On February 7th SEO Link Monster launched with a very big hype around it since everyone in the industry were promoting it. Over the past few days I have learned some new things about this network that I feel I must share with my readers since my SEO Link Monster Review got a lot of visitors over the first week of the launch.
So What Happened?
I received and email from Chris Fong asking me if I noticed any indexing changes with the network. He told me that the ability to download the submission reports has been removed and that his indexing tests showed that all the URLs his articles were submitted to are no longer indexed.
I immediately checked and also noticed that you can no longer download the submission reports and basically you can no longer see the domains your article have been submitted to. That was a very cool feature SLM had but I guess the downside of that feature raised its head and the network got hit because of it.
I also took the 364 URLs I had from my case study, stripped them down to the rood domain and removed all duplicates. I ended up with a list of 93 unique domains that my articles were submitted to and I run an indexing check using Scrapebox. Here are the results:
And as you can see, all of the domains are not indexed. When I did the same test on February 6th I got and 88.46% index rate and the very high index rate was the biggest selling point for SEO Link Monster.
I also asked Chris if he can provide me with all of the URLs he collected during his own case study and he agreed. Chris send me a list with 99 unique domains and I checked to make sure that none of his 99 domains are the same as the 93 domains on my own list. There were no duplicate domains so it seems that we were on two different sub networks on the SLM. I run the 99 domains to check for indexing rates and here are the results:
Did SEO Link Monster Network Got De-indexed?
From the numbers I saw and shared with you I have no other assumption to make other than to say that at least a part of the network got de-indexed. I don’t know how many blogs the network has and I only had 192 unique domains to check. In any case, it doesn’t really look good that so many domains have been de-indexed just a couple of weeks after launch.
Remember that I checked indexing rates for the rood domains, not the pages that my articles are actually pm. All of the domains are no longer indexed with Google. Not my 93 unique domains and not Chris’s 99 unique domains.
That could be an explanation to why my SEO Link Monster Review dropped to page 8 or something like that on Google a few days ago since I was promoting it using SLM during the case study I did. I also suffered ranking drops on other reviews that I didn’t promote with SLM and you can read all about what happened on my Rankings Drop, Googe Panda 3.3 and Lessons Learned post.
I emailed Matt Callen about the entire situation asking if he can provide some answers as to what happened and he replied saying that they decided to remove the submission report feature since it could be used to report URLs to Google which one of the users was actually suspected of doing and that results in de-indexing of a sub set of domains on the network. Matt also said that they are proactively moving forward to protect the network for everyone and to help increase its effectiveness over the long term and they replaced every blog that was de-indexed.
What Does This Mean?
I don’t really know but on the looks of it, it doesn’t look good. Here are some of the thoughts I had (combined with the ones Chris shared on his own SEO Link Monster Case Study update):
- Lack of IP Diversity - Chris checked his list of 99 domains and found that every 5 domains are using the same IP. I checked the list of 93 domains I have and I can confirm that. Every 5 domains are sharing the same IP and according to the tests Chris did to other blog networks, that is a very bad ratio.
- Unspun Content - This is something I didn’t even know you can do with SLM since I didn’t even consider it would be possible so I didn’t check it. Allowing unspun content to be submitted to the network is a big NO NO in my opinion and I don’t understand how that is even an option.
- Sharing The URLs – I liked this feature for the same Chris did since it makes this case studies much easier to do but the downside was simply too big and it didn’t take long for the network to suffer from this. It is a good thing they removed this feature.
- Too Much Hype – I don’t really agree with Chris on this assumption as I really doubt Google will trouble itself over such a product launch but who knows. I think it simply the fact that users reported the URLs of the network and a really bad timing due to the recent Google algo update that probably had something to do with things (or not).
- No Categories – The fact that SLM doesn’t divide the blogs in the networks into categories is a problem. I think that the relevancy of the blog you are liking from counts for something and by not dividing the network into categories there is really no order in things. All other blog networks have categories so I don’t really see the advantage of not having them other than making it easier to build and maintain the network.
The bottom line is that my semi recommendation for SEO Link Monster has turned to a clear not recommended at this point after all the recent changes I shared with you here.
Fell free to share your thoughts by commenting below.
Thanks.
To your success (and mine 
),
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the update. I prefer buying through people who put in work like this rather than receiving lame bonuses from other affiliates. Point me in the right direction and I’ll be glad to use any affiliate links! Is article ranks still recommended? How often do you update your reviews?
BTW I checked over 100 links in seolinkmonster and none were higher than pr1. I know they had the parked page excuse but that’s not my problem as the customer.
I still use ArticleRanks and I try to update my reviews whenever there is an update or something major that I think people should be aware of.
