How to 'outsmart' Google and Yandex: Black and White SEO Promotion of Websites. Shestakov | People PRO #74

In the 74th episode, Sergey Pavlovich talks with Oleg Shestakov, the founder and co-owner of Rush-analytics.ru and Rush-agency.ru.

Sergey Pavlovich (hereinafter – SP): – Hello, friends! The new episode of 'People Pro' is on air, and today we're discussing SEO, 'black' SEO (editor's note: henceforth – SEO), and how to work with 'Google' and 'Yandex' without taking off your pants.

We've got a guest – Oleg Shestakov. Many people know him – this is Rush Agency, a very well-known SEO company. He even brought a joke with him, his sweater. We're going to give away a fun joke.

Oleg Shestakov (hereinafter – OS): – Today, we'll give a prize for the best SEO question in the comments.

SP: – Yes. Whoever asks the best question about SEO, website promotion, will receive such a wonderful prize.

What is SEO?

SP: – SEO (henceforth – SEO). What does SEO mean in general? Many will be watching now. Some may not know…

OS: – Let's talk about SEO. I've been involved in search for about ten years, probably 11. So, promoting search algorithms, studying algorithms. Basically, SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which means promoting a website in search.

SP: – To get free organic data.

OS: – Essentially, the goal of SEO is to rank your site in the top search results for the right queries. Not just to rank it, but to keep it there so that when people search for something, you get free traffic. The idea is to rank the site and keep it there to bring you traffic and revenue.

SP: – The fastest result… If I give you a new website today, for example, with high-frequency queries – 'buy iPhone.' How soon can you get it into the top 10 on 'Yandex' for the query 'buy iPhone'?

OS: – There's also sense and experience in SEO that you understand: for the phrase 'buy iPhone,' you won't rank in 'Yandex' with a new site.

SP: – And in 'Google'?

OS: – In 'Google,' there are still chances. With a new site – about two years if you're using 'white' methods. You can rank it in a couple of weeks if you use 'black.' The question is how long it will stay there. Again, this indicates whether you understand how search works or not. Usually, for many commercial queries like electronics (various online stores) in the top, you see 'Eldorado,' 'M.Video,' 'Beru.ru,' 'Yandex.Market.' The listings are occupied.

Earnings in the USA, Sergey Pavlovich's portfolio at United Traders.

It's also important to understand that when you engage in SEO, there are niches you simply can't penetrate. In other words, you shouldn't go there. You must be able to analyze the search results and realize that you have no business there. I will take other queries and acquire traffic differently. In short, ‘buying an iPhone’ can be achieved either through black hat methods or through a long process. The quickest result we've had was a site that came to us from other SEOs (we work on our projects and do SEO for clients in Russia, the USA, and Latin America), who didn't do anything. Well, we looked at the admin panel: they forgot to publish articles, all the pages. We published them, added to the index – and it was top-1 the next day. Such results do exist.

SP: – So they had content written, but they didn't publish it?

OS: – Yes, they simply didn't publish it at all. Good content: you index it in ‘Yandex.Webmaster’ – and the site takes off. In general, if you set up the site correctly and do the internal optimization properly…

SP: – Are you referring to so-called technical SEO?

OS: – Yes, technical SEO and content in many topics, if they aren't very ‘meaty’ (like finance, like electronics) – you can push the site into the top during indexing. It won't be top-1, but it will be in the top ten, bringing traffic. This is very important. Again, in different niches, it's crucial to understand how search works in that particular area. For this, you need to understand how search engines are generally structured.

What is ranking?

OS: – Search is quite a complex thing – whether it’s ‘Yandex’ or ‘Google’, and they have differences in their algorithms. How ranking works: you create a site, a bot comes, pulls the pages into its database, and analyzes whether it is relevant to the query ‘buy an iPhone’. If it is relevant, meaning it answers the query ‘buy an iPhone’ (there are keywords, the correct content type, product cards, photos, videos) – okay, it’s relevant. Then ranking begins: let’s compete with other sites, compare who is better. That’s exactly what ranking is – the process of sorting the site into the top-10 / top 1000 – you have to surpass everyone. This is the coolest, most important point in SEO – you have to understand how it works.

In Yandex, the ranking formulas currently operate in such a way that there are about 800 factors – a page is evaluated based on eight hundred factors. Moreover, 60% of them are assessed by artificial intelligence. Can you imagine that for every query you promote, the ranking formula in Yandex, which you use to rank yourself in the top, competes with other websites – it is fundamentally different. People who tell you, "I know the ranking algorithms!" – just send them away. There’s a unique ranking formula for each query.

The factors that allow you to reach the top include the 'tech specifics' you mentioned (the website structure, ensuring the site loads quickly, responsiveness, a mobile version, and correct URLs), the right text that needs to be analyzed and written correctly – essentially, that's everything at the start. If you get the 'tech specifics' right, write the texts properly, and launch the site – it will already have visibility and traffic. We do not take 'Forex', 'gray' topics, or 'black' topics (we'll discuss this separately; it works a bit differently)...

So, if you understand how it works… By the way, I recommend a book (edited by Yandex) called 'Introduction to Information Retrieval'. It’s a semi-scientific book. Read the first 8 chapters; after that, it gets into multidimensional vector spaces – you don't need to read further. It's a good book to understand how search works.

When you understand that search works in a certain way, you realize what you can influence – this includes texts, user behavior on the site, links from other sites, and behavior in the search results. Accordingly, all of this can be manipulated if you want.

SP: – What is the most important factor, or is it a combination?

OS: – If you don't have relevant text on the page (correct headings, meta-tags, and text), nothing else works. You need to start by creating a relevant page. Behavioral factors are currently very powerful and effective.

SP: – That is to ensure the user stays on this page as long as possible, right?

OS: – Everyone thinks that way.

SP: – As an ordinary person, I think so.

OS: In fact, there are two types of factors that search engines evaluate. These are the so-called on-page factors that are read on the page: a person enters the page from a search, clicks on something, navigates the menu, scrolls – all this is recorded. You know, Yandex has a 'Webvisor' – you can watch a video recording of user behavior. That's one story – yes, it affects, yes, it's good…

You need to think from the logic of search engines. Where does the search engine have full control and have all the data? Right, on its own search results. So, it accepts this as the most challenging signal, which is difficult to fake. Behavioral signals in search results are the strongest. The most powerful factor is the last-click. Imagine: a user goes through websites, clicks, wants to buy an 'iPhone', enters – there’s no new one with three 'burners'. They leave. They go to the next one: oh, there’s one with three 'burners', but it’s not pink. They continue: oh, a pink one; 250 GB, with three 'burners', new, trendy – excellent!

SP: The one they were looking for.

OS: They order. Important! They close the browser window of that site, and then close the search results (or another page). Yandex sees (and Google roughly the same) that the person found what they wanted on that site – means, the site is good. The entire industry of boosting behavioral factors is built on this.

In general, I advocate for not ruining the search ecosystem with boosts. There are niches where just 'black' promotion, 'black' niches, and so on exist. Imagine, you have a good business, and two kids come in and just use bots to boost and sell trash in your niche…

SP: They damage the reputation of the whole industry; they take your clients away…

OS: I believe that one shouldn't push search with boosts, and there’s no need to set up link rings or bend everything…

SP: Link rings?

What are link rings?

OS: In the past, link rings and link farms worked. You place a bunch of random links with anchors and boost the site in the search results.

SP: I know about link farms, for example. What are link rings?

OS: In fact, link rings are when you can link in a circle. There are different linking schemes: 'Star', 'Cube'… This worked around 2011.

If everyone starts pressuring search, then... There are not foolish people at 'Yandex'; they monitor search in real-time to see how it works. They have metrics like DCG and NDCG, meaning the quality of search—how the search engine believes the results should be formed versus how they are actually formed. They compare and see when someone is manipulating it, and they start tightening their controls: they simply turn on anti-spam.

Search can tighten the controls so much that you won't be able to do anything. It can, if it wants to, so it’s not wise to push too hard and get cocky, because that could harm the entire industry. There won't be any white-hat SEO—you won't be able to rank, say, your dad's website that teaches English via Skype, because there will be content scrapers.

Once again: it's about texts, links, site structure, behavior; and various regional settings and such. If we strip away all the fluff that people say about SEO (because there are many myths in SEO, and many novices write about it without understanding), the current actions you can take are quite simple if you know what to do.

Differences between Yandex and Google. Organic Search

SP: – Alright. You mentioned the book where we can learn all of this. You just outlined a set of important factors (we have five), and we roughly know how everything works. Shall we discuss then the differences between Yandex search and Google search? Starting with the CIS market.

Immediately a question. I was told that commercial results are now affected—for example, if I sell a 'Bosch' juicer, this specific model—and that I won't show up in 'organic' results because both 'Google' and 'Yandex' automatically slow me down, so I pay them for ads. And in the results for my query 'Bosch juicer' (I checked, just as my Belarusian colleagues told me), there will be aggregators, review sites, a YouTube channel with an overview of this thing, but my store won't be there just so that I pay them for ads. Is that true?

OS: – This is exaggerated, but let's start with the fact that 'Google' and 'Yandex' are completely commercial organizations. This is a business. And they want to squeeze more out of their product. Of course, this industry, to be honest... Previously, you saw two product ads (there were always three), and then you could do 'organic' search and get this for free. Now there are 4 special placements, 5 at the top, pushing search results down. You can still rank for product queries.
And also notice that competition has generally increased. Remember, 5 years ago, in some niche, there were only 8 websites providing answers, and now there are 80! And everyone is pushing SEO or hiring proper SEO agencies.

