High level original content (magazine worthy)
Community elements...
Constantly growing...
Designed to stand the end of time

Linking Strategy:
100% whitehat (not worth risking with black hat)
Link baiting
Natural linking from others
Article submission
Blog post
2.0 linking
Paid press released
Paid directories

Investment Level:
50 to 80% of money and resources
==========================
Gold site definition:

Good original content
Great design
Constantly growing
Proud to show the site to your mother

Linking Strategy:
50 to 80% white hat
20% low risk black hat
Natural linking from others
Article submission
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Investment Level:
20 to 30% of money and resources
==========================
Silver site definition:

Ok content: spun content, PLR, non-modified feeds
Good design
Constantly growing
Appears "ok", but visitors probably won't come back

Linking Strategy:
50 to 30% white hat
50 to 70% black hat: (black holes, etc...)
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Investment Level:
10 to 20% of money and resources
==========================
Tin site definition:

Useless to Ok content: cloaked garbage, spun content, PLR, non-modified feeds
Ok design
Constantly growing
Visitors won't come back

Linking Strategy:
10 to 30% white hat
70 to 90% black hat: (black holes and spamming)
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Investment Level:
5 to 15% of money and resources

Feel free to add your thoughts to this...
Matt

P.S. Kurt, do you think you can add a section for
each site type and list which bombs are "ok" ?
That would rock...

Examples:
www.about.com
http://www.terrificpets.com/
www.wikipedia.com

Linking Strategy:
100% whitehat (not worth risking with black hat)
Link baiting
Natural linking from others
Article submission
Blog post
2.0 linking
Paid press released
Paid directories

Ideal Bombs:
???

Investment Level:
50 to 80% of money and resources
==========================
Gold site definition:

Good original content
Great design
Constantly growing
Proud to show the site to your mother

Examples:

http://www.i-love-dogs.com/

Linking Strategy:
50 to 80% white hat
20% low risk black hat
Natural linking from others
Article submission
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Ideal Bombs:
???

Investment Level:
20 to 30% of money and resources
==========================
Silver site definition:

Ok content: spun content, PLR, non-modified feeds
Good design
Constantly growing
Appears "ok", but visitors probably won't come back

Examples:
http://www.top-dog-tips.com/

Linking Strategy:
50 to 30% white hat
50 to 70% black hat: (black holes, etc...)
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Ideal Bombs:
???

Investment Level:
10 to 20% of money and resources
==========================
Tin site definition:

Useless to Ok content: cloaked garbage, spun content, PLR, non-modified feeds
Ok design
Constantly growing
Visitors won't come back

Example:
Traffic equalizer type sites

Linking Strategy:
10 to 30% white hat
70 to 90% black hat: (black holes and spamming)
Blog posting
2.0 linking
Free directories

Ideal Bombs:
???

Investment Level:
5 to 15% of money and resources

Feel free to add your thoughts to this...
Matt

P.S. Kurt, do you think you can add a section for
each site type and list which bombs are "ok" ?
That would rock...

Hey Matt...

We can discuss this on this thread.

Right now, we're moving from using Bomb to Tuelz. There's a tuel for everything...Some Tuel or another can be used on some or all of the different types of sites.

I think you made Top Hat Bob pass out!

Matt and Top Hat are at polar opposites. It just goes to show how there's more than one way to get results.

To All...

I believe in "both". My own opinions have me at odds with both hardcore white and black hatters. I believe in automation and semi-spammy sites.

But I also believe in high quality sites.

For tin sites, our main network is built across free resources, which relieves a lot of the hassles and costs of having multiple domains and hosting.

You should have a couple domain name registars and IDs and a few different hosting accounts, but not tons, like other SEOers recommend.

I agree with most of all of what Matt recommends. However, I think the first step is creating the automated tin/silver network, and at first this should take up the vast majority of your time.

Matt did a good job of summing it up pretty well.

I often refer to "bombs", but always mean "Tuelz"
as well...

Can you give us some recommendations (or even a simple list)
on which tuelz you would use (especially on the Diamond and
gold sites)?

That would be cool...
Matt

Hey Matt,

I've given this a lot of thought and I'm not ducking the question, but I really believe every Tuel could be used on every type of site.

Don't log in for a day and they start talking about you like you are dead LOL.

I am approaching things a little different than Matt.

The jist of my system is to use tin and plastic sites as research sites that give you traffic and patterns to analyze.

Let's say I think or get a tip that "water purification" is a hot niche. Do I go out and start building a Diamond or Gold site or even put up a Squidoo page? It's a big niche and where do you even start? That's the overwhelming question everyone asks themselves.

Adsense made it easy to build or mass generate sites even without an end goal of a higher quality site. You could still monetize a site or network as long as you had content.

Now we are looking for affiliate partners or creating our own products. This takes more time and investment. Building a site based on a product flop can be quite costly - whether it is your own or someone elses.

Either way is a leap of faith - whether you start at the top or at the bottom. What I do know is that I can convert a low quality splog that gets traffic and achieves PR into a targeted WH e-commerce site. I also know that it takes one mistake to knock out a quality e-commerce site with 10's of thousands of pages built up over years in Google and that inclusion requests don't always fix the damage.

