Blue Hat Technique #16 - Link Laundering Sites
Alrighty so we’re going to go a bit old school today with this technique. Link laundering is an old technique that the pros have been using aggressively in tight circles since around 2001. So it’s nothing new, but it works damn well. A true Internet marketing professional doesn’t just focus on building their money making sites, they expend a lot of energy on building their link gathering power, and thats exactly what this technique does. If used properly this technique will allow you to automatically gather unlimited links over time to any present and future projects you produce. This is where the true beauty lies. It allows you to cut your mass link gathering time for each project dramatically so you have more time for developing other projects.
Objective
What we’re going to do is create a network of third party link laundering sites that will give other developers an incentive to link to our primary money making sites instead of back to our link laundering sites. We’re going to use these sites to our advantage by automating the process of distributing their inbound link gathering abilities to push links to our primary site networks. Don’t worry it’s easier than it sounds. 
What Is A Link Laundering Site?
Simply, A Link Laundering site is a niche site that requires a link back from other webmasters except that the link back it requires is for another site of yours instead of the site itself.
Methodology
First we’re going to want to grab a solid platform for our link laundering sites. There are literally unlimited ideas on how to accomplish this, all you have to do is come up with some ideas on how to get webmasters to link back to your site. The reality of this is the fact that any site with a link exchange script will work, but since our focus is on drawing large link volume we’ll have to get a bit creative. This requires some brainstorming but to get you started I’ll list an example and we can get creative from there. One idea would be to create your own software download directory. Software download directories are great. They require very little promotion before they spread to all the software submitters and they tend to get a lot of high pagerank software sites that want to submit their software to your directory for the backlink and promotion. With minimal advertising and perhaps a link in DMOZ you should start getting at least a couple dozen submissions a day to your software directory. First you’ll have to build one though. You can get a free script for this from the Association of Shareware Professionals. They are the ones who regulate shareware directories and pad file standards(pad files are the files that describe your software). They offer a free one called Pad Kit. On a side note you’ll notice that they discontinued the distribution of Pad Kit so its nearly impossible to find a recent copy. So I’m going to share mine since it is probably the only working copy available to download until they come out with a new version. God knows when that will be. 
Next you’ll need to do a bit of modifying to the submit.php(the page they go to to submit their software info). Make it require a link back in order for the submission to go through. Make sure to inform the submitter that they will need to place the link on their site before the “pad file” submission will go through and give them an input to put in the url to where your link back is located. Be sure to give them an easy textarea with the html already for them to copy and paste into their site. This should be simple enough. This is also where it gets interesting and we turn this simple software directory into a link laundering site. Create a mysql or flatfile(textfile) database on another domain. Inside that database put in the urls, anchor text, and link count(start with default value of 0) of your real money sites. Have the submit.php pull the database before they go to submit. Have it grab the link with the lowest link count and put that as the link info. In other words in order to submit their software to your site they will first need to link to www.MyMoneySite1.com. You’re finally starting to see where this is going aren’t you? *evil grin*
So after a couple months or so with a tad bit of advertising your software directory will start getting a ton of daily submissions. Some will be manual and some will be through automated or semiautomated software. For instance Robosoft, Robosoft is a semiautomated way. Its all done manually but it fills the forms for you. They usually specify in advanced where they will be placing any links from the directories that require them. Then they place the links as they go down the list. Others automatically generate the link pages for you based on the linkback criteria of the individual software sites in their database. Then they just upload the link page to their sites and boom your done. The automated ones kind of suck because often times the page they upload just sits on their sites with no internal linking and won’t ever make it into the search engines. In which case record all the linkpages that get submitted to you. Then submit those pages to search engines for them. Boom your links are in! hehe
There ya go. You got yourself a link laundering site that sits there and distributes anywhere from a couple dozen to a couple hundred links a day to your real money making sites automatically. Don’t forget to put ads on your link laundering sites so it can at least pay for its own hosting while it boosts your other sites.
