on the number of links they wanted in return.
The key principle behind the site (and the reason for the spammy sounding name) was that users got twice as many links back as they donated to the system. Other great features the site had were a referral scheme where users could refer a friend in exchange for 5 extra links, no html footprint for the links, links exchanged were on topic and could be approved by the webmaster before they went live.
Fantastically every link a site received was from another page with equal or higher PageRank than the page users were donating links from. That meant if your links page was PR4 you got links from pages with PR4,5,6,7,8,9 or even PR10.
In the first week we had over 1000 new users signing up and perhaps 10,000 links being placed.
Very quickly my rudimentary systems to catch cheats were beaten by people cloaking, using links that were commented out in the html code and other methods. My reliance on the community to catch cheats was heavy and most cheaters just left after they got caught meaning the 30 links they had been allocated needed to be re-allocated to other websites signing up to the system.
My model for making money was to sell link placements on some of the sites in the system – so you might be linking to 30 sites from your links page, 10 of them were paying to be there and 20 were just part of the system.
Essentially I had found a way to sell links on over a thousand websites without having to give any of the money to the actual webmasters! What’s more they all knew about it and were actively promoting the system!
The site was launched with a single thread on the DP forums and it quickly grew to over 400 replies.
After a few weeks it was clear that the site was growing out of control and, like Twitter, it was riding a fine line between users wanting to help grow the system and users abandoning ship. Once users started to remove their links it would take perhaps a week before a snowball effect meant the entire project was dead.
So barely 4 weeks after the site was launched I sold it for a decent amount ($3000 if I remember rightly) and left the new owners to implement all the required features.
I don’t think things went very well after this because the site was abandoned soon afterwards. However even 2 years down the line I still think this was a brilliant idea, even though the whole concept was fundamentally flawed. How can a site sustainably offer twice as many links as people are giving?
How does Pyramid Linking Work?
Pyramidlinking.com will help you improve your rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN by allowing you to quickly build static, relevant and geo-targetted backlinks to your website.
When you register for the service we collect some basic details about your website and then suggest a small number of sites for you to link to. Once you have added the links to your site we send our automated spider to verify that the links have been added correctly. As soon as your links are validated your website is added to the queue of available link partners and will be suggested when new users sign up for the service.
If you choose to display 10 outbound links on a page on your website we will issue credits for 20 links. Your site will remain in the link partner queue until we have verified that 20 sites have added your link.
The links are added to each site as plain html hyperlinks. There are no scripts to install and no ‘footprint’ meaning that the links are totally indistinguishable from normal text links. Every link to your website contains the anchor text of your choice and is placed on a website in the country and category that you have chosen.
Every outbound link we ask you to display on your website will be to a website with the same or lower PageRank than your site. This means that every link to your website will be from a site with the same or higher PageRank than your site.
Benefits
* Gain static text links to your website
* Improve search engine rankings
* Links are relevant and geo-targetted
* No scripts to install
* Search engine friendly & no ‘footprint’
* You receive twice as many links as you giveHow it works
* Register your account
* Add your url, category and country
* Choose the sites you want to link to
* Your site is added to the link queue
* Gain good quality backlinks to your website
* Get 5 extra links for each new user you refer
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think I remember seeing that thread at some point. Back in like 2004 the I have a website now what system used to work good.
I.e. it was a pyramid scheme where the new users fill in the supply for the extra link, and wait around in the meantime for others to join.
You get credit for 5 links for referring someone, but they need to add 10 to the system – that just added 5 links in.
If the whole world did it, at some point it would crack, but the whole www doesn’t, so it’s just the bottom of the pyramid that sucks. Right?
You have been at this a long time Patrick. I guess you have gotten wiser with age. Hopefully richer too.
The Masked Millionaire
you are really a herald in link building…
Great post, clever idea Patrick.
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