2 Week Viral Linking Experiment Results

26 Sep

Posted by YC as Blogging

This is the final update on the viral linking experiment I did about 2 weeks back. The aim was to test if it would work for me in terms of increasing my Technorati Authority and Ranking. Here are the brief statistical summaries:

Date started: 9 September, 2007
Technorati Authority: 13
Technorati Ranking: 500,785

Date ended: 22 September, 2007
Technorati Authority: 65
Technorati Ranking: 86,966

To Date: 26 September, 2007
Technorati Authority: 82
Technorati Ranking: 66,914

So what we see is a 5-fold increase in Authority while my Ranking shot up tremendously. Obviously, viral linking could help your blog immensely in terms of the 2 standards measured! Or does it really?

What I noticed initially were the reactions and linkbacks from the various blog owners included in the viral link train, as well as subsequent blogs that jumped on it or were included. My Authority sped to 51 after just a week, with a corresponding jump in Ranking to 115,393. The blogs in the link train contributed considerably to the Authority’s increase.

However, during this time, I also began frequenting more blogs, commented on and linked to other blogs which I found useful. Basically participating in as much social networking as I could. Coupled with my blog postings, all these naturally resulted in a pretty fast and decent improvement in Technorati measurements, as I could see steady (increase in) traffic to my blog.

Therefore, viral linking does help, but my mistake was in doing so much at one time, I could not ascertain the exact extent of the benefit each area contributed to the traffic increase and subsequent Technorati improvements (unless you are talking about StumbleUpon which is so far the easiest to track). I could perhaps try one method at a time, but that isn’t me. :)

Also, being new to this, I felt hesitant whenever I saw reports of Google supposedly penalising those involved in link trains, and others’ remarks that it constituted spamming. But at the end of the day, I really feel that the benefits outweigh the potential costs. You could also reduce the accusations of mindless linking by restricting the type of blogs that could participate.

So, in my opinion, viral linking does slightly contribute favourably to your Technorati performance, while helping to broaden your blog’s network. However, it obviously cannot be your focus. At the end of the day, I believe my social networking efforts provided a greater result overall.

Finally, thanks again to Chessnoid for inspiring my initiation in this area, and to all the blogs who participated. I will not be tracking and updating the link train anymore, but if you have not tried one, start one and test the benefits for yourself!

8 Responses

david

September 26th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
1

I guess you should do viral linking like once a month or every two months to be on good terms with Google.
Dana Wallert

September 27th, 2007 at 1:08 am
2

“I could perhaps try one method at a time, but that isn’t me. :)” No, it’s not…and why waste the time!

Interesting results. I had been hearing a lot about the viral link trains…I don’t think its my thing, so I’m glad to hear that you think your social networking was as or more beneficial…I’m sticking to that ;)
Chris Jacobson

September 27th, 2007 at 1:38 am
3

Nice stats. I’m glad to see it worked for you too. :)
CHESSNOID

September 27th, 2007 at 3:24 am
4

Hi YC,
I appreciate the props and am very glad it worked for you too. I did basically the same thing and had started under 10 and am now up to 70. Again, I did not invent the viral linking just heard about it from BloggingMix and gave it a try.
Let me know if you plan on doing it again. If so please include me. I think the combination of things you did simultaneously helped maximize the increases. Great job!
Dancing with the stars elimination and stock market update 9-26-07 9pm @ C H E S S N O I D

September 27th, 2007 at 3:51 am
5

[…] technorati is at 70 and YC has giving me props for pointing him in the same direction. He executed the viral linking much […]
YC

September 27th, 2007 at 5:02 am
6

@ David - You reckon, David? Yours is the first time I have seen that it’d sit well with Google.

@ Dana - The link trains are good at the beginning, but after that it fizzles out. There is some communication at the start, but social networks provide that in a consistent form of which I am more fond of. It is of course good to have a mixture of both, but I’d concentrate more on social networks.

@ Chris - Your results were pretty damn good too! :)

@ Chessnoid - Doesn’t matter who invented it - I saw it from yours first. :) I’d be sure to let you know if I ever try another one! Meanwhile, hop on the social networking as well!
shaun

September 29th, 2007 at 12:04 am
7

I don’t understand why people want to participate in these things. I admit i joined in one when i first started blogging but I had no idea what I was doing I was thinking more backlinks= higher page rank and better search engine results. NOT true, infact this will hurt your search engine results now. Who cares about your technorati rank? It doesn’t do anything for you, you don’t get any extra money for having a higher technorati rank and you definitley don’t get more technorati traffic. Just my two cents :)
YC

September 29th, 2007 at 12:33 am
8

@ Shaun - Well good thing I only participated in one. :) I agree having a good technorati rank more often than not is for aesthetics and ego, but it does contribute to traffic in a very minor way. However, I do believe more in social networking and media and we should concentrate more on that. Also, looking at it positively, viral linking does contribute a little to traffic and that traffic -might- contribute to your Alexa ranking (and we know what Alexa ranking is widely used for).