Recently a certain black hat SEO I was following in the SERPs revealed a very powerful strategy to me. Strangely, most of the big wins I tend to find in this game seem to be the simplest. This is one of them.
I call this the link building flea flicker.
Here is a definition for those non “American” football fans out there.
“A flea flicker is an unorthodox play (often called a trick play) in American football designed to fool the defensive team into thinking that a play is a run instead of a pass.”
Here is the process:
Step 1. Launch blog site on authority domain(s)
yoursite.blogspot.com
yoursite.wordpress.com
There’s two examples. The more Google is currently sucking that site off the better.
Important notes about choosing your site username and the host:
*Be sure that site allows you to redirect to a domain, without this we are burned.
*Make sure the exact username on your yoursite.wordpress subdomain is an available domain. so if you use “yoursite.wordpress.com”, yoursite.com better be available (Hint – we will use this later).
Step 2. Build up site and build links to subdomain!
Depending on what shade you feel comfortable with, you can make it as white or black as you’d like. Personally I like shades of of grey with hints of a few other colors. If you are the slow play type and build one site at a time then you’re in luck, you just found an easy way to launch your next baby and get some easy juice from the start. Try to get some links from related blogs as well, this will help solidify the WordPress.com juice you’re getting from Google’s bitch ass.
Step 3. Chill
Give the site(s) a couple months to marinate. Chill out for a bit. Go meet some humans for once you reclusive SEO you.
All the while have some links dripping to the subdomain and fresh content as well. I like to que up content for 2 months while I’m blasting links at the subdomain along with some light linking at interior pages.
I have a VA keep an eye on things and keep track of published URLs and all that other shit. Also track rankings, just simply take published urls and head keywords, enter into Rank Reporter, schedule reporting, and sit back like a boss.
Step 4. It’s Flea Flicker Time
Now that you’ve thrown that bottle in the wine cellar for a bit and let the alcohol content go up, it’s time to get drunk.
Oh Google you and your big brand lean, you tricksters you. Here is the flea flicker, right after G gives your site a nice nod and some wordpress.com love, you’re going to redirect that bad boy and build some more links. Better ones because you’re working with a domain now. Links you would have built in the first place but couldn’t because you were working with the wordpress subdomain. So have a field day, build links like it’s 2006. Well don’t go that crazy, get your tier on of course, but now you have a domain with some traction to work with.
Tip – If you’re using blogspot, here is a wordpress plugin that will help you map everything when you officially launch the site.
Step 5. Chill some more.
If you can’t figure it out from here then I do feel sorry for you and unfortunately and your future might be bleak. Maybe a recap will help.
Here is a summary of the play:
1. Launch blog site on WordPress or Blogspot. Let’s say we’re trying to sell dog poop bags.
2. We buy iLoveDogPoopBags.com and keep her stashed away.
3. Launch ilovedogpoopbags.wordpress.com. Do your thing, get some rankings and traffic.
4. Let marinate for ~3 months.
5. 301 Redirect to the domain ilovedogpoopbags.wordpress.com -> ilovedogpoopbags.com.
6. Continue to dominate.
7. Make an evil laugh at google.
Suck on that one Google.
Hahaha I watched that panda GIF about 30 times.
Great method here. I’ve never thought about using Google’s brand bias against them like that. I tip my grey hat to you.
Ever since they started making our lives hell with brand new domains I began exploiting there love for certain sites. Thanks for dropping in Mike!
Hey Jacob,
Gotta say, man, your style is really fresh(and it stings, too!). Awesome idea about flea flicking – I was toying with it some time ago, but never really had the chance to give it a shot and experiment. How future-proof do you think this method is? Isn’t it just a matter of time before Google gets wind of this?
Hey Shabbir, thanks for commenting dude.
It depends on how you play it, if you start a legit blog on blogspot or wordpress then 301 and keep the legitness going, it should be golden.
If you’re blasting away at the subdomain, redirecting, continuing to blast, then yes it is only a matter of time I guess. The truth is this parasite tactic has been working steady for years, we’re just adding a redirect at the end, which Google has handled differently over time. At one point it was almost like throwing a ball to a really dumb dog, they would just take it everytime.
Forgive my noobness, I normally don’t delve into this subdomain stuff. I’d appreciate if you addressed a few things:
1. Subdomains don’t pass juice right? You can’t ‘parasite’ cuz Google treats subs as diff. domains?
2. Why bother with the redirect process at all? Is this all about shaving off time before the site actually pulls rank? Maybe the ilovedogpoopbags.com method will take 8 months to rank, but via the fleat flicker its 4 months instead?