SP: – How about you? Which category do you belong to – the normal ones?

OS: – Well, we actually have a boutique format. There are currently 2 types of agencies in the market: conveyor (where a guy sits somewhere managing 20 projects, clicking buttons, placing links), and those where you take on 3-4 projects per person and really develop a strategy and truly understand the niche, just like job searching. We'll come back to that. And indeed, 'Yandex' is squeezing out 'organic' results, the organic search, that's true. But to say that you can't get traffic from there – no, it doesn't work that way; otherwise, my company would be out of business.

Let's talk about 'Yandex' and 'Google'. It's funny that when talking about 'Google' – it's a Western company; their ranking system in America, England, or Latin America differs from that in Russia. The most amusing thing is that 'Google' implements all anti-spam algorithms in India and Russia.

SP: – Because it's the most cunning, so to speak.

OS: – Yes. Because all the spam pressing (you can read about it in the Burzhunet) comes from India, where they create a bunch of satellites, and it also comes from Russia. When I researched this, I published – asked people: 'Why do you spam?' They say: 'Because we can't make money offline. We want to push sites to the top, drive traffic for partnerships, generate leads because we want to work on the internet and not depend on factories. I don't want to work in a factory.' But how? Pay outrageous amounts for context? No. People are learning SEO, trying to make money from search, so they spam, spam, spam.

SP: – With the least amount of money and time.

OS: – Of course! They see that there are people here ready to buy – naturally, they are willing to create websites where something can be sold. And Google is rolling out all these spam algorithms here.

What's the difference? Yandex has a rather unique ranking model. I would even say that it is more technological than Google's. Yandex uses the machine learning algorithm MatrixNet – you can read publicly about it, it's not some closed technology; you can find out how MatrixNet works.

SP: – They announced it, talked about it, and showed it in their videos.

OS: – Yes, yes. MatrixNet is a machine-learned formula for each query that scores part of the factors (probably half) and adds a regular polynomial, meaning a set of A+B, B+C. Meanwhile, in Google, the formula is still...

SP: – Plus, there's the assessor – a person.

OS: – Yes, assessors help train it: MatrixNet is supervised machine learning. For MatrixNet to evaluate these 5 websites, assessors first teach it: this one is good, this one is bad, this is very bad, this is spam, and this is a very cool site. MatrixNet understands that such sites have certain characteristics, and then it learns from this training sample and starts ranking regular websites that end up in the top (because the assessors taught it); and it is already ranking.

In Google, however, the formula is still polynomial, a set: let's say, multiply a certain factor by a coefficient, plus a factor multiplied by another coefficient... So, in fact, if you take the websites ranked first, second, and third – the ranking for the first one simply has a rating (let's say, 3045), the second – 3040, and the third – 3000. In fact, the number of rankings is the same – this will be the site’s number, its rating, while the fifth site has a rating of 2143 (measured in millions, I believe). Google’s formula is still set up this way: A+B, B+C. They ideologically (I read their patents) were against machine learning so that search wouldn’t become uncontrollable… Yandex is smarter in terms of machine learning, it is harder to deceive.

What dominates in Yandex? There are two types of websites where you can earn money if you're not an agency. An agency deals with any website – you promote it because there are tasks for which you get paid. The first type of commercial website is a service website: you want to sell foam blocks, metal products, and the 'iPhone' with three 'burners'...

SP: – A doctor aggregator – like 'Dokdok.ru', for example.

OS: – By the way, a friend of mine worked with Dokdok. I know how it works; we created such aggregators. An aggregator is also a separate story, the third type of website. If you want to create an aggregator, I can tell you more about it.

SP: – There are startups that are just very expensive, multimillion-dollar ones, in dollars – like 'Low Pivots', for example, 'Sir Vispo', where lawyers consult you, for instance; and if you like it later – you can hire them, they will represent your interests, but they consult you for free.

OS: – In Russia, there is 'Yustiva', a similar project. I was just doing some SEO work for them. Good guys. They have an awesome product, and they are great people, by the way. (Lidia), their affiliate program is cool. So, I did this project for them.

So what’s the point? If you have a commercial website, the region is very important in Yandex. You go to 'Webmaster', the directory, register, put down a real phone number – they will actually call you and check it out. If you flunk, there will be no ranking. Use a real phone number, real working hours – respond to the person who calls you.

SP: – Yes, they really called me. I want to tell you, they called me once. They call from 2GIS about once a year, checking if everything is okay; they called me from Yandex once.

OS: – You can ignore 2GIS, but if Yandex says – there’s no such company, you’re mistaken – they can remove you from the directory, and you will lose your positions. Basically, you create a directory, select your region – that’s the first thing you need to do. This is crucial for ranking.

SP: – For example, in the cashback SecretDiscounter (not an ad), my region is – all of the CIS. I have been assigned the region 'No region' (I set it on purpose).

OS: – Correct. Aggregators do not have a region. This is a type of content aggregation. Yandex automatically understands that this is an aggregator. Yandex classifies sites: online libraries, e-commerce, article directories, services… Yandex has an internal classifier – it has understood that you are an aggregator, and it will assign a region by itself.

SP: – If I had a dry cleaning service or a chain of dry cleaners in Moscow, would I need to set it to 'Russia. Moscow'?

OS: – You should never set 'Russia' at all. 'Russia' is a phantom region; it doesn't provide any ranking benefits, only harms everything.

Why gather keywords?

SP: – But a city can't just be entered, right?

OS: – No-no, you can: just put 'Moscow', 'Piter', mark it. Make a reference guide if you want to be in the top in Yandex. Enter regions, then pick keywords (any method – through Wordstat, suggestions). We have a product called Russian Analytics – you can sign up, there's a trial (you can gather 10 keywords for free).

SP: – By the way, someone gifted me a paid account there. But I rarely use it.

OS: – What a pity! It eliminates a lot of manual work.

SP: – But I don’t know how. I don’t have time. I’m currently torn between YouTube and cashback. I'll definitely be focusing more on business.

OS: – Okay, we’ll do something for you, export it – no problem.

SP: – This video will not contain ads for my book, although it sells well on my site.

OS: – Gather keywords, create content for them, group the pages. Write normal, meaningful text.

SP: – Both professional SEO specialists and many young guys are watching. What do we gather keywords for?

OS: – What’s the point? People are searching for something. A person has an intention – to find something, to buy something. They express it with different words, so the page should consider all these words that they might use. 'Buy iPhone', 'iPhone price', 'iPhone' (in Russian, in English) – and these are all terms people type; you must rank high for all these queries. Therefore, you go to the 'Yandex.Wordstat' service (we'll show it later on screen, so everyone knows), input a keyword – it shows you everything that is searched with those keywords.

Also, a really cool thing is when you start typing something in Yandex or Google – these suggestions pop up. It’s a very cool source of keywords because it shows the most trending ones.

SP: – YouTube has a similar feature, by the way.

OS: – They have their own system. By the way, we parsed YouTube in Russian Analytics – you can also parse it.
SP: – In Russian Analytics?

OS: – Yes, you just select YouTube there – it loads all the suggestions for you.

SP: – I didn't know that.

OS: – Even for Latin America.

SP: – What am I doing on your service? I entered a list of keywords from my site – however many there were, I wrote them manually – I'm just checking the rankings for those keywords through you. Can I also parse suggestions, say, within my sector?

OS: – I'll explain now. There are many software tools available; let me tell you about Astro – it's simple for beginners. We designed it for everyone, for business owners and hardcore IT specialists.

SP: – I'm a business owner. I don't want to get bogged down; I'm not a tech person who would sit and configure a thousand settings.

OS: – You can access suggestions. There are a lot of great keywords that people are searching for right now. Interestingly, Yandex has a really cool suggestion algorithm (there are no fakes, no misleading suggestions, these are actually input by people): you collect these suggestions from Wordstat (all keywords), then group them ('blue iPhone', 'red iPhone'), or we can simplify it...

SP: – Do you have such a tool – a clustering tool?

OS: – You can simply press a button – we will automatically build the website structure. I want to tell people that they can also use it manually. It's not necessary to buy everything from us – we have it great, convenient, but some may want to do it for free, by hand.

SP: – I used to do it manually...

OS: – It's just a hassle, it takes a lot of time. So, you group them, and for each group of words, you create a page – writing 'titles', h1... Maybe later I'll share a link to the knowledge base where I've written a bunch of articles on how to put all this together. You create a proper site. You can do it on WordPress, Tilda, or whatever.

SP: – You can do it on ModX, Joomla...

OS: – Don't use Joomla – you'll get hacked, 100%. Joomla still has many vulnerabilities and exploits that haven't been fixed.

SP: – On WordPress, if you don't update the plugins, it always gets hacked as well.

OS: – That's true. That's already a problem for the user, while Joomla will simply break. So, you create a website, write great content that really answers user questions.

SP: – We're currently talking about articles, about text.

How to attract traffic now?

OS: – What does Yandex have? Regional relevance and good text, normal, structured text. Again, you ask: "What kind of text should I write?" Open the top 10 for your topic, look at competitors, check the volume of text, what keywords they use, and their headings. I'll provide a link – two manuals so we don't get too technical. We have a text analyzer (developed at 'New Technologies'): you just upload your keyword – choose a site, and our bots will go there – extract all the information and give you a ready task for the text.

SP: – Do you mean that I shouldn't assign a brief manually to the copywriter writing the text?

OS: – You need to look at how much text your competitors have, average it properly, and take all word forms into account. Our bots land on these sites, can extract the content area, links, pieces of text, and consider everything as separate zones to provide you with a ready file to hand over to the copywriter.