It Doesn’t Have To Be This Complicated
The software directory example is a tad complicated and requires a bit of experience. It’s great because it easily generates a good solid volume of links, but its really more of an example of a type of link laundering site a pro might create. I suggest starting smaller and simpler. As stated above any site with a link exchange section will work. You could easily generate a few niche sites with some Wiki-worthy articles and just put in a link exchange script. Then just modify the link exchange script so the backlink it requires from the user is for your money sites listed in the database instead of the niche site itself. A great example of how to create these type of sites is in my How To Create Your Own Autoresponder Network post. Feel free to let the creativity juice flow with this one. Just think volume volume volume. The more links you can automatically generate daily to your money sites through your link laundering site network the better. It’ll take some serious time but trust me, IT PAYS BIG TIME IN THE END.
If you really start dedicating yourself to building your linking power by developing link laundering sites you’ll start seeing some serious results in the promotion of your money making sites. It also makes your life a lot easier when promoting future projects. You can just create a new money site and put it into your central database. From there it’ll automatically start getting inbound links for as long as you keep it in there. Also, once you approach the 10,000 links or so a day mark you can start bartering with your buddies. “Alright I’ll give your network 50 links/day if you’ll give me 50 links/day with your link laundering network.” This has the added benefit of being able to nitpick your niches. So if your buddy has a bunch of Niche-A related link laundering sites and you have a bunch of Niche-B related laundering sites you can trade generated links for your Niche-A related projects. Like I said, this technique is nothing new, people have been creating link laundering networks for years. Might as well get started having them work for you
Good article and a very nice example of a link laundering site.
Another awesome post. I love this blog. I put you on my blogroll as well. great stuff here
Thanks man, you got a great blog to. I added it to the blogroll here as well.
Nice post. How many these kind of sites did you run ?:)
Thanks,
Lots and lots
been building them for a long time. Its no easy task.
Another good idea would be to add a couple more columns to your central database. Put in links_per_day and max_links. This way I can control how fast the sites gain links and how many to stop after. Certain sites require in the xx,xxx range of links and some only require xxx links likewise some need to grow faster or slower, so its nice to be able to put limits to control them.
Hi Eli,
Goddamn this site is amazing. Quick question, from what I heard Google is putting more weight into Latent Semantic Indexing. Does that mean that if the links to your money making site are not topographically related they will count for less or possibly penalize your site?
Thanks
Hey Mark,
they most certainly can count for less if they don’t match the LSI requirements, however an inbound link can never hurt or penalize your site. Google has been very adamant about getting the word out about that rule, because so many people were complaining to google and having panic attacks because a low quality site wouldn’t remove their link and they were afraid of being penalized. I can see why most people who get that impression though, bad inbound links must mean your site is bad, but the reality is the moment they allow an inbound link to pass a penalty to another site the entire game would change. I’d instantly quit focusing on getting links to my sites and start getting links to my competitors sites
Eli,
do you have any idea about the server requirements for a software archive?
I would actually love to own one or two of them just for the prestige
Extremely minimal requirements, about the same as running a medium sized blog. A software title is only one line in the database So you can have a good 150,000 titles before stuff starts to slow down a bit. My software directory has been going for over 3 years now and is very popular and still isn’t up that high(a lot of titles stale out). If you set the autoupdate pad files on a cron it can take a bit to run, but there is no need to run it more than once a month.
That’s good to hear…. glad you don’t need a power horse to run the thing. Going to give this a shot.
Nice post Eli as usual! Just one thought…what about relevancy from those links you will get pointing to your money maker domains? I guess Link laundering sites should always be somehow correlated in topic to the money making sites u will be targeting. U know I am asking this because of Google
Thanks again.
Good question, I actually had a whole paragraph in the original post that addressed this issue but I edited it out last minute cus it made the thing too long. In the gist, it outlined the four factors of proper link building: 1. Authoritive Links 2. Relevant Links 3. Link Volume 4. Link Timing. This technique just covers the 3rd and fourth factors, which tend to be the most time consuming. Its still a good idea to cover all the factors when your doing a link campaign, this technique just shortens the workload dramatically.
man this site is fuckin awesome
I love the term ” link laundering site” - it perfectly describes what I have been doing via many different ways to get link love for my money making sites via delivering value to webmasters, usually through content unrelated to the money making site.
