I spent 50 hours and published 8 pieces of content on 3 websites to experiment with parasite SEO. My lessons can save you a lot of time⏳ and money💰. All articles related to Looker Studio templates as my main target keywords. I didn’t build backlinks; however, link articles to each other!
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Table of contents
- What is parasite SEO?
- How does parasite SEO differ from standard guest posting?
- How does Google force us to do parasite SEO?
- What did I get after publishing 8 articles on 3 domains?
- Nuances of publishing on LinkedIn, Medium, or Reddit.
- Strengths and weaknesses of different types of domain names.
What is parasite SEO?
Parasite SEO is the use of the fact that Google in ranking gives preference to authoritative domains, and more recently to authoritative UGC sites like LinkedIn, Medium, and Reddit.
In its policy against spam, Google calls this term – Site reputation abuse.
Although parasite SEO has been known for a long time, it was after the summer update in 2023 that Google made it one of the most effective promotion tactics.
By the way, calling it a parasite is not always a good idea. If you create great content and Google ranks it differently on different domains, which basically means that Google cannot recognize the quality of content based on content alone, why should you publish content on a site where it has less chance of ranking?
Parasite SEO vs guest posting
Usually, you need both, but many don’t understand the difference.
In both methods, you publish your content on someone else’s website. But expectations and investments are different.
Guest posting
- the goal is to get a backlink that should improve YOUR site’s page position.
- if your guest post gets traffic, this is a pleasant surprise, but not the main task.
Parasite SEO
- the goal is to get traffic to a page on someone else’s authoritative domain.
- you can get value from that even without your website if you want to send users to an affiliate website, not your website.
How does Google force us to do parasite SEO?
Google leaves you no choice and the charts below clearly explain why.
Increase in traffic from Google search by 10 times compared to June 2023.
LinkedIn Pulse
Increase in traffic from Google search by 10 times compared to June 2023.
Medium
Increase in traffic from Google search by 4 times compared to June 2023.
Don’t get me wrong.
Your website remains your main asset and is where your best content should be.
You don’t have much control over your content on Reddit, LinkedIn, or Medium.
You can not:
- edit pages on these sites,
- track their effectiveness in the Search Console;
- sell them the way you can sell your website.
But you can’t ignore the rules of the game if you want to win.
Start publishing content on these 3 platforms now while you still have the opportunity and you are not in danger of keyword cannibalization.
However, you also should remember that these 3 big platforms aren’t the only websites for parasite SEO. You can find more ideas on where to run similar experiments on parasiteseo.com.
What did I get after publishing 8 articles on 3 domains?
I took three topics for which I want to be the first in the SERP:
- Google Search Console Looker Studio template;
- GA4 Looker Studio template;
- Google Ads Looker Studio template.
And published such content:
- 3 best … type articles on Sitechecker;
- 3 similar but unique best … type articles on LinkedIn;
- 2 articles on Medium;
- several comments in the top Reddit threads.
Overall traffic to my website from all of this content
Overall traffic to content published on Sitechecker
I chose Sitechecker as an authoritative niche domain name. The landing pages about Looker Studio templates are very relevant to the core topic of the website.
And what is also important I can measure the stats in the Search Console. I can’t do it when publish content on UGC websites.
Rankings in Google SERP
keyword: google search console looker studio template
LinkedIn performed better than Sitechecker in terms of maximum position but there is a problem with stability of being at the top. And this applies to all LinkedIn articles.
keyword: google ads looker studio template
Here Medium had the best result in maximum position, but through time it decreased.
And Sitechecker’s landing page is pretty stable
Nuances of publishing on LinkedIn, Medium and Reddit
LinkedIn has a huge problem with duplicate content which makes it very difficult for Google to judge which content to rank. In my articles, I see a problem with duplication on 3 levels at once.
1. Google indexes not only articles but also posts.
This makes the task very difficult since you cannot publish an article without making a post. And sometimes your post can compete with your article.
2. Most new LinkedIn articles are first seen by Google thanks to LinkedIn sitemaps, which contain a utm_mark in the URL.
Thus, Google often first adds a URL with a utm_mark to the index and then sees a normal address, adds it to the index as a new page, and deletes the old one.
3. There is a problem even with a slash at the end of the URL.
In the search results, Google ranks URLs without slashes, but when you go to a LinkedIn article, there is a redirect to the version with a slash at the end.
Therefore, if you build backlinks to your articles, be careful and build on the version that Google takes in its search results.
Medium
- Articles are indexed much faster than on LinkedIn.
- There are statistics on the number of traffic from organic search.
- Articles behave more consistently in SERP than articles published on LinkedIn.
1. This is the most aggressive community. This applies to both moderators and people who comment on your posts.
It is often difficult to publish a post even without links and mentions of the brand.
2. The rules in different subreddits are very different. This is also a great opportunity. Many times my post that was removed in one subreddit, was approved in another.
You need time to understand how different subreddits work and which ones are the best place for your content.
3. This is the only such big source of traffic, closely related to the top in Google, and where you can get search traffic only through commenting under other posts.
You have 5 levels of getting traffic from Reddit:
- Publication of comments with links in threads that are at the top of Google.
- Publication of articles in popular subreddits mentioning the brand.
- Publication of articles in popular subreddits with a link.
- Access to the level of agreements with the owners of subreddits.
- Creation and development of your own subreddit.
Pros and cons of different authoritative domain names
1. Free UGC websites (LinkedIn, Medium, Reddit)
Pros:
- Free;
- It is possible to quickly edit content;
- There is no risk that the domain owner will change the content to suit his needs;
- Google cannot kill the entire domain.
Cons:
- There is no keyword cannibalization protection, often there is already content for your keywords, or it may be created in the future.
- Domain doesn’t have topical authority in your niche, which often helps in ranking.
- It is not possible to see the stats by search performance in Google Search Console (GSC).
- You can’t see the reason in GSC why the page isn’t indexed if it is.
2. Paid authoritative websites with editorial content (media and niche websites)
Pros:
- You can negotiate a monopoly on your topics.
- You can agree on internal links to your landing page.
- You can get real stats by page performance from GA4, and GSC from the domain owner.
Cons:
- The cost of posting one article starts from $1-2k.
- Niche domains have a higher risk of being killed by Google.
- The site owner may change or delete the page at any time without a refund.