SP: – I’ve seen something like this in 'GoGetLink': it shows how much text you have on the page, how much your competitors have, and whether you have keyword stuffing. Is yours something like this?

OS: – Yes, and we intentionally cut it so that we provide a specification that is slightly undersaturated to avoid being flagged for spam. There’s a filter called 'Baden-Baden', text filters in Yandex – sanctions, you could get penalized. Let's talk about 'black hat' techniques, how people do it, and how they get punished later.

You publish the text, create normal content, and essentially wait a month – ideally, how a regular person would do it.

SP: – Are we talking about Yandex?

OS: – Yes, about Yandex.

SP: – For the CIS, of course.

OS: – There’s one simple hack for Google. If we’re talking about commerce in online stores: on many pages, text is actually not needed, it doesn't need to be created – just the product card, the category. Online stores are a whole different story! I wouldn't recommend getting into them.

SP: – Alt descriptions in images?

OS: – Yes, that’s all… I’ll later give you a 'pack' article – what can be provided to subscribers for them to read. It’s written by people for people. I have a friend who's an SEO expert who can explain complex things simply – very well.

SP: – But simplicity requires greater talent. It's very hard to make something simple.

OS: I tried it. I read a lot of reports at conferences when you're talking about something like 'Decomposition of the Thermodocument Matrix,' and people think, 'What is this? I'm out of here.' When you write in manuals 'insert the keys here,' 'write it like this,' that will be 70% of what a professional SEO specialist does. But they will work, so create quality content.
All SEOs are furious... 'Make sites for people,' says Yandex at all conferences, 'Get lost, don't spam, don't put links, don't use bots – we will find you and punish you anyway.' It actually works. We wanted to talk to you about what's worth doing 'in the long run': is it worth spamming now, ramping up your profit (how – I will also explain)? I believe that investing in content, in a good product is essential so that the site genuinely meets user inquiries, allowing people to solve their problems there. And for each group of inquiries, create plenty of pages, and it will bring you traffic. The more pages, the more traffic.

SP: You know, there's this thing: we can't have more than one high-frequency keyword... Let me explain: a high-frequency keyword, for example, is when you type 'buy iPhone,' and it turns out that 100,000 people per month are searching for 'buy iPhone' in Yandex; but if you type the query 'buy black iPhone 256GB in the city of Zelenograd or Moscow,' for instance, there will be 6 queries per month, which makes it a low-frequency query. But there's a rule when writing that you should, for example, insert one high-frequency keyword into such a block of text, two medium-frequency keywords, and two low-frequency keywords...

Is it worth deceiving the bots with low-frequency and high-frequency queries?

OS: – I will explain how it works. We talk about 'Yandex' because if you succeed in 'Yandex', you will only need to push it with links in 'Google'. In reality, 'Yandex' delivers results based on how well it understands your keyword. For instance, promoting 'coffee maker' and 'coffee grinder' on the same page is not possible because the search engine understands they are different items – for example, a coffee maker and a toaster. In other words, you can't do: 'toaster', 'coffee makers', and 'blenders' – you won't rank for all three of these words on one page, as pages about toasters, blenders, and coffee makers will provide better answers, and 'Yandex' will rank them higher. Therefore, if the synonyms refer to the same thing, they can be promoted on one page. If they are different, promote them separately; don’t fight against the search.

SP: – To avoid confusing the robot.

OS: – Yes, don’t try to fight against the search – you won’t succeed; they are smarter. In the past, you could manipulate with texts and links to deceive the search engine. It’s much harder now. So do this: write good content, and in commerce, look at how online stores and service websites are structured – check what types of content are on their pages.
I had a case – we promoted concrete. Concrete, cement, and so on.

SP: – I think it’s a competitive niche. After all, construction…

OS: – It’s competitive. In fact, we created a satellite site (whoever wants can drop kupit-beton.ru, it’s available, restore it – you’ll be in the top for concrete; we abandoned it, had no clients), and it was in the top 30. We didn’t manage it. We said: 'Let’s get to it, do something'. And we noticed that everyone in the niche had tables (M-300, price, tonnage, etc.) on the page, while we were lacking that.

SP: – They say search engines really like tables.

OS: – They do. Therefore, after writing the text (or better yet, before), analyze what types of content are out there: who has images, who has tables, who has a request form…

SP: – From the top 10, probably, the results, or better – from the top 3.

OS: – It's better to look at all the top 10, because sometimes 'M.Video' ranks not because it’s great, but simply because it’s a brand. The optimization might be poor. Just a brand.

Look at the content on competitors' pages and add it. We took a look at adding a table. In 'Yandex', if something changes, you can immediately request reindexing and add it to search.

SP: – Re-crawl the page.

OS: – The next day we were in the top 7 from the top 30. We were missing the table. When a company comes to us (clients), we conduct an initial content audit in the first month.

SP: – Do you do it for free, or is it paid?

OS: – This is part of the service for the first month. It's paid, of course.

SP: – So you sign a contract with them?

OS: – Yes, a contract, and the contract always includes an audit in the first month. Although everyone complains about SEO specialists – saying they don't need an audit, they just want SEO. But what can you do with SEO if the site has redirects all over and lacks content on the pages? So, to summarize again: regional relevance, texts, proper content, and try to get links... I don't know, let your friends put links first, add yourself to directories and catalogs. It may seem small, but it works.

SP: – You're saying – add to directories… It's called 'Yandex.Directory'. They say adding to... 'Google Business' also matters a lot for 'Google', the company card.

Does Google still love links?

OS: – You built the site, added the texts – now you need to promote it in 'Google'. How is 'Google' different? 'Google' is different in that it loves links.

SP: – Still?

OS: – Still. This is paramount in the algorithm. You can check your sites; those that get a lot of traffic from 'Yandex'. Your site, for example, is under affiliate.

SP: – Now I'll check how much traffic we get from 'Yandex'. I open my 'Cashback', let's see for a month, for example. Look, from 'Google' I have this much, and from 'Yandex', I have three times less. Well, if you consider mobile 'Yandex'... In short, I still have twice as much traffic from 'Google'.

OS: – I'll tell you why. Next.

'Google' still loves links. If you have good content – you need to add more links to it. I recently spoke – do you know the company 'AviataSales'? They have an affiliate program.

SP: – Everyone knows them for their marketing that used to be. But the founder passed away. It's a pity. They said he was a cool guy.

OS: – When I went to his performances (he used to be in porn). I was at the performance at the 'higher school' when he talked about 'adult'. He was a very positive guy.
They have a partnership with Travelpayouts, which you can use for hotels and more.

SP: – But they're not only with Travelpayouts; they are also part of Admitad and other programs.

OS: – But they have their own partnership, where they aggregate different offers. I performed for them on Saturday.

SP: – Do you want to say that Travelpayouts is a subsidiary of Aviasales?

OS: – Of course! It's official. They've been open about it for a long time: they originally created the partnership for 'Aviasales', and then connected offers – bookings and more.

SP: – By the way, there are a few services there. They've basically gathered the tour industry in one place.

OS: – You know, they've connected quite a lot, very decently. They're developing quite well. I performed for them on Saturday... How to promote 'travel' sites? Look, you're most likely going to promote some article sites – reviews about something, 'travel'... I will provide a link to the presentation (I'll upload it to 'Google Drive').

SP: – Do you know the site vandrouki.ru, vandrouki.by? 'Vandrouki' means travel in Belarusian. It's a cool site. We constantly get some trips for our parents and ourselves there with Katya.

OS: – Yes, it's a good theme – I take it as well.

SP: – The theme is amazing. They write that there’s an incredible excursion in Turkey available, for example, at a super price – ten times cheaper than it actually costs.

OS: – They are prioritized in my phone's 'Facebook' feed – I scroll through them every morning. Yes, it's a cool thing.

So I also performed for Travelpayouts. Let's share this presentation – it’s worth it for the audience. And what I'm discussing now includes a 'step-by-step', 'step-by-step' complete manual on how to do it all.

SP: – So how to promote a tourist site?

OS: – A tourist site. But you can also promote a site that reviews screwdrivers, referring to Admitad, 'Yandex.Market' – wherever you want. There’s a methodology I’m talking about. It explains how to beat 'Google' too, so you can sit down, take your subject, gather keywords, simply change the content, and do SEO tailored to your topic, straightforward SEO. We are currently talking about 'meat' topics.

In Google, you need links. Where to get them is another matter. There is a method called crowd marketing, where you gather a team of people to post links for you on forums and LiveJournal. It works, but usually it’s a 50/50 shot: either the site starts gaining traction (Google traffic is at 0, but then it begins to pick up a bit – means the links had an effect); crowd marketing can be effective. It's great to exchange links. Don't hesitate to reach out to someone, don’t be lazy: 'Would you link to us? We have a great article, for instance, we could write about you!'

Links from powerful resources – it’s literally enough to have either one strong link (from a powerful resource) or 5–10 non-anchor links, just the brand name. Anchor text is when it says 'buy plastic windows,' while a non-anchor is something like 'here' or 'site' or, for example, 'www.site.ru.'

Actually, 'here' and 'this' aren’t really non-anchor links. When SEO specialists tried to cheat, 'here' and 'this' were two anchors that Yandex flagged – so don’t do that.

SP: – tut.by is a website in Belarus.

OS: – Yes, I know. So, in Google, links are needed. There's an option to buy them on link exchanges.

Spent $100,000 on links.

SP: – Earlier, sape.ru, but now it’s 'overused' – it gives you trashy links. I initially bought links for 'Cashback' and other projects. 'GoGetLinks,' for example – it's quite nice. But the links there are expensive: I paid about 2,000 rubles for a link, and more than that – let’s say I paid from 900 rubles and above.

