Is mass submission to social bookmarking sites a waste of time?

[TrustButVerify]

A while back, I set up a network of 100 brand new sites. I wanted to get the "clock running" as soon as posssible. So I created a title tag, h1 tags and a little content and had someone submit 50 social book marking links to each of the 100 sites. Pretty much all of them became indexed within 24 hours. And some of the domains themselves ranked on the first page of google for the keyword their domain name represented (these word exact match domains).

Any time you have a domain, set up a tiny bit of content, put in the basic on-page SEO, pay someone a few bucks to submit it to the social bookmarking sites as a first action to get it indexed. Parked domains don't really build up history/age when there is no content or links pointing at them. I've been pleasantly surprised to find domains I did this with a year or two ago, suddenly shoot up and start getting traffic.

[tke71709]

I know its common belief that bad links cant really hurt you unless you reciprocate, so as to stop me scuppering my competitor but still...

On a somewhat related note, may not hurt you in Google but can hurt you in others eyes.

Got a hubpage outranking you in the SERPs? Hit them with a ton of spam links and watch them take it down as a precautionary measure. Or so I've heard from the link spamming community when they whine about their hubpages being taken down after they do that.

Sometimes, you need to think offensively and not just defensively.

[Chabrenas]

Thanks, Slowdive. Your advice fits well with the kind of site I'd like to build. Although I started off with a keyword-targeted page for each of the major illnesses, as soon as I started making blog posts that were meant to reinforce these pages I found myself adding others that were unusual. I guess that as long as I still keep an eye on the keywords I should still be able to make a bit of AS money.

Funny you should mention vitiligo. Although I never mentioned it, AS ads kept appearing. I'd never even heard of it before.

That was very helpful, Clinton. It put some things I was vaguely aware of onto a solid footing. Loved the recommended reading. Even though some of the detail is now old, it's surprising how much it needs repeating.