No noob forgiveness needed. Great questions. Typically subdomains aren’t suppose to pass juice but from my experience that’s bullshit.
Depending on which way wind is blowing with Google though. They were giving .wordpress quite the lean when I published this. We’re basically leveraging the extra boost G tends to give to a blogspot or wordpress out of the gate in comparison to a brand new fresh domain. Then we eventually redirect it and carry on as usual.
“They were giving .wordpress quite the lean when I published this.” You posted this on June 13, 2013. You make it sound like a quickly changing landscape!
Hypothesis: Find all of the random domains Google buys, biases, and ranks these days and just get links/subdomains from them. There could be two levels of “brand bias” going on these days.
1. “Brand we don’t own Bias” – Like Walmart or something.
2. “Brand we own bias” – REALLY JUICY bias (like retailmenot/youtube).
Find links from Bias group #2 at scale and exploit Google’s exploiting.
Ha yeah, that or just the way the wind was blowing for me. We know they recycle traffic to YT, that is something I need to exploit more of.
The trash videos I see ranking for competitive terms is mind boggling.
This is a great tactic. I think I’m going to do something this week to this effect. Watch this space. PS. Your piece over at Link Club was A.w.e.s.o.m.e!
Thanks Sean, glad you liked it. I was expecting a lot more viewers lol, you’re the first person to mention it.
Hi Jacob. Brilliant article, I’m eager to try this. Please forgive my SEO newcomer ignorance, but some of the things you said were slightly unclear to me and I just want to be 100% sure I have understood your instructions perfectly…
You say: “right after G gives your site a nice nod and some wordpress.com love, you’re going to redirect that bad boy and build some more links. Better ones because you’re working with a domain now. Links you would have built in the first place but couldn’t because you were working with the wordpress subdomain. So have a field day, build links like it’s 2006. Well don’t go that crazy, get your tier on of course, but now you have a domain with some traction to work with.”
1) Do we not link the sub-domain Web properties to our money site in any way at all before we implement the 301 redirects? Not a normal back-link or anything at all?
2) After we implement the 301 redirects, do you mean we continue to build yet more links to the sub-domain Web properties which are then redirected? or do you mean that at that point we change focus, stop link-building to the sub-domains, and start link-building directly to our money site domain?
3) Should we continue to publish content to our sub-domain Web properties after we have implemented the 301 redirects?
Thanks Jacob, any clarification you could provide on these points would be much appreciated.
Hey Jason, my idea was using the subdomain property to redirect at your money domain, just once tho, not as a link building method. You would also be starting the site on the subdomain, then literally moving to the domain hopefully matching the username of the blog.
If you were to be using it for link juice method, I’m sure wordpress and blogspot have cracked down on this. It should also be noted that .Wordpress has been an extra pain in the ass lately. I’m also not seeing the ranking favoritism like I was seeing upon writing this post.
The platform that is still killing (and was when I wrote this post ;-) ) is blogspot. Google loves them some blogspot! But this presents some hurdles with account creation that wordpress does not. Hope that clears things up, if not let’s jump over to the forum.
Thanks very much for that Jacob, but could I get your opinion on the second thing I asked:
2) After we implement the 301 redirects, do you mean we continue to build yet more links to the sub-domain Web properties which are then redirected? or do you mean that at that point we change focus, stop link-building to the sub-domains, and start link-building directly to our money site domain?
And also, when you say “starting the site on the subdomain”, do you mean that we can continue the exact same website on our money site? So publish the same content that is already on the subdomain?
Thanks.
This is really useful stuff, can I build all spammy links to blogspot or wordpress blog and get high pagerank to my new domain (that will be registered after two months) and get good pagerank?
Only one way to find out ;-) ^^
1 link
https://www.google.ca/search?q=feast+your+fat+away+review&oq=feast+your+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59l2j0l3.3127j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8
Ha nice.
Hey Jacob!
Nice blog. I’m from South America.
Well, I’m interested in this technique. I guest you recommend blast the subdomains before the 301 redirection. And do redirection when the subdomain is in a good position, right? Or after the redirection i can still blasting, for example, latinopower.blogspot.com if already exists a 301 redirection to latinopower.com?
Thanks a lot!
Either way works hombre, try them both.
WordPress tightened up the reigns tho, shut down quickly with spam.