OS: – I knew a company that bought links for 6 million 800 thousand rubles. Too much. They got hit by a filter. Webmasters said, 'We’re not going to remove it; we can’t be bothered.' And they gave two million more for the webmasters to remove them.

So, when you’re trying to buy a link somewhere, remember... They say, 'You’re buying a good link.' Ask yourself: 'Then who’s buying the bad ones, if you’re buying the good ones in the same place?'

SP: – How to determine whether the donor site is good for buying a link or not? I use... That guy from Krasnodar...

OS: – Alaych?

SP: – Alaych. I use 'CheckTrust.' But it’s not a cure-all; it’s still not a perfect tool.

OS: – He uses APIs from some services, but I recommend 'Ahrefs.'

SP: – Too bad they don’t have an affiliate program.

OS: – No. By the way, they're Russian guys.

SP: I will put a link below the video. I have trusted services on my shop, on my website. I actually verify them. And you are there, for instance (a referral link for you), and there's Ahrefs. Is it your competitor?

OS: They are somewhat different; they are more focused on the West. They analyze links. You can buy a website and check its backlinks – it has domain rank. They score: URL rank and domain rating – you can check that in Ahrefs. You simply look at the site you want to analyze – its backlink history should be normal. There shouldn't be any spikes.

Can you promote in Yandex without backlinks?

SP: A normal growth is gradual.

OS: Everyone has started doing it very smoothly. Understand, if you do something abruptly, start tweaking somewhere, those fluctuations and spikes – the algorithm sees that something is off, it’s not typical for a sample of a million sites. You are doing something wrong – it will take notice: either it will just cut it out as manipulation or may ban it (apply filters). So in terms of backlinks, if we are talking about Google in Russia...

SP: In Yandex, don’t you consider backlinks at all?

OS: You can actually promote in Yandex without backlinks. Yes, backlinks work in Yandex, and anchor links work. If you know where to place them, if you have friends or other sites, you can place them. Just don’t link to each other, don’t link a bunch of pages. Place them carefully – that will work.

Once again. You can see something in GoGetLinks, but that’s already a gray method. If we talk about white SEO – that’s not white SEO, that’s biased.

SP: To be honest with GoGetLinks: I buy the first link through them to earn them a commission, and then I go directly to the webmaster – always 20-30% cheaper.

OS: They fight this well from a marketing perspective: they say – you can write to the webmaster through us that they are required to remove it (they will either force them or throw them out).
What is a normal price for a backlink in Russia? How to find the right donor?

SP: Where is the guarantee that the link won't be removed?

OS: – When I was still working at a large agency, we extracted the entire database from "Seipa," "Gougetlinks" (we found a "loophole" on how to download through parameters) and just marked everything ourselves, building our own metrics back then. So technically, you can buy links from "Gougetlinks", and "Miralinks" sells links. I recommend searching for links among partners or negotiating directly with websites, among acquaintances, hosting events where you can place a link.

SP: – What is the normal price of a link in Russia? Well, in the CIS market.

OS: – In Russia, a good website will sell you some promotional publication for 3,000 to 5,000 rubles – that’s from a good, powerful site. This is not a top site, like Adme or vc.ru. Vc.ru only does special projects – it's a completely "white" company that doesn’t trade in links.

SP: – So how do we analyze links (like you say in Ahrefs)? How do we find a donor? For example, from this site (from "Belaya Gazeta"). By the way, I bought a link from "Belaya Gazeta" – it was a normal, respectable newspaper in Belarus. I paid two thousand rubles. Is it a good donor or not? I checked it through "Chektra".

OS: – In general, if you want to buy something, the link should not come from some junk site (like a bad website), it should be thematic or from the media.

SP: – Thematic – is it relevant to your theme?

OS: – So you're promoting metal products – "buy something DIY construction."

SP: – Not on a children's website?

OS: – No. If you can’t find a thematic link, buy from a general thematic site, from the media. A media site: newspaper, news portal – better to purchase from there. You will need links for Google. But remember, if you are going to sell this business in America – auditors always "check" you. Purchased links in exchanges are considered "gray" methods worldwide. From a "white" method perspective, I do not recommend engaging in this. Make this product so that links are placed on you naturally.
We have a product called Russians Analytics – an independent company, a cloud service where we sell position checks, gather keywords, and assist SEOs and entrepreneurs. This way, we constantly receive reviews; people place referral links themselves. Like you: if you liked the service – you placed a link. By the way, we have grown in Google recently.

Life hack for Ahrefs

SP: – I also earn money. I love websites with affiliate programs. There’s no affiliate program with Ahrefs.

OS: – They are something! They are market leaders – they don’t care.

SP: – Is this a Russian company?

OS: – Is it a Russian company?

SP: – How much do you think they earn per month?

OS: – I think they definitely earn around one million dollars a month. 100%! They might be public: are they registered in Singapore or in some jurisdiction? They should have public reporting. Haven't they gone for an IPO?

SP: – By the way, here’s a hack: you won’t get anything for free in Ahrefs. There’s no free trial.

OS: – There’s a 7-day trial, but you need to enter your card details.

SP: – A 7-day trial, but you enter your card information and then they’ll charge you for a month, for example. So, you create a new account every 7 days and link a new virtual card. You can issue a virtual card, for example, in Qiwi or WebMoney, or at your bank, load a little money onto it – you have a new account. I may have got it wrong: I think you don’t even need money on this virtual card.

OS: – I think you check it in rubles, or you can load it in dollars. This is a big problem in Russia: they don’t want to pay us, even though the product is good; they don’t want to pay a lot.

SP: – I didn’t pay you until you gave me a free account. I once used your service because I didn’t have money.

OS: – Time.

SP: – Money.

OS: – You didn’t have money?

SP: – I believe checking positions is a bit pricey, but you offer it and other companies do as well. Again, it depends on which companies we’re talking about, but for some young startups, it’s expensive. It’s easier for me to check manually on my ten key queries...

OS: – In fact, it’s not that expensive. You can check all your positions for a thousand rubles a month – that’s easy.

SP: – What if I have 10,000 queries?

OS: – Well, check them once a week, not every day, and it’s fine. Why do you need to check 10,000 queries?

SP: – Often I don’t even want to check them. Once a month is enough for me.

OS: – But divide them into several projects, the most important ones; then check them once a month. That’s it. Save money (but I didn’t say that, or else no one will pay).
If you’re into SEO, especially for Western markets, Ahrefs is a must-have tool. Our competitors are great, and they offer an impressive product. Pay the $89 a month, and you won’t have to worry about which link to buy. All the data you need is there.

Ahrefs also has a really cool feature for sourcing links – I believe it’s called Content Explorer. It searches for all mentions of your brand in the content of other websites.

SP: – Or your competitor.

OS: – Preferably about your own site. It finds all publications about you and says: 'Here’s just text, no link was included.' You can directly contact them: 'Guys, can you mention us?' And they actually put a link in the ready-made article.

SP: – Let me explain (Oleg is thinking quickly, from a professional's perspective): we need a link; our goal is to get a link, preferably for free. Someone wrote about us, mentioning that yesterday the 'LudiPRO' channel was raided by the special forces during a meeting. Some media outlet wrote about it, but they didn't include a link to my channel, for instance, or to my site. Using Ahrefs, we analyzed that forbes.ru wrote about us, but there’s no link, so we write to them: 'Guys, could you please add a link? Is it that hard?'

OS: – Yes, yes, and it works! Ahrefs is a great tool. When you look at certain sources, especially in the West where links are expensive, you can immediately assess who is linking to that site. We mentioned that Yandex focuses on texts, proper optimization, all those manuals; about Google links in Russia… But with Google, you can often also achieve good results with quality content.

How to get free links

SP: – Without links? Here’s a question that Sanya Gubsky, an SEO specialist, just asked you: 'Is it possible to promote a fresh, even good site in the Burj without any links? Will it get search traffic?' Burj refers to the entire foreign internet, so to speak.

OS: – No, there won’t be any traffic.

SP: – Look, I have a site on WordPress. I believe it’s amazing, well-made, and it was even translated by professional translators – cashbackhunter.com. Here’s the cashback rating on the main page, then there are various articles. It’s a professional translation, there are images, and there’s internal linking.

OS: – This won't rank in the top, you know why? Because you need about 12 times more content for this keyword, I'm guessing. A two-word phrase, and there’s too little content for google.com – the content doesn't match.

SP: – I even have links in the footer that are cross-referenced.

OS: – It's hardcore, of course, but okay.

SP: – Do you know how many pages? I have about 25 pages here in total. But there's no traffic at all, not a single person! Not one! Though it’s an awesome site.

OS: – I see it’s well done, infographics.

SP: – There’s a rating of bookmakers. Again, links, other articles. Even reviews.
Can a new site be promoted in the West without links?

OS: – Let's stop here. In the Western Google, you won't rank in the top without links. There's ranking on google.com – you're competing with the whole world: if you want to be visible in all countries in English (in England, UK, Canada, Australia) – without links, just forget it.

SP: – This site, just so you understand, has… I’ll explain about cashback services (it's easier for me to talk about them – I know): there are only 300 cashback services in the world, 200 of them are from the CIS, mainly from Russia. There are only 300 in the world. There are 50 cashback rating sites in Russia – mine is fourth in the West. My three competitors get about 400-500 thousand visitors monthly (organic). I have nothing, even though the niche isn’t saturated.