Another great post man. Best SEO blog on the net
This is one brilliant site man - thanks for all your help and tips
Nice Eli. You gave me a name for all the damn sites I have been throwing up over the years.
Damn it Eli. I love you and all but I’m never going to go on that drive to Vegas if you keep pumping me full of new projects to play with on the weekends.
Eli you never cease to amaze me with all these ideas - now if I could just put HALF of them into pratice…
Hey,
This is very informatics Blog. And comments seem so much interesting, showing their interest in Internet marketing. Although it is tough work but it is really having major effect on website ranking. Good Post !!!!!!!!
i hv a suggestion:
what about creating niche software directory? this shoudl give better relevency. depending on the niche of your money site, it could be poker software, gaming, education.. bla bla bla…
Very cool, I’ve never seen such a good explanation
Eli, amazing article. Recently I decided to test this out. I built the site using the PADKit offered on the ASP website. Once the backbone was complete I submitted it to be added to the PAD Enabled Shareware Download Sites list within the ASP website. It seems that this list has not been updated since January 9th. I think the key in getting your Link Laundering Site to produce any major links is getting on this list. Until this list is updated I wont be able to give any statistics as to how the site is doing, but once it is updated I will defiantly share my experiences. Thanks for an amazing site.
More than likely that listed hasn’t been updated in so long because there haven’t been any new software directories being made(due to the lack of the backbone, your welcome). That list isn’t as important as you think. The most important is getting on the dmoz list.
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Directories/
Most other developers and sites related to software directories will grab that list. Also go to http://www.rudenko.com/ and submit your directory there as well. That will not only get you a ton of daily hand submissions, but other sites steal their database quite often because theirs is the largest.
I cant find anywhere to submit to rudenko’s list of directories…
I have looked all over that site and cant find a link…
Anyone?
open the software and click on help
does anyone have a good download link for PadKit? The ASP has interrupted distribution?
read the post
Eli, Once again you never cease to amaze me. I’ll get it submitted and will be posting back shortly!
“This is also where it gets interesting and we turn this simple software directory into a link laundering site. Create a mysql or flatfile(textfile) database on another domain. Inside that database put in the urls, anchor text, and link count(start with default value of 0) of your real money sites. Have the submit.php pull the database before they go to submit. Have it grab the link with the lowest link count and put that as the link info. In other words in order to submit their software to your site they will first need to link to www.MyMoneySite1.com. You’re finally starting to see where this is going aren’t you?”
Please can you elaborate a little bit more. I thought the user would just take the link details about your site and list on their site or directory. How do they actually get the link details for the moneysite? or are you saying that they get the link to the money site, but it is the software that checks they are linking to the moneysite?
I’ve been doing this for a long time now. It’s extremely easy - especially with viral sites.
I just found your blog today from a search on mis-spellings. It was a GREAT stumble.
I have a question about this in particular:
“The automated ones kind of suck because often times the page they upload just sits on their sites with no internal linking and won’t ever make it into the search engines. In which case record all the linkpages that get submitted to you. Then submit those pages to search engines for them. Boom your links are in! hehe”
Do these links carry *any* sort of relevance? I understand that it is a volume play but could 1000 different domains linking to you with pages that are orphans really do anything?
Also, is there a way to pragmatically do this, as I don’t think the idea of submitting manually makes sense
Tyler, there are several scripts out there that do this… here’s an example that you could start with
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsubmit/
Does it matter to the developer that the sites they are linking to have nothing to do with software?
profezor
“Link laundering� did not lose its efficiency. Somehow the method was polished and brought again in public attention.
I think it will still work for a long time to come. Sure its efficiency could go up and down in the time to come, but I think it will still be a valid strategy for a long time still.
Nice blog dude, not sure how I found it but it has a lot of infomation that is new to me (had never heard of blue hat SEO) with some excellent . Cheers.
Can anyone help me with a script for requiring the backlink as a pre-condition of submitting the shareware file to my directory? Thanks!
Hi JasonM,
You can check different directories which actually looks for links before giving a green signal to the listing.But there is a question over there popularity.
