The HOTH provides you with in-context backlinks with the anchor text that you choose.
They build Web 2.0 blogs (like I outlined here at Dumb Passive Income), and then add a couple tiers of backlinks.
I was getting a lot of questions from readers about how I design my HOTH Packages.
I wanted to make sure I was sharing everything about it so here is a quick guide on how I do it. I’ll mention a few of the reasons that I use the HOTH first…
I have been singing the praises of the HOTH for a little while now. They package up a series of activities that I used to do on my own, by hand. These are time consuming tasks, repetitive, and generally not a very good use of my time. These are the same link building strategies that I use for all my sites.
How I Order A HOTH Package
- You choose the anchor text so you can control your keyword density. This is critical in the post Penguin world of SEO that we live in.
- You can have co-citations in your articles. What does this mean? They will add other backlinks to non-competitive authority websites. This is great because your website is in the company of authority websites like Wikipedia, news websites, or other authority websites related to your niche.
- They automatically provide different Tier 1, Web 2.0 domains for subsequent orders. This means that if your first order has Tier 1 blogs with WordPress, Blogspot, and LiveJournal, then your next order might have Webs, Blogster, or Tumblr for the Tier 1. This provides more backlink and referring domain diversity.
- The customer support is ridiculously fast. I often get a response within an hour. They have all U.S. based customer service staff and they really are amazing. Read about it on their site here.
- You get a FULL report of the entire link structure. It’s actually more detailed than I really need! I really just read the first couple pages worth.
- You get the logins to the Web 2.o Blogs. This is just about the only thing that I look at in the report. With the login information, you can log on to those sites and add more content, update your links, or make any changes that you want. It is like a Private Blog Network on the cheap.
- They create email accounts for the order as well.
Other points to mention:
- U.S. vs Filipino written content – I go for the Filipino content at this time. If I was building more of an authority site or if I was doing client work, then I would most likely go for the U.S content. For me, the Filipino content does the job just fine.
- I generally don’t elect to use any keywords in the anchor text. If I do, it is a long tail phrase that probably has more than 4 words. I save the exact match anchor text for PBN backlinks.
- This process saves me hours of time. Literally. Hours. It is totally worth the price.
- I recommend the Platinum package since it is really the best value.
- Please note that the HOTH is a piece of the puzzle for building backlinks and ranking your website. If you get the HOTH, you should see a movement in your rankings – I always do but it is not guaranteed. I can almost certainly guarantee that you will not hit #1 by using the HOTH as your only form of link building. So, you need to do other promotion and link building to help your website rank in the SERPs
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I’ve been using them for a while now for building base links for my clients and myself and I’m really happy with the results. As you said, they won’t get you to the top but you’ll most certailnly rank somewhere between 20-50 spot in a low-semi competitive niche!
thanks for the review
Doug, you’ve been killing it with the content lately. Seriously great stuff.
As for The Hoth, I did try out a Platinum Package and I’d say the results are still TBD, if I was being generous. (The package completed about six weeks ago). I’m not sure I’d use it for my other sites, as I think I’d rather spend $250 on some high PA PBN links instead. Just personal preference.
This is actually what originally intrigued me about the service: “It is like a Private Blog Network on the cheap.” In my mind, I thought it could potentially create 8 sites with decent PA/DA metrics that I could continue to update by adding new links to my various sites. Again, the top-level sites they created for me are only about 5-6 weeks old, so Moz has not had a chance to apply metrics to them in their index — I’m hoping to get a PA of about 30 or so.
Do you mind asking me what kind of Page Authority some of your more established Hoth top-level sites have gotten up to?
Finally, this is where I’m a little unsure about the service: “Then the HOTH adds some other links to link to the Web 2.0 blogs – like more Web 2.0 blogs, bookmarks, and profile backlinks.” They’re basically hitting your tier-1 sites with automatically-built junk links (I won’t call them spam). The thing is, I doubt anyone would recommend that you use those kind of supporting links (profile links, etc) on a real PBN, so I’m not sure why they’re ideal for their tier-1 sites?
Also, this is off-topic — but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, in a future post, about getting non-contextual high PR back links (meaning not PBN-type links, but footer/sidebar links on high PR sites). There are a few popular services that offer them. They seem awfully risky to me, but I know that they are currently working, as one of my competitors in one of my niches is using them and ranking #3 in the SERPS (behind only Amazon and Consumer Reports), and has been since about January.
Cheers,
Mike
Hey Mike,
You have some really good questions. I had the same ones. I just made a post on my own blog about how The Hoth has been holding up since I purchased it 5 months ago. Here’s the link and let me know what you think: http://www.regpaq.com/hoth-really-work-5-month-review-analysis/
Black Hat FTW! Link Link Link. Rank Rank Rank. Thanks for the review, I think the Hoth is a good option for newer sites, and I agree that it is a good idea to build up tons of naked and generic links before hitting the site with high PR stuff with anchor text. PS. I found your site from your awesome post about Empire Flippers. Hasta Luego
Hey Dustin, Thanks for the comment! Cheers!
Doug,
Any updates on rankings from you or any of the users here? Do you recommend running a HOTH package pre-PBN links?
WineGuy, I don’t update the rankings currently, or from users.
I typically have a HOTH package first, or some Web2.0s.
Then, I will add a couple PBNs backlinks after that.
And, I layer the links on after that, Web2.0s, PBNs, Blog Commenting, and so on… Even guest posts, if you are into that sort or thing.
Hi Doug.
Do you still recommend using the Hoth platinum as a first base of link building?
Or is it too risky now, and would possible hurt the site with a Google penalty?
Thank you
Carlos, The HOTH still works great! But I’m only doing white hat links these days.
Is it risky? Well, it’s riskier than guest posts, but if you’re using Gray Hat techniques, then the HOTH is just fine.
I am a little bit confused, I want my site to be top-ranked in Google US, if I buy Filipino content will it work?
Hi Doug,
I have been following you for a while. What I love about you is your honesty and down to earth approach. Going by your experience, did Hoth links resulted in penalty at all on your sites or others you know? Did you ever had to disavow?
Thanks so much for the nice article.
The Hoth certainly saves time and isn’t much use in the long term I find, but as a way of setting up and establishing some tier 1 sites that you can use and develop content for it is good. I’ve yet to try some of their other services such as local citations.