OS: – You know, when you look at such sites (I just look at some pages with experience, and I’ll tell you later why): firstly, if you want to enter the English-speaking internet, some basic links are needed; secondly – review articles.

How to make it anywhere if you don’t have links yet? First, you take the top 10, see what they have. How to write content for the West: look at competitors' content, and your content must be more extensive, more detailed than at least one of the competitors. That’s it, you’ll break through. There’s a chance to rise. Plus, links.

SP: – How many links do I need to get at least a little traffic from the search engine?

OS: – How to determine? You go to Ahrefs, enter your domain, take competitors from the top by links, and see how many links they have.

SP: – They will have about two thousand links.

OS: – Yes, and you start building link profit.

SP: – Do you know the site backlinko.com?

OS: – Yes, great manuals. I recommend "Backlinko" – it's good content about backlinks. These manuals work and can be used – they have relevant information. The blog at "Ahrefs" also has some decent information – for example, how to write a "title" particularly for the West. Check out "Ahrefs"; they have a good manual.

Let's talk a bit before we move on to specific cases about how this struggle between our Russian optimizers and "Yandex" and "Google" has evolved.

SP: – The current market share of "Yandex" and "Google."

OS: – 50-50 largely because of the high mobile usage on "Google." It used to be 55-45, 65-35. Now "Google" has evened out. Thanks to "Android," of course, mobile. They have Google Mobile First for indexing now. Back when I started in 2008.

SP: – I’m already old, I can think back to 1998. I’m 36. How about you?

OS: – I’m 30.

SP: – A fellow old-timer. Did you use ICQ?

OS: – Of course! I was still buying links through "AIM."

SP: – I had "six-digit" and "five-digit" numbers... Links in "AIM"?

OS: – Yes.

SP: – You just connected with link sellers?

OS: – There were two guys trading texts. We communicated over "AIM" back then. Then "Skype" came along and took over. So, what happened in 2008?

In 2006, I remember, I was just starting to study this – search appeared, traffic appeared. You, as a mega old-timer, immediately understood what was in searching...

How did the struggle between optimizers and Google develop?

SP: – I still remember when there was no search. There were chats, there were directories, "Kulichki" (kulichki.com) was there – both sites and chats, everything... You know, they were directories, "Rambler" was around then. Search engines appeared later.

OS: – Yes, and people realized that there was traffic in search engines – you could create a site, and it would rank high. Ten people figured it out, and the 11th didn't know how to access it. What to do? They simply added keywords to the text, just keywords – and you would rank. There’s an algorithm in searches called TF-IDF: how many keywords you have on the page and how rare that word is; if you have many keywords on the page, the search would push you up. And at one point (it was around 2007), spammers almost beat the search – they created doorway pages, meaning you would take a book ("War and Peace") in "Word," insert just any words (even adult content), slice it into pieces, upload it, and it would rank high. Well, both "Yandex" and "Google" caught on to this.

SP: – In searches, low-quality sites start appearing at the top, it's some kind of nonsense, purely keyword-driven.

OS: – Yes, that's what people want. But they've introduced a bunch of linguistic algorithms that identified and banned these spammy texts, just threw everything out.

SP: – And the last iteration of this is 'Baden-Baden', probably Yandex's.

OS: – Also, 'Snezhinsk' came up a long time ago.

SP: – 'Minusinsk' was also there.

OS: – 'Snezhinsk' was back when the old algorithms were around.

Later, Yandex realized that links are a good ranking signal, and started giving them a lot of weight. Naturally, people launched sape.ru and began selling links. It was the era of link promotion: who bought more, who spammed correctly, some distributions were made, the speed of growth – that was the one on top.

SP: – Should the speed of growth be gradual?

OS: – Of course! If you’re growing links somewhere, think like a search engine if you want to win in SEO. If you start piling them on, and if you have a lot of money, and start unloading on links – that won’t work. The speed of growth should be constant. You need to develop like a cool media outlet, like a great product that has a lot of money. Then the search sees that you are growing steadily. It can’t be that you have a bunch of anchor links and no one recommends you just by your brand name.

SP: – About clicks on links. Search engines say that it's not enough to just place a link; there must be clicks on it. Is that a myth?

OS: – Not necessarily. How many links get clicked on the internet? How many links on your site get clicked? Look at 'Webvisor'. About 3%!

SP: – Here’s a life hack: in 'Yandex.Metrica', you can set up tracking for transitions from sites and external links; I check how many clicks come from external links.

OS: – Want a life hack in 'Yandex.Metrica' to see if assessors are coming to you or not? Go to 'Site Transitions', there should be 'Toloka', that kind of service.

SP: – irfametoloka.com.

OS: – Here you go – assessors are on this site.

SP: – 36 people.

OS: – 36 people evaluated your site.

SP: – It's bad that they are there. It would be better if they didn’t come, right?

OS: – No. If the site is decent, they evaluate you as a good site. There’s also a myth that assessors can promote your site, that you can pay them to say 'Good'. No, that's all nonsense. They train the algorithm, and the algorithm ranks. Even if one or five assessors are bribed, it won't work.

You need to grow organically (returning to links). You asked the question: 'How to grow links...?'

SP: – I asked about 'paid' links. Let me jump ahead a bit. How much does a link cost in the West? I read in the Ahrefs reports yesterday...

OS: – A link in the West... They vary: from 30-100 bucks to 5-10 thousand dollars.

SP: – Ahrefs stated in their report (this was around 2016) that the average price of a link is about 320 dollars. When you write to a webmaster, saying, 'Put a link to me,' 82% simply do not respond, 8% outright refuse. In short, out of 100%, only 17% of webmasters, site owners, agree to place a link, and that's possibly why the price is that – 320 dollars (for an average link).

OS: – Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly right. Let's just talk about link acquisition methods in the West. It's purchasing: you can still buy from Indians – you write on Upwork (there's such a freelance platform), you buy from Indians for 20-30-50 dollars...

SP: – Well, that's link farms.

OS: – Yes, that's farmed links, it's nonsense.

SP: – They aren't needed anyway! They cause more harm!

OS: – Of course, it’s not worth taking. There’s outreach, when you write to publications: 'Hello, we are such cool guys, we have this awesome review! Would you like to create content, or at least link to our content? Even take part of the content!' (that's exactly what you’re talking about).

There's building a PBN – that's a private blog network, when you create your satellite sites around the main site and either put links to the site (you can also receive traffic there, for example, post content). Well, and there’s also crowd marketing, registering in directories – that works in America, there are live directories, like Yandex, like Yahoo. It needs to be used in combination. The link mass should be diverse. We’re talking about 'white' SEO.

Returning to link spam: everyone started placing links. I was at a presentation, a conference when Yandex said: 'Guys, stop messing around with this nonsense. We will ban those who leave n links. We won’t just break the market by banning for one link.' Someone says something like, 'Yandex, go away, we know better. If we want to, we do it.'

The first wave of 'Minusinsk' has passed – they banned for links, and the 'milky ones' are already getting anxious. The second wave has also hit – same thing happened. This means that Yandex and Google can find spam. And if they want, they will eliminate it. So what did people start doing? Yandex found a new signal – user behavior on the site.

SP: – But this started about three years ago, two maybe.

OS: – It’s been definitely four years.

SP: – Yes, you’re right.

OS: – So what? People created an exchange where you can tell a school kid to go to…

SP: – 'Userator.ru'?

OS: – Roma Morozov, if you’re watching – hello! 'Userator' is the most famous traffic boosting service.

SP: – They say the mobile version worked fine.

OS: – Yeah, yeah, until the SEO ‘pick-ups’ got involved. So what did they do? You enter the service and say: 'Dear school kid, can you search for “buy iPhone 11”, find me in 50th place, click and poke around in the menu?' And there were a lot of such incentivized users, they were boosting it. They boosted and boosted, then people started massively...

SP: – Quite effectively.

OS: – Very effectively. It worked: sites just climbed to the top 1. Sites started getting banned. In fact, I know how they caught this, but I won’t say that in public.

SP: – Let me explain how it was. I’m quite connected with sites that closely monitor where the traffic actually comes from. Here, for example, Google sees that you have 'Userator' open (in cookies) – browsers can see which sites you visited. Many, for instance, big companies (like Mail.ru, for example) also gather a lot of user info. They see that you frequently visit 'Seosprint', 'Userator', 'VMRFast' and other sites where there are paid tasks. And they understand that you are most likely just a regular shady booster. This is one of the options.

OS: – Yes. However, to avoid breaking the eco-search system, search engines will never ban you because competitors can manipulate, right? How can you distinguish between what's manipulated by your competitors and what you manipulate yourself?

SP: – I don't know how; let's think about it… I have two videos on YouTube featuring a guy who makes fake IDs. My average likes on any video (97%) is at least 95.

OS: – They boosted him, right? They gave him dislikes?

SP: – Yes. Here – 58%. There were hardly any dislikes at all! And on the second one – 60%. And I saw (my subscribers sent me) tasks on these exchanges: "Go to the video, watch for about 12 seconds, leave a dislike, write an angry comment, and leave." How do you deal with this? You tell me as a pro. Because a website is the same. A competitor did this to me. What can I do?

OS: – But the dislikes didn’t harm you, right?

SP: – No dislikes.

OS: – They actually helped you, on the contrary.

SP: – Dislikes, likes, and comments are signals for YouTube. They reduced my watch time.

OS: – Yandex invented a very cool technology that definitely determines: did you manipulate and deceive the search, or did a competitor manipulate? In short, if your competitors are boosting your behavioral (factors, – author's note) signals, you won't be banned. Yandex clearly knows if you are manipulating or if it’s a competitor. Modern manipulators know how to boost themselves without getting caught. But we won’t get into that for now.