Great Article..
Im struggling on one or two points.
First off I download the Padkit and install it on my site.
The I create a table in MySQL called link_data
Then I add a table called launder_urls as such:
CREATE TABLE `launder_urls` (
`ID` mediumint(9) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`Count` mediumint(9) NOT NULL default ‘0′,
`URL` char(30) NOT NULL default ‘’,
`Anchor` char(30) NOT NULL default ‘’,
PRIMARY KEY (`ID`)
)
Next I go to my submit.php page and add the text “Please note that a reciprocal link using the following link is required before the PAD submission will go through:”
Then I get stuck LOL
How do I pull a single lowest count url from my database and serve it in a text box with the anchor text?
And how do I return an increment to the database for that url and check that the submitter has a valid reciprocal link to that URL before it allows a submission?
Im trying but Im such a noob with this code lark..
Any helpful titbit of code or example of what you do to your submit.php would be a blessing.
Thanks for any bone thrown in this direction.. woof..
You would do a “SELECT * FROM launder_urls order by Count ASC LIMIT 1″;
Then get the result and put it into a textbox like you said. Like:
$c = mysql_connect(HOST, USER, PASSWORD);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM launder_urls order by Count ASC LIMIT 1";
$db_results = mysql_query($sql, $c) or die(mysql_error());
$meat=0;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($db_results,MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
$retv[$meat] = $row;
$meat++;
}
$id = $retv['id'];
if($id){
print EOF{$retv['Title']}
EOF;
$sql = “UPDATE launder_urls set Count=Count+1 where id=$id”;
$db_results = mysql_query($sql, $c) or die(mysql_error());
}
mysql_close($c);
Not tested… not checked.. no warranty. try it out.
Very interesting! A few hours at blue hat seo is worth more than 100 years over at John Chow or Problogger.
It doesnt matter if one agrees or disagrees with your techniques Eli, they are still very smart.
Very interesting article and not to difficult to engineer either. Once you’ve created one is there much benefit in creating a few mirror copies on different domains?
Also do you have a script for checking that the links actually go up or do you put it down to trust?
Don’t know if anyone above has mentioned this (I haven’t read any of the comments
)? To obfuscate the fact that the submitters of software will be linking to other sites (money sites) and not my software directory site why don’t we make a script like tinyurl.com on the software directory site and put tinyurl urls into the back linking html code?
The pagerank would not flow as well if they were direct links, but you would get way more back links because the software submitters would not smell a rat.
You would get huge PR goodnes to the software directory, redirect links to the money sites AND to pass the pagerank to them as well you could simply link wisely from the software directory site to the money sites.
What do you think Eli?
Excellent post!
These techniques will probably come in very handy with promotion of my new website.
Thanks
nice
I bet *loads* of people have now started these kinds of sites
Excellent. This is something I have to give a go!
Nice job!
I’ve recently used the.. reverse of this technique if you wish, to build links; that is making a toolbar on Conduit and submitting the PAD file to lots of software directories.
I have noticed that a lot of these replied to me in an e-mail that I could place some sort of award (with their HTML link) or to link back to help them pay the website costs, etc.
I spotted one point you haven’t convered in the post; that is how to let the submissions programs such as PadExpres, PadGen, Promosoft, etc. know of your new software directory??
Thanks for posting the PadKit package Eli… I was bummed when I found ASP had taken it down. http://www.pad-site-scripts.com/ have an updated version with better security and more features but I just wanted the guts of it.
Thanks!!!
Thanks for this info. Always wondered how the hell some of these sites get so many. Right now getting like 1-2 per day through manual means…I think I will try this out…Quick question though, do you verify that they posted your link on their site?
Big Dankeschöön. (Thanks) Very interisting info!
this term “link laundering sites” is new to me , but a nice read
Anyone here succeed with getting these linkbacks? I’ve got a site up and roughly half of the submissions fail due to lack of linkback URL. For the most part these come from RoboSoft, and emails to same are unanswered.
Still, it looks like a good idea for putting up easily indexed pages that are full of relevant keywords. Later it should be easy to salt these pages with links back to money sites.