Perhaps we’ve been focusing too much on the car insurance key phrases of late, as this one managed to pass us by. It appears as though MoneyNet are no longer ranking on the first page for life insurance. We’ve known BestDealInsurance have been up there for a while on this highly lucrative key phrase but we didn’t notice the drop of MoneyNet life insurance from top/first page down to page thee and relative obscurity until very recently.
Does anyone know much about what happened here? We know they’ve got a history of buying links but who hasn’t? And we’re not re-visiting that debate again in a Ground-Hog-Day-esque venture. How long have they been off the top spot?
To add a slightly more interesting element to this, we’ve spotted a link between MoneyNet and the SEO agency BigMouthMedia. This agency, from what little we know about them, don’t necessarily have the same reputation as the Latitude, SpannerBoys and Tamar as search engine spammers (or highly successful and lucrative businesses as Rex would phrase it!). So could this be a short term sacrifice with the aim of a longer term white hat model? Or have MoneyNet simply been penalised and BigMouthMedia buy links just like the rest of them? I can’t think that the phrase wasn’t producing the return on investment as life leads fetch a pretty penny these days.
If it is a move towards a white hat model (possibly wishful thinking), it would be an interesting one for everyone to keep an eye on. C’mon, what do you know?
Capital One
Credit Made Clearer
lovemoney
Relationship with Your Money
CashQuestions
Personal Finance Problem Solver
Life Cover
Insurance Made Easy
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Ernie,
ive worked you out pal!!
You run this highly amusing forum for two reasons:
1) To allow us all to bitch about the competition (even though we all buy links) and there spammy methods (that work)
and
2) to pick up tidbits of information to help yourself work out |HOW the competition beat you!!
So what do I know?
Well..keep it under your hat but almost ALL the sites in the top 16 for INSURANCE terms are buying links in one way or another. Dont tell anyone though pal as someone might copy us and then we will have people beat us. And Im not standing for that!!
Im ready for the moral speech about discussing methology and its not a place to bicth ; 0 )
(just bringing some reality into all!!)
Hey I had an idea!
Ernie/George….
Lets arrange an IV PubCon!!
It would be soooo funny.
“so who do you seo?”
“im not telling you”
Im in…
We should all get together for a few beers.
VOTE please George!
Ill do a little speech if you like, wearing a black hat.
Ernie you do a little speech wearing a white one.
Whose in?
lol! I’m in!
Good point Rex – maybe we should just discuss real-world SEO techniques and forget all this “hat” nonsense.
But it is good to analyse the big boys and see how they do things, then compare notes with other professionals.
I’m keen!
@Rex, oh Rex, oh Rex, oh Rex, Pal!! You’re like a broken record. How many times do we have to cover the same response to you. We know your model. We know our model. We know the pros and cons of both. We know the results each achieve. We can even guestimate the results the hypotheticals could achieve. At the end of the day, we’ve each decided on one of a handful of models and we each apply it with our own variation and subtle differences.
Picking up tidbits of information and sharing ideas, views and opinions?! Alleluia!! You’ve actually read something and taken note! That’s precisely what blogging and posting is all about. Now, go out and patent the idea before it all takes off and becomes really popular.
What you’re not quite getting there Rex, is that although white hat is our model out of choice, there is actually no right and wrong because Google isn’t actually the law (well, not just yet).
You feel like you’re right because breaking Google’s rules doesn’t appear to come with any huge problems at the moment. That’s fine. But it feels like you think we’re saying your wrong all the time or that we’re trying to convince you to change your mind. You’re not ‘wrong’ and we’re not trying to change your mind.
Just enjoy taking in the information about what other people think and what they’re doing. You might learn something – you never know!
So back to the real world and breaking out of ground hog day, does anyone have anything to share on MoneyNet? When did they drop back to page three?
riiiight….
so was that a yes for pub con or are you still hinting for someone’s serps?
A compelling and positively emotional retort from yourself there Rex.
Have an IV PubCon and i’ll invite MoneyNet and you can ask them?
Where shall we have it?
Down South near you?
George was keen, David B is in.
Anyone else for an IV Pub Con?
@Rex – read the About Us page Rex. Pretty obvious I’m not turning up to that. Have a cracking time though …but isn’t that the point of ‘constructive’ debate and sharing knowledge on here?!
Would you like me to take a stab at the ‘down south’ comment in some sort of implication that you know who we are/work for etc? I’ll let your imagination run wild on that one. No big secret, just making sure the chain of command isn’t swaying our comments and opinions on here. Nothing more.
Can we return to something constructive now please Rex? What has everyone seen on MoneyNet? How long have they been on page 3?
Yeah – according to my records MoneyNet flirted with the 1st page in January – 10th on 17th. I don’t take snap shots of that serp very often though guys – so not in much of a position to offer any real insight.
One thing I have noticed today – ogtravelinsurance ranking 5th for ‘travel insurance’. Came out of nowhere! Looking at backlinks they all appear to be their owners; guardian, observer & insure and go, plus some scrapers. No traditional link spam in sight – all authority. Very intersting.
Further to this – the domain is less than 6 few months old. What a way to beat the sandbox ey – get a load of authority links from your parent company! In your opinion, could this be classed as link spam?
@SEOguru – apologies, I’m in shock. A constructive comment. It feels like so long!
That is truely a strong parentage background to start from. You should also keep an eye on TICK (TravelInsurance.co.uk) as they’re also an I&G affiliated domain.
Good spot.
@ All IV PUB-CON candidates…
Without wanting to drag this conversation even further off-topic, I realise that IV is not just about SEO, by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a semi-regular London SEO get together.
Check http://londonseo.org/ for details. If people were interested in attending there will be more numbers and no one would have to identify themselves. Not that Ernest and George are under any confusion as to who’s who though! ;o)
@Tron – we know one or two but most of it is actually a guessing game to be honest. I think I know who George is though
Speaking of which, no sign of Kevin from GoCompare in a while. Are you lurking somewhere Kevin?
Sorry just recovered from my own little pubcon!
Right, Tron, will you be there at the londonseo pub meet pal?
I think ill wonder along.
I hope its not all cloak and daggers!!
rexinsure@googlemail.com
Ill be alone with a copy of The Times, wearing a red carnation.
Very interesting post