SP: – Are there any public services like that now, or are they gone?

OS: – Does 'Userator' not work? It works—'Userator' is functional. I have at least three acquaintances with services—these are private manipulations that aren’t exposed (no tasks). There are services that only boost behavioral signals; I have at least three acquaintances (private manipulations offered). You can make your site rank in the top for high-frequency queries within a week, and you won't be banned. You just need to know the right people.

SP: – 'Userator,' in general, is it risky to use? Can you get caught?

OS: – Nah, 'Userator' works if you know how to manipulate.

SP: – But is there still a high risk of getting caught?

OS: – No. If you know the algorithm by which they ban – 'Userator' works. Rom, hello! It’s operational.

SP: – No matter how hard I tried to steer him, he still says it works. Apparently, they’re on good terms.

OS: – Yes. The product is good. Look, we do "white hat" SEO. We do it for clients, for corporations, and we respect search because search feeds us. Even though I can create a test for manipulation – I could make a junk website, manipulate it, see how it works. But why do I need that? To see if it drives my clients, if the results are relevant to my clients' topics? But we don’t manipulate ourselves (I’m honestly telling you), because "don’t spit in the well that feeds you".

Why don’t you manipulate behavioral factors (BF)?

SP: – Do you manipulate any of your personal private projects?

OS: – No way! Do you know why? Because eventually they will find and ban everything.

SP: – Manipulation 10 years ago?

OS: – They will find and ban. And you’re really destroying the search ecosystem. Just messing around in the niches… We had one notorious guy here, who was spitting on the entire market (insulting people, companies) – I promoted him for the query "pedophiles" to top 1, he was then "happy". He threatened me on Twitter – you can check my Twitter.

SP: – Was it Tesak?

OS: – No… Tesak was… This guy was from our SEO market, a little punk… Well, we promoted him for the query "pedophiles" to top 1.

So, look, how about manipulations? People manipulated texts, manipulated links, now they’re manipulating BFs. It works on Google. Come on, if someone is interested, let’s talk about how to understand the algorithms, how to manipulate.

SP: – Sure, let’s do it.

How to understand manipulation algorithms?

OS: – Look, in Google, in America, there is legislation that they publish patents. If Google wants to make some feature that will work on user behavior, they are obligated to publish the algorithm publicly. You go look for Google’s patent on ranking – you see how it works, look at the technology, some kind of "rank" they created. Because the technologies used in search engines are publicly available – it's just that no one looks for them.

SP: – Maybe there is some secret part, or is everything completely open?

OS: – If you roughly understand how search works, understand how this "rank" was made – you know how to deceive it. I'm not calling for everyone to manipulate and do black hat.
You go and look at the patent. Anti-spam algorithms based on links, for instance — there was "trust rank", "truncated rank", "browse rank" (based on browser settings and prints), "click rank" (when they improved the "page rank" algorithm) — it was all public, all readable; they had to publish it. So you go to "Google", search for patents, read, study, understand how it works.

SP: – Isn't there anything like that in "Yandex"?

OS: – "Yandex" is very private about its data, believes it's right because it's a Russian search engine, and they'll start digging right away and twisting it.

SP: – But do you have any insider working there now?

OS: – No. At "Yandex", there are guys who are quite fanatical, and we didn't attempt to bribe them. What's the point? "Yandex" also releases documents, but "Yandex" presents them with scientific reports. Very smart guys work at "Yandex"; they speak at conferences.

SP: – I've seen a lot of girls there frequently.

OS: – Yes, yes, yes. "Yandex" is also a company that talks about technologies. Yes, it won't tell SEOs: "Look, we assess online stores like this, but if you…"
Here’s a life hack: if you want – Google the conference in Rio de Janeiro from 2014; there's a document on how "Yandex" actually assesses online stores (with screenshots). This document is not yet public.

SP: – So how will they Google it?

OS: – The "Yandex" conference in Rio de Janeiro. And see who was involved in searching at "Yandex" at that time.

SP: – They will watch videos.

OS: – Search. The document exists — in English, publicly available, with screenshots — how "Yandex" assesses a good site and a bad one.

SP: – Seek and you shall find.

OS: – Yes, this document can be found through Google. Documents about "Google", about its ranking, are leaked in the West. If you belong to any private communities — there are documents that leak from "Google": a huge structure, many offices, documents are leaking — you can see. Recently, for example, the assessor's guidelines on how to evaluate websites were leaked. Not old stuff from 2015, but fresh.

SP: – It can be arranged. My friend Katya works at Google, and they have a partner project called Apenn (outsource). She works there as an assessor. By the way, I helped her evaluate website relevance, but now she evaluates the relevance of ads, for example, on Instagram and Google.

OS: – Reverse engineers and SEO specialists usually think: "Oh, this is how they evaluate? Then this is where I can trick them! If it's a real-minus / real-plus answer, I'll adjust it to real-plus." This starts to matter when you're working in 'black' niches. If you want, we can talk about black hat tactics and how they work in search.

About black hat tactics

SP: – It seems you are done with 'white' SEO promotion.

OS: – Then we can talk about business. Let's discuss black hat tactics — everyone is interested in that!

SP: – In Google, link building is the main thing, right?

OS: – Yes, in Google — link building.

SP: – Is this still the main factor today?

OS: – In straightforward black hat tactics — yes; in intelligent ones — behavioral factors. There are lots of people who can get links from various sites through certain methods, but to manipulate and properly emulate user behavior — those are pretty closed projects. Just search for 'behavioral factor manipulation'. Well, you may come across Roma; but Roma rarely gets into Google.

SP: – Search for it on Google or it doesn't matter.

OS: – 'Behavioral manipulation'. Either it'll be a scan, or it'll say how bad it is, or there’ll be 'Userator'. Well, yes, you won’t find anything!

SP: – 'Web form' and 'Userator'... Oh, 'Userator' — yes, the only one.

OS: – 'Web form' — that's... Usually, if I don't know the projects in Runet — they're not projects. I haven't heard of them. For trolling. 'Userator'. Want a tip on how to manipulate something for a friend?

SP: – They take Sergei Pavlovich, type 'gay', right?

OS: – Then I won’t say anything. You shouldn’t have said that because they will prank you now. Oh no! 'Gay' — stop word, can't be done!

SP: – Well, I don’t care, let them manipulate. You know, bad PR is still PR.

OS: – In short, if you want to troll someone — take their first name and last name, pick a word, and run it through 'Userator'.

SP: – 'Homosexual' then. Also on the top list.

OS: – '[...] loves boys'.

SP: – Or 'raped a girl'.

OS: – Those are stop words, 'suggestor' gets filtered out. We wrote 'loves boys' and manipulated it.

SP: – And where can I find out about these stop words, by the way?

OS: You can type 'gay' or something like that… You know how porn suggestions work in 'Yandex'? Type a porn word, hit Enter – only then will the suggestions start showing up (to protect children).

There's no point in spinning. You take some guy you don't like, say, 'loves boys' or something… 'boiling scammer'; and you just throw it into 'Userator', spin it, and it actually works…

SP: And how long until this search suggestion appears in 'Yandex'?

OS: If you put in 3-4 thousand, it will appear in two days.

SP: Dollars?

OS: What dollars? Rubles. A click costs one or two rubles there.

How to spin suggestions? This doesn't harm the search, just telling you: in 'Wordstat', look for the highest frequent word, then you place it after, you put as many as you need – it will come up second, and if it’s clickbait (like, say, 'Loves boys') – people start clicking on it themselves and boost it to top-1.

Let's say some company scammed you – you can spin it against them. Scammers scammed you and pushed an article to top-1. Just create a website with a domain like 'some-company-scammer.ru' and put a landing page there, spin the suggestion that they are scammers ('ooo-horns-and-hooves-scammer.ru').

SP: And ask users to go to your site when it shows up?

OS: Yeah, you just buy schoolkids in 'Userator'. And like that, when you want to punish someone: when people search for the brand, they see ‘scammers’, and they click – go to your site. You can punish them forever – that suggestion won't be knocked out. It needs a skilled SEO specialist who will calculate weights, pay a lot for it to get out of there.

Now they are spinning PF (Push Frequency). The question: does spinning PF work in America? Answer: yes, it works.

SP: If we have good link exchanges ('Miralinks', 'Gogetlinks'), actually run the ads – we’ve said this ten times already.

OS: Misha, pay up, yes.

SP: I haven't seen anything like that in the States. I googled 'buy backlink' before the show yesterday, and you know what I saw? Those Indian farms immediately. I could tell by the price: 19 dollars for 100 links – immediately realized it's a farm.

OS: You can go in – and immediately in chat: 'Hello, for you my friend, for you sir…', 'Cheap links for you, sir…' Never work with Indians in SEO in the West – it will end badly.

SP: – What I mean is, aren't there any decent link exchange platforms in the West?

OS: – No, there aren’t. And there are no public services for boosting either. If you want to promote something really cool – something expensive, where there's a lot of money – public methods don’t work. You need to know people who provide capabilities for boosting with bots, or with real people.

SP: – Look, here's the question. I have a channel on Telegram – 22-23 thousand subscribers. I'm very responsive – they have a good relationship with me; if I ask them tomorrow, "Guys, go here, here, here, and do this, click in the search engine," several thousand people (maybe five) will help me.

OS: – You will probably rank in the top 1.

SP: – But won't the search engine perceive that I’m inflating the numbers? But these are real people!

OS: – They have clean footprints; they’ve never participated in boosting services.

