Not sure what Verisign was thinking. But the massive penetration of the Verisign Secured Verify widget must have tempted their SEOs to use this as a link delivery system. And why not? You get 4,309,470 keyword-rich dofollow links (and counting) in one relatively easy stroke, without the website owner even knowing.
Check out the keyword rich text link underneath the Verisign logo.
This is very reminiscent of the free web counter / powered by keyword link building variety a few years back, which has since been caught and “controlled” by Google.
Does it still work? Verisign does rank for “ssl certificates” (#3 here) for the destination URL pointed to by the widget. The next question is, if a big company like Verisign can get away with this, why can’t others?
March 24th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Reminds me of statcounter on how they got PR9 because of their free stats..
March 25th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Similarly, I think Adobe.com and Macromedia.com’s PR10’s were helped by all the “Get Flash” links littered all over the web. Sneaky
March 31st, 2009 at 6:43 am
@rico, also the get acrobat reader links
August 26th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I hit a link in google and read
a blog on this site about the economic
strain we are taking in SA. I tried to
find it once I registered, unfortunately
to no avail. Perhaps somebody could be
so kind as to show me the way? Anyway,
I’m here and waiting!
————–
Rockstarbabu
—————-
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I have to say that as badly as small sites like ours needs backlinks to promote our site for people who are quite literally dying, it’s really difficult to see that other companies have come up with schemes to acquire them so easily. The small guys, and the non-profits ought to have a way to compete with that. I don’t think Adobe would be where it is today without all of the backlinks they have. Nor would Verisign or many other companies with schemes like this.
Frustrating. Very frustrating.
December 24th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Thanks for your post, I found it very interesting. Trying to wrap my head around it it’s mind boggling.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Whoa! Thanks for your post. I am also an SEO here in Legaspi, Philippines. I am planning to go to Manila to seek for a job (SEO probably) but I do not know where to start? Can you help me!
March 23rd, 2010 at 7:05 am
Great stuff…very informative. I’ve heard alot about your methods and absolutely want more. Very Nice work!
March 29th, 2010 at 5:02 am
Hi just stumbled your blog and i thank you for your story it was interesting. I am curious about link building for my website too. Have you used the scrapebox.com tool? If so is it good? If not then what is the best tool? Thank you.
July 5th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Just do anything to build links. Being creative is OK as long as it it legit. Let Google decide.
July 29th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Hi, there your information in this site great example of learining the instant link building and you have made some valid points, and i followed your information and i got the page rank to my site within a week and, any more ideas like this please let me know, thanks for your valuable information..
August 8th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
I enjoy the way you catch the heart and soul of the message, truly good writting style, I enojoyed it!
September 8th, 2010 at 4:53 am
I think this is a great idea. Not that innovative ’cause a lot of others have done this.but still a great thing.
Hmm, if you have access on developing plug-ins and get your keywords/links to come along side it, then it’s a big boost for your outbound links, especially if it becomes a hit and a lot uses it.