How I Gained 20,000 Links in Two Months

September 17, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Now I know what you’re thinking,”No way you could do that unless you got to the front page of Digg.” Close, but not quite.

I remember a few years ago when inbound links started getting very popular. Everyone in the SEO world was scouring the web for as many links as possible because we learned that inbound links were one of the big determining factors in how well your website ranked.

A lot of the suggestions I read about required building a widget or some other device that people could use on their site, which would then link back to you. This is a fantastic idea, but I’m not a developer in the true sense of the word, so it wasn’t the best method for me.

However, being an avid Wordpress user, from time to time I liked to develop new themes. When I was finished developing my last theme, I decided to release it to the public.

Elements of SEO launched in early August and has been downloaded 3,549 from the Wordpress Theme Directory and numerous other times from other directories.

Each download has a wonderful little link back to my site with the keyword of my choice.

One drawback to the mass amounts of downloads and links back to my site is that not everyone using my theme has a site devoted to SEO, web design, development or any other topic I talk about. In the eyes of Google, a link from a related site is much more powerful than an unrelated link.

But after doing a decent amount of research and looking at the sites that are using my theme and linking back to me… a lot are related, so I’m chalking this up as a win. I guess true rankings will be the final decision maker, but I’m confident were going in the right direction.

Technorati Tags: inbound links, website promotion, online marketing, wordpress, wordpress theme. theme development

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22 responses so far ↓

2 Stephen-Online Marketing // Sep 17, 2008 at 7:21 am

Great Information.I found your site very interesting With the right information Thanks.
3 Drew Stevenson // Sep 20, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Wow! That’s viral marketing for ya. I love that concept, now to figure out how I can incorporate it into my marketing.

Great post, thanks.
4 SEO Rabbitt // Sep 28, 2008 at 3:09 pm

And what about those of us who can’t make a wordpress theme?
5 Drew Stauffer // Sep 29, 2008 at 8:51 pm

@SEO Rabbit

That’s the big question. Everyone said build a widget…I don’t how to do that so that idea was out.

I wasn’t expecting to get so many links from my theme, it just happened.

It always seems to work out like that. When ever I’m trying to build links, its a long and boring process. But as soon as I do something out of kindness…whamo…links galore. It’s like people can smell it

Just try to find something that you can give away and you’ll get some good links in return.
6 SEO Services // Oct 1, 2008 at 11:07 am

Cool!Thanks for sharing this info with us.
7 SEO Consulting // Oct 2, 2008 at 5:48 am

Oh this is awesome, I think i should start doing this, Heads of to you Drew, and Congratulations.
8 Web Development India // Oct 2, 2008 at 5:56 am

Congrats Drew, I wish i could have make it. BTW, m currently another nice them at my blog directtoindia.com/blog i think you should integrate futuristics for wordpress plugins which will really helps to make your blog attractive. Visit my blog and check it out. Hope you will like it.
9 mudanzas madrid // Oct 8, 2008 at 11:19 am

those are great tips but how much worth a footer link?
10 SEO Blog // Oct 12, 2008 at 6:53 am

You can get all the back links in 2 months you want. If 19,999 of those are irrelvant or non-existant in 2 months, whats the point.
11 Drew Stauffer // Oct 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm

@SEO blog

If 19,999 were irrelevant, I wouldn’t have even written the post. But after going through a majority of the backlinks, a lot of the sites were about SEO, design and development.
12 Georgia Real Estate // Oct 14, 2008 at 12:59 am

It’s really great achievement, because i don’t care back link is relevant to the website or not, you got back links with relevant anchor that’s enough to rank well in SE’s. please correct me out, if i am wrong. Thanks.
13 osCommerce SEO // Oct 20, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Good idea for advertising but I don’t think it is a great SEO strategy.

First, a download does not mean a live link.
Second, these links will probably be coming from low PR pages because they are on sites owned by people who could not afford a custom theme = not not a good backlink and not a lot of traffic.
Third, Google does not place much weight on the type of link you established. It is low on the page and it is not contextual and they are not so dumb as to treat repetative 20,000 links in 2 months seriously.
Forth: link: http://www.alibiproductions.com shows 46 links.

Not meaning any offence but I think this is good SEM but poor SEO …
14 Drew Stauffer // Oct 20, 2008 at 6:06 pm

@ osCommerce SEO

I never mentioned this as an “SEO strategy”, It’s not one.

I also stated that, yes a lot of these links were from un-related sites, but many of the links were from related sites.

I never said that these links were high quality contextual links either. Plus you have to remember that Google will index these links slowly. Just because these links are out there, doesn’t mean that Google is indexing them all at once.

Not sure how you were checking the alibi home page links at 46 links. Check Yahoo Site Explorer for accurate link data. Plus all the template links didn’t go to my home page, they went to subpages.
15 SEO Services // Nov 3, 2008 at 8:44 am

I don’t see any problems with unrelated links, It won’t give any penalty to website. However if you use relevant anchor than you could get lots of healthy SERP results.
16 olivier Blanchard // Nov 5, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Great post, Drew. (Great comments as well.) I’m adding you to my blogroll.
17 Booole // Nov 6, 2008 at 12:29 pm

So Cool ! can you tell me how to do it ?
18 domain name advisor // Nov 8, 2008 at 8:59 pm

that really is an achievement - much more than 10,000 per month though is a real spike and can trigger a manual check from Google. Wouldn’t have mattered in your case anyway since its so obvious that the links are legit.
19 Content Management System // Dec 4, 2008 at 6:24 am

It’s fantastic idea to see lots of back links, but these links will be increased in very short time, is there any negative effects of link building.
20 Comet Ipod Nano // Dec 4, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Wordpress theme design to gain links is a great idea, especially if you know how to design themes yourself. If you dont you can use sites such as elance.com or guru.com to find someone to build it for you.
21 Content Management System // Jan 5, 2009 at 9:44 am

Hi Drew, I can see good amount of SERP has been increased for my website, it really works. Thanks for the way to build links.
22 Mal // Jan 5, 2009 at 3:13 pm

I don’t get what you are saying. You say you got 20,00 backlinks and then say this is not an “SEO strategy”? What is backlinking if not part of SEO? SEM? IF so then why then talk about SERP? SEM = traffic from link comes to your site to buy your services. SEO = backlinks increased page PR = increased SERP.

Second, links in a footer of a theme are not good links. They are low down and on low PR pages.

Third Google hates the idea of 20,000 links

Forth, what 20,000 links to where? You don’t have 20,000 links to this domain.

Any increase in SERP is probably the notoriety of this page with its claims upi can get 20,000 backlinks using a link in a free theme!