Thanks for the feedback
hey Dror, I was thinking if you already made a review on Link Authority which I believe came from the creators of Article Ranks. thanks for yet another informative review.
Hi Pip, I didn’t write a review about Link Authority yet but I will try to do so as soon as possible.
Thanks.
OUCH!!! that sucks man! I hope they get their domains back.
For the person up above. I have been using link authority and article ranks. LA is REALLY strict and it’s just like BMR.
Don’t try to cut corners with them because they will suspend your account. They did mine but I apologized and they removed the suspension lol.
It’s things like this that I use multiple blog networks instead of putting all my eggs in one basket.
Great review dror.
Joshua recently posted..9 Steps To Proper On Page Optimization
Hey Dror,
Fortunately my niche sites weren’t effected by the update (=at least not yet) but as one of my mentors and a person i trully respect i’m 110% sure you’re going to bounce back.
No doubts there
I don’t believe in coincidences and the correlation between Big G’s new controversial privacy law and the panda update should be a hint for all of us to:
a) “shift our seo thoughts” into the social arena and
b) Do whatever we can to not only provide visitors to our sites with EXACTLY what they’re looking for but engage them as well.
Although completely speculative i think we’re going to be seeing some REALLY aggressive powerplay by Google in the next couple of months to catch up with Facebook.
And i think part of this powerplay will be making social signals via google+ not only more dominant in ranking but one of the most if not deciding factors on ranking.
I’m currently educating myself on this as well and found this cool post:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-you-can-use-google-plus-to-impact-search/
In a way it’s a bit scary because we’re all in “no man’s land” right now but those that wake up and “smell the coffee”, adapt and persist will come up on top.
Cheers And God Bless,
Adam
Adam Tezer recently posted..Digi Traffic Accelerator Thoughts
Definitely, its not worth $147/month.
The entire system, still needs to settle. Despite of having experienced staff, they’ve taken few wrong steps and too much of hype created it….
It is amazing you can figure these problems out. I don’t have the time or the talent to figure out some of this Internet stuff. Appreciate you sharing your work.
r kelly
Thanks for the update Dror. I’m glad I didn’t join and now I can stop considering it:) There’s so much other stuff out there that’s so much better… You can get a lot more for a lot less…
Anyone knows how to cancel the subscription to SEOLinkMonster? It’s going to renew in a few days, and i cant found a way to do it, i have send a ticket to the support and no response, i have search in paypal and there is no way to do it, or i can’t found it!
tx, Bruno.
Hi Bruno, It is fairly simple to do thanks to the fact that SEO Link Monster is a Clickbank product. All you need to do is to find the Clickbank Receipt email you received after your purchase. You can learn exactly how to do it on my How To Get A Refund For A Clickbank Product post.
Hi there,
Just like to say that I’m quite disatisfied with SLM also. I’d been advised to use rankerizer to check progress with my ranking and backlinks and apart from an extra 11 backlinks appearing for an internal page for one of my sites ther has been no change in the number of backlinks at all in over a month. When I wrote to enquire/complain about this I was given a whole raft of wonderful looking backlink details from Majestic SEO and told to contact Rankerizer, implying it was a fault with the Rankerizer software. Your report confirms my suspicions that Google has given the whole network the boot and one of my sites is starting to slip down the ranking charts. Definitely considering a cancellation as I fear there is a lack of honesty with this product.
Fantastic article and I loved your follow up and honesty, and the fact that you had the wherewithal to keep pushing and further revisit your results. SEOLM stinks…flat out. It was all hype. Their sales pitches are excellent. Their videos get you all pumped up. They’re so good that even while you know deep in your gut that NONE of these automated processes and networks will ever work long term, you still bite. Hey…I did. And sure enough, like you, many indexed pages went bye-bye and my questions to SEOLM went unanswered.
They should be ashamed of themselves. Once I signed up, I attended the training webinar and everything I was hearing just didn’t sit right with me. Excuses, things that “will happen”, things that couldn’t be answered unless you bought their ridiculous training videos and courses. These guys – the entire little network of cohorts – put together great ideas that can never truly work. Then they outsource their development to India (which tells me they really aren’t willing to invest real money in on-site development), and then ultimately, they’ve made their “quick kill” and the product falls apart.
Like I said… great ideas. Wonderful concepts. I’m sure they really want their products to work. The fact is, they can’t. And they never will. Hands in, hands on, “balls to the wall” hard work is what drives SEO results. Shortcuts do not, and will not work in the long term. Simple as that.
hi i always read your articles and like the other people i feel that i have been” led down the garden path”, i have cancelled my subscription and feel very disappointed . whats all this about having to sign a disclaimer about not working for google,sounds like a battle brewing,( i am out) ? because i know who will win. eric roberts . do you think google will try to close down all link building sites, if not where do we go from here.