Footprints, or fingerprints – they are clean. But if there are too many – the query frequency is 20, and 20 thousand visits yours – then the search engines might just see it as a bot spike and block it, even if they are real people. We call this "Skype marketing" when we troll some hint: we pitch in our company chat (we have 80 people) – a little hint can be boosted. It works. A fairly straightforward algorithm.

Links in the West are either "white" (I explained how to create "white" links)… PBNs in the West… By the way, I think there’s no official announcement from Google about behavior-based filters yet, meaning there hasn’t been a notable punishment. It’s not on such a scale. The Russians haven’t reached that yet.

SP: – Was there an equivalent for text as well?

OS: – There was. "Baden-Baden" for text, "Minusinsk" – …

SP: – But that’s for Yandex.

OS: – And in Google, there was "Penguin" – for links, "Panda" – for texts, and now – manual penalties.

About hacked sites

OS: – This channel is dedicated to…

SP: – "Black" methods!

OS: – I’m probably the second person who’s not a criminal to come here.

SP: – Maybe the fifth.

OS: – Considering that we work a lot in America… Right now, my company is structured with many clients in Russia, and about two years ago we launched perhaps the only department in Russia that operates in international markets focused on SEO, particularly organic search. We also do contextual work – Pay per click. Currently, we operate in Chile, Peru, Colombia (from South America), and also Mexico, Canada, and the USA (that's clear), Australia. And of course, when you venture into certain niches in America and start digging in, you'll face either interference…

SP: – Are they probably already busy first and foremost?

OS: – Guys are trying to engage in some 'black' SEO with you; for example, placing some bad links or something else – you're also using tools; or they start DDoSing. And when we entered border niches that are unclear – whether they are 'white' or 'grey'…

SP: – Where there's a lot of money, you mean.

OS: – …The rules of the game change. Let's analyze how SEO works now, how niches are classified – it’s important to understand.

There are 'white' niches ('white hat' niches, 'white' SEO). We discussed 'white', manuals will also be provided.

Next is 'grey hat', where you buy links. You don’t spam too much; you might sneak in some keywords here and there, link a bit.

And there’s 'black hat'. This is when you directly write spammy keywords, place links from any sites (hacked or not), and manipulate behavioral signals – that’s 'black hat'.

There are also niches that differ:

– there are 'white' niches; this includes selling foam blocks, selling iPhones, selling premium vodka;
– there are 'grey' niches that are on the edge; if it’s about alcohol – delivering 'booze' at night ('grey' niche, illegal), depending on the country – it’s illegal in the USA, but legal in Brazil.

SP: – Pharmacy, for example.

OS: – Pharmacy is definitely a 'black' niche, blacker than black. This is 100%!
And now you have to combine: in some 'white' niches, they promote only through 'black'. Let me give you an example: essays.

SP: – Essays – are those abstracts, term papers?

OS: – Coursework, essays? A lot of cash, many wealthy students who want to smoke weed and party in America, but not study. You're not doing anything illegal. This is a legitimate topic. According to the institution's rules, it's prohibited – okay. But promoting this theme is seen as 'black' because there’s a lot of money involved. As soon as there's money in a certain niche (for example, Payday Loans, which are microloans in the USA) … Wealthy segments of the population began to take out loans, they were given money, and people were splitting it into partnerships – I remember that time, and I know the guys who used to push it – at that time, 30–40 thousand sites were hacked daily.

SP: – Hacked? For what purpose?

OS: – To place links from those sites.

SP: – So maybe just hack and set up a 301 redirect – and that's it.

OS: – It depends on 'black' strategies. You need to understand that there are 'white' themes where 'black' methods are used, there are 'white' – where 'gray' methods are used, and there are simply regular 'black' themes, where 'black' methods are applied. Illegal casinos? Illegal! Prohibited in Russia. Open the link profile – there it will all be from hacked sites, everything will be from PBNs and other sources, betting.

SP: – About hacked sites, let me ask a question. Suppose I hack a site, place a link from it to mine; well, okay, it stood for a year or ten years, no one noticed it, and the site is relevant. Let’s say I have an auto parts store, and I got a link from an automotive site. Is that link considered normal in the eyes of the search engine or not?

OS: – It’s fine. Why not? Who knows that this link was made after a hack? But search engines can now detect hacked sites through indirect signs, and then they can annul your link. If it’s visible that something irrelevant was uploaded to the 'WordPress', Google might send you an alert saying, 'Dude, the site was hacked.' But if you did everything correctly, it’s placed under a somewhat gray background in the footer of the main page, conditionally correct (of course, illegally), it will last long and provide ranking – that's all normal. From the algorithm's perspective, it's fine.

SP: – What if there's an article about the ‘Mercedes’ exhibition in Frankfurt, and a hacker hacks it, for example, and places a third paragraph of text (there were two) and gives a link to my store: ‘And the sponsor of this exhibition is such a store.’ Will that be okay?

OS: – Excellent. You might even rank high if it's a cool magazine.

SP: – Is that a relevant link?

OS: – It is a relevant link, perfectly fine.

SP: – But what if the article is already three years old?

OS: – There’s a nuance. You can just upload a new article, you can add to it. But usually, they don’t bother.

SP: – But if you upload a new one, the admins might notice. Accordingly, they place links on the old ones, I think.

OS: – Yes, typically on the old ones or just in the technical zones of the site, as a sponsor - you write ‘sponsorship.’

SP: – But the admin will notice, right?

OS: – There are various methods of placing links. Usually, smart hackers make it so that when you’re logged in as an admin, those blocks are not visible. I’ve encountered teams…

SP: – Is this called ‘pies’?

OS: – ‘Pies’ is something different. I’ll tell you… I was consulting one topic in America. Some guys came incognito in Telegram: ‘Can we get written consulting? You will be responsible for big money.’ I said: ‘Yes. What’s the topic?’ I was curious to see how it all works. I consulted, looked at the projects, how it operates. And there, in that topic, they were promoting how? There were sites – let’s take, for example, the ‘pharma’ topic. There’s some medical clinic website. They hack it, upload a page where they place links to ‘Viagra.’

SP: – They link to ‘shops,’ their own stores and partners…

OS: – And products are sold there. It’s called a ‘pie,’ like a layered one: you have a bunch of pages, and one of them is such a ‘side’ one. But it uses all the power of this, for example, from a semi-government site.

SP: – Or a .gov site, for example.

OS: – Well, .gov is better… Hardly anyone is so crazy that they would place something else on a .gov site. Although I know a guy who placed on such sites – even on some scientific, governmental ones, like ours. But then he disappeared; I don’t know where he is.

SP: – He flew off to space.

OS: – Apparently so.

Is it true that .gov and .edu domains have more weight?

SP: – Immediately a question, since we've brought this up. Is it true that some websites have more weight in the eyes of search engines because of their domain? For example, government sites (gov) and educational institutions (edu) inherently have more weight than my site on com, net, or org.

OS: – Well, if you take 'The New York Times' and some obscure edu university, then of course 'The New York Times' would carry more weight.

SP: – Due to its popularity, let's say, its authority.

OS: – Yes, various parameters are taken into account; it's important to understand. Let's think like a search engine. How does search assess this? If an official American edu structure or a government site links to someone...

SP: – …then the site is good.

OS: – Yes, because getting a link there is very difficult. This means these are significant links.

As our guys did, here's a life hack for getting 'white' links in America. You can set up an Olympics (assignments for students) and provide some sponsorship. You write to the university: 'Whoever writes the best article about, for example, the real estate market in Thailand?' At some 'tourism'-'hospitality'-'university' in Yellowstone... And you say: 'Whoever makes the best overview of the market will receive $1,000.' First of all, you get 40 long reads of content, the university links to you (as you're a sponsor for students / you receive an official link with edu), and you get a ton of content for $1,000. These are 'white' link-building methods.

SP: – And Brian Dean from Backlinko suggests another method – create an amazing infographic (say, about the number of cars in certain countries), something valuable to people, very appealing to them. He says – you maximize the ease for other portals, which might want to 'steal' it from you, by making the task as easy as possible for them to share it officially; and at the bottom – include an embed code for the infographic, so they can take that code from your site and embed it on theirs. This way, your infographic starts appearing on their sites – backlinking to you.

OS: – Exactly! That's how we do it. Here's another cool thing, for example, we created a really awesome animated 404 error page on one site, and then we wrote an article (just alongside) – 'Top 10 Coolest 404 Pages', included examples, a link to our site, and sent it to an IT publication. They published it.

SP: – Well, you really went all out – that took a lot of time.

OS: – We programmed a great design anyway, and said: 'Let's outreach like this!' Either Misha Shakin suggested it to us or Sasha Tachalov.

SP: – Misha Shakin is also an SEO specialist.

OS: – Yes. Hi Misha! Get in touch with him – he’s one of the oldest and most honest SEO specialists in Russia.

Pharma, the most sophisticated strategies.

OS: – Speaking of dark themes, how does it work in 'black' niches (for example, 'pharma')? Let's talk about 'pharma'. I have a presentation on 'SEO Strategies' about how to create SEO strategies for complex projects. People ask me, 'Where can I see SEO strategies?' I say: 'You can look at those who sell drugs and weapons.' They have a high margin – the most sophisticated methods. I even have a clip of slides showing how 'Xanax' is sold on 'Pinterest'.
And what do they do there? First of all, everything is organized in these 'pie charts'. Then, a bunch of hacked sites links to these sites: for example, if you have a page on 'Viagra', you place 5 unanchored links, 5 anchored links like 'buy Viagra', 'Viagra for sale', etc.

SP: – How do we understand how many unanchored links there should be (the ratio)?

