Here’s the problem. You have an idea for a website. You check the competition and you note how stiff it is. You pick one particular competitor in the field and notice that it has a ton of links. Now you are discouraged. You’ll never get that many links and compete. Might as well just give up.
Or, you could steal their links. Mwahahaha!
Ok, before I provide details I want to tell you 2 things. First, this is a horrible idea. I’m not 100% on this, but I’m pretty sure you would be breaking some sort of law. And it’s just really bad form. Second, this isn’t even my idea. It is the result of a satirical discussion at an SMX I attended in 08…maybe 09. I wish I could remember who it was that said this because I like to give credit where credit is due.
Without any more stalling, I give you the first post in a completely inconsistent series called “SEO Terrorism.”
So, you run a link analysis of your choosing on your competitor. Get that giant list of links. To save some time, weed out press releases and the like. You may also want to remove links to sub pages. These are usually links to specific items on a site noted in relation to a specific topic. You’ll be doing a lot of work to make it happen without skimming the list to only homepage links.
Now you should still have a very extensive list of sites that link to your competitor. Sort them by priority. I suggest putting the links to your competitor that have the anchor of terms you want to rank for, and placing anchors of your competitors name at the bottom.
Now, go register a domain. Any domain really, it doesn’t matter. If you really want to increase your odds of stealing links, try to register at the same place your competitor has.
Check your competitors nameservers, you will need this. Point your new domain to their nameservers. You’ll know why in just a moment.
Now comes the work part. Craft an email explaining that your company is re-branding (from your competitor’s name to your new domain name). You have plans to do this in exactly 3 months, and you are trying to get links updated in preparation. Send this email to as many sites on your list of links as you can. Keep doing this until you have exhausted the list, or are tired.
When someone checks out the new domain, it will resolve at your competitor’s site. Hmmm…seems like this is all “OK.”
Wait the three months. Spent this time creating your new site with relevant content. You can check the sites on your list to see if anyone took the bait. Wait a little longer if you must, and contact more sites.
Then BAM! Switch the nameservers to your new site. Now, you have come out of the gate with a number of links that were not only added to your site, they were taken from your competitor.
We used their nameservers because even a remotely savvy web admin will know a 301 redirect. We want to make this look genuine. We don’t do press releases because they are usually a waste of time. You may also want to be careful with contacting anyone that may have a personal relationship with your competitor.
You’ll also want to make sure you keep a list of the site’s you’ve contacted because too many emails will look suspicious. You could just go down the list for a full year or longer just to get as many links as you can.
Now, wait for either your rise to search engine power, or your impending court date. Whichever comes first.