OS: – You dive into the niche, spend a lot of money. If the backlinks are not hidden by competitors (links can be hidden so you can’t find them, not even 'Ahrefs' can find them), you look at their distribution, how they grew ('Ahrefs' shows retrospectively), or you just rely on your intuition.

SP: – Retrospectively – what do you mean?

OS: – A year ago, two years ago, even 36 months ago…

You do it yourself, as you feel it. Banned? Oh, too fast, sorry! Minus $5,000. Did it slower – oh, too many anchors! Minus $5,000 (or 10).

SP: – So we copy successful competitors?

OS: – Of course! In SEO, you need to look at your competitors, copy everything, and make it a bit better... Remember, in many topics, everything has already been done for you. There's no need to start from scratch! Don't try to fight against search engines or competitors. Just copy everything from your competitor! It's better to redesign, rewrite, add a bit of content, expand, add a couple of videos, and create slightly better links – that’s it, you’ll rank high! Well, in most niches.

And then you place these links. After that, you look at the sources that place these links... and on them, there are also links to broken links...

SP: – To give weight to the sources?

OS: – It creates a link funnel. They link to these sources, and then they reference it, and for those distant ones – there’s a whole array of links. This algorithm is called Truncated...

SP: – It's like an inverted pyramid, a funnel.

OS: – There is even an algorithm that describes how this works in search – it’s called Truncated Rank. It describes this: if a link is simply placed on you – it doesn't work, but if that source has another link, then it will work. Search engines take this into account, and it works. You can do it this way.

SP: – For example, I have "Cashback." Tomorrow I created my "Cashback Ratings." If I place a link to my "Cashback" from this rating (there are no external links at all), that’s it. No one links to my rating; it's a brand new site. You’re saying it won’t work? They won’t consider it, or what?

OS: – They will consider it. But when there are links linking to your "Cashback," it will pass more weight there. This is one of the algorithms that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t work in the formula. If the search engine sees it as suspicious, it might not take those sources into account.

Typically, links are boosted through entire floors of links. There are tons of glued sites with 301 redirects of these drops. Some of those sites are dropped. Some links come from similar "pies," hacked sites of various companies. Sometimes the company’s own site gets hacked – and they rank high using links. So there are completely "black" promotion methods.

I once found a site that contained 8,000 domains. We tried to analyze it in Ahrefs just for fun with the guys, and there were 300,000 links, it was just some insane ring with huge… They are interlinked with each other. We attempted to build a graph, to program it – nothing worked. These guys broke half the internet, placed links to 10 sites, and then from there put buy Viagra – it was top-1 (that site).

SP: – Here's another question. There are links that are only nofollow, which do not pass your site's weight and do not transfer to the site you're linking to; and there are dofollow, when you, for example, buy a link somewhere to make it look awesome in the eyes of the search engine – it should be dofollow (the code shouldn't have nofollow).

OS: – Yes. You need to buy dofollow links, of course, and place dofollow links. But if nofollow links are placed on you – it nicely diversifies the natural link profile. Everything you do in search, when you adapt to competitors, you need to look natural. There shouldn't just be anchors, there shouldn't be a 'bunch of links in one day', there shouldn't be a single 'no follow link' – that just doesn't happen. So yes, you can place nofollow links too, they also transmit some ranking signals.

SP: – They are not that valuable, but let them be.

OS: – You don't need to pay much for them, but let them be, it's not bad.

SP: – On that site I showed you ('Verified Services'), if I'm linking to my services – I naturally don't write nofollow, but for third-party ones, I do. Yours is marked nofollow. And do you know why I mark it? I'm not stingy! But even yours is marked nofollow. I'm not trying to hold back the weight of my site – this site doesn't have weight yet, it's new, I don't mind. Just SEO specialists told me (I don't know if it's a myth or not): if I give too many follow links from my site, it will dilute my weight.

OS: – Yes, there is such a thing. But usually, when you have one page where you recommend everyone – the search engine understands that this is a partners' page.

SP: – I even give a link to YouTube – I make it nofollow.

OS: – Yes. Make it nofollow. Recommendation: it's better to do so. Currently, by the way, Google is introducing such a thing that if I've bought a link from you – you can already mark it as 'bought', 'sold', 'sponsored'.

SP: – Who will mark it? The search engine itself?

OS: – "Google" is about to introduce attributes where… I just don't remember, I read recently that you can say: "I was paid for this link, I placed it." And soon it will somewhat change the ecosystem of paid links – it will force publishers to disclose that these are paid, and probably give them less weight.

SP: – No, nobody will say that! It’s a fight against windmills. You just mentioned "black" methods. I use some in various niches. The 301 redirect. What do I do? I buy 1000 domains, sometimes tens of thousands, Russian ones, and I simply set up a 301 redirect from them. For those who don’t know: when you go to a domain – it used to be some pet shop (for example, you used it for 2 years), now the owner has died, abandoned the site, or just didn’t renew the domain – it was reclaimed; I buy such a domain. It has residual traffic, and I just set up a 301 web redirect to my resource. So, you end up visiting that pet shop, but directly land on my site. And if I catch your interest, you might buy something from me.

I use such methods – it brings me immense traffic in certain niches. It's not targeted for me, because I have one theme, and people coming in are, for example, guys looking for adult content, or housewives – they aren’t my target audience. Nevertheless, I’m fully satisfied with how it pays off. But! Here’s the question! Because of this, do my sites have no traffic from SEO at all – have I harmed my organic search traffic with these actions?

About 301 redirect

OS: – Let’s talk. I have a brother, for instance, who is into this – a partner website under "Amazon", earning on Amazon's affiliate program. And do you know how they test such sites? You have a site, you buy it, and you link it to another. How does that work, guys? You visit a site, and you get redirected to another – that’s a redirect. The search engine will redirect you the same way.

SP: – It can also be done through a frame, but I use direct.

OS: – It's better to set up through the 301 on the server.

How does it work? On this site, at one point, Chinese people could sell "Viagra", spam it with Chinese hieroglyphs, for example… It’s bad in terms of link building.

SP: – Or by the keyword "porn", "hentai", it shows up...

OS: – Yes, "hentai", it displays all this filth. You add it – "Google" passes some weight through 2-3 redirects.

SP: – And 'Yandex' too.

OS: – And you stick all sorts of dirt to yourself. Not all sites diminish your ranking – you need to think about what you attach. You can just check with 'Ahrefs' all those sites and decide whether to buy or not.

SP: – Then – armor and shell! I will include another site in the chain, that is, from all sorts of crappy sites, where there used to be porn, for example. I will just set up a 301 redirect not on my main, clean and fluffy site, but on some intermediary, and from it a 301 redirect – to my main site. Will it help or not?

OS: – It will help. Now I will tell you how we handle these different topics, testing links. I wouldn’t even set it up; I would create a second site. You’re monetizing with 'AdSense', probably, or something?

SP: – No, I'm talking about my 'Cashback'. Maybe that’s why I have little search traffic?

OS: – By the way, maybe. You shouldn't glue links like that. You just have a lot of different link signals sticking together, later attaching to the site – the algorithm can get confused. But there's a plus: you can always unlink and check. I would just create a mirror ('landos'), stick there, block it from search engines so it doesn’t get affiliated with your site (disallow/ set), pour all that traffic there and convert it. You do have referral traffic, right? Then, when you buy in bulk, I would check the donor’s parameters...

How search engine sanctions work

SP: – The same goes for pop-unders, right? I don’t run traffic from pop-unders; I try to focus on my main site, I run it on a separate land. And you mean to also block it from search engines, right?

OS: – Of course, to avoid affiliation. How do we handle such cases? We have our own tool.

SP: – Does it get affiliated somehow clearly? Will I notice it or not?

OS: – Just add two sites in the position, and they'll look like this: with each update, one site rises, the other falls, one rises, the other falls. You can't remove this filter; you can only link one site to another.

SP: – It’s a non-obvious question, but many know this: if I set up an intermediary on a subdomain, or is it pointless to just take a new domain?

OS: Many sanctions work in multifaceted and different ways – a partial ban, a full ban… A ban means that you’ve been banned and can never come back. Sanctions are when you get downgraded, and thrown out of the top 30. For example, you have a site of someone else’s, and you’ve been downgraded, but you didn’t know why. If you’re playing around with behavior under the domain, everything else will be affected.

SP: Both domains and subdomains?

OS: You can ruin everything, so it's better to detach and do it separately, buy a domain. That’s what we do. We create...

SP: If you're buying a domain with cashback, purchase it from 'Reg.ru' – good prices, buy with 'Cashback' through my site.

OS: By the way, yes, a good domain registrar.

SP: There’s also a little nuance with 'Reg.ru'. I didn’t know this, and I bought a hundred domains, and I’m waiting for cashback for a hundred domains… They have a way to get cashback from 'Reg.ru' (for example, a domain costs 3 dollars – and you get a dollar cashback, 30% — good money), one payment – one domain. They have those conditions.

OS: What did we do? We wrote our own software: you take all these domains… For each domain, we check all links through services (like 'Ahrefs') and in the anchors of these links, we look for 'Chinese', porn – we simply give you a map showing that for these domains (attention!) all sorts of garbage was found in the anchor list (don’t buy this!). We check it automatically. Then you just choose, filter: here are those with a clean anchor list, with cool parameters – they will give you positions, and you buy.

SP: Is this what you do as part of your Russian Analytics service?

OS: Yes. These are PBN tools – at the bottom, select 'Donor Check'.

SP: I don’t know that much about your service! I just use position rental.

OS: Videos. We recorded some amazing videos! You should check them out.

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