It might be considered a lazy way to create 1000s of blogs across different niches and sit back and monitor them for the nuggets. But in the meantime they are adding link juice, monetizing themselves and providing insight into traffic trends and patterns.

The end result is to have an array of different quality sites not just one gold or diamond site. Many different ways of getting there. I start at the bottom and work to the top. Everyone has different tools and experiences but I think we all have the same goals.

One of the successes of this forum will be the partnerships that evolve among the members that enhance each other's business models. We all have different levels of efficiency and resources to share at any category of site building.

The work that Matt and Kurt put into categorizing the different levels of sites is crucial to understanding where a person is at in their site building. Call it Bomber Enlightenment - knowing what you have and what you need next.

Top Hat starts at the bottom with tin and plastic pages, then works "up".

Matt starts at the top and works down.

I start in the middle with tin and silver, then work in both directions.

When thinking about sites in these terms, the top will be very broad and general and as you go down the keywords will become more longtail and specific.

Let's use my www.Lizard.com as the "diamomd site" of a network as an example...

Diamond - Pets, Animals, Wildlife and the Outdoors (very broad and general) As the diamond site, Lizardz will focus on all the topics listed.

Each of the following sites should focus on a more specific niche, choosing one topic, such as:

Gold - Dogs, Cats, Camping trips, pet supplies, dog training

Silver - health food for dogs, Texas camping trips, poodle grooming

Tin/Plastic - Healthfood for pregnant dogs, Texas camping trips for seniors, how to groom a poodle with household products.

Also, if you add a diamond site to your network, then you should probably use very few affiliate programs on your silvers sites.

Now, I also like the lazy way and want to start with building tin sites.
I have downloaded lots of plr articles and want to build tin sites with it.
Now, the question is --- am i supposed to use my own domains for these or should I just use some blogger blogs or other free types of sites for these.

I really dont have much money now and wont like to get domains for building tin sites.
So, Top Hat Bob what do you do to build these tin sites?
Ah,yes. I would also love to know about the plastic sites.

At the moment i was thinking about using blogs and squidoo lenses and hub pages and geocities pages.
Would that be good?

bye,
faraz

I use a mixture of free sites and self hosted .info domains. All my silver and gold sites are built on .com / .net / .org domains and hosted separate from the others. Don't mix them up. You will regret it.

I consider plastic sites the stuff you practice on to create tin sites. Testing out tools, free services or free hosts. You don't need money - it just takes time, patience and record keeping.

These aren't sites that will provide instant money. Consider them link drops for future sites.

The big factor that I like about your method is:
YOU ARE TESTING THE WATERS.

My method is designed for after you KNOW
what market/keywords you want to go for.

Bob's method helps you find what's hot and what
has potential.

Rock on Bob,
Matt

Matt, now you should try to complete you info This could then finally help many others to orientate !!

Tasari

Hi Faraz,

Sorry, I missed this post. Better late than never.

You'll want to treat content in the same way as sites:
tin, silver, gold, etc.

Use spun articles for tin/plastic sites.

Slightly rewrite some PLR for silver/squidoo/hubpages type sites. Use SEO, not some work spinner.

By this, work in various "power" keywords and LSI related keywords.

Change the keywords used in the articles to your own, based on your research, writing a quick additional paragraph to work in another keyword or two.

Don't over-do it.

If you're on a limited budget you need to focus on the free resources available to you build links and push traffic to your gold sites, which you need to host yourself.

You likely do need at least one self-hosted domain, although it's possible to do without.

Create three good pages for each:
Zimbio.com Squidoo and Hubpages

Find 10-20 free hosting services that work and use ZZ Tuel. Don't worry too much about add banners.

Create 100 blogs on various free services. Need to spin articles, plus use RSS.

Create 10 social bookmarking accounts and bookmark your 9 silver pages (hubpges, squidoo).

Trade these accounts to Top Hat for some of his blog services. These will be different than the ones above.

Look at the Web 2.0 thread for more ideas and create a few accounts where possible.

Use RSS to interlink them where ever possible.

Use all of the above to promote gold sites/pages.

If you have a cash shortage, getting paid fast can be as important as any other factor.

Everything above has been discuused on other threads...The key is really just to be productive. Make new resources and use them to promote other resources.

My "authority" for this is my teaching experience and also some understanding of why new people here may get overwhelmed early on.

Before I can give my students a road map (skills), I have to show them the destination (goal). And I have to keep reminding them of the destination so they can see how the skills they're learning bring them closer to their goal. My students are not children, some of them are older than I am (gasp!!!)

What we do here is so very different from any other membership site because we do it ALL! Most of them focus on one tiny aspect of the game; they make it seem as if it's the whole deal but they're only teaching a very few skills with a clearly defined outcome.

People need the big picture, they need to know what the ultimate goal is and then they can see how Fatty or ZZ or any of the other Bombz and Tuelz fit into the overall concept.

Even though the three of you are discussing slightly different ways of achieving it, you are all giving the HUGE picture here, and it's inspiring, it's something people can visualise and judge their progress against. It's a PLAN! IMNSHO it should be the first thread that new people are REQUIRED to read (and answer questions on! lol)

Isobel

Hi Isobel,

I don't like to sticky too many threads, as they end up being ignored and take up too much space above the "fold".

But this thread is a highlighted thread (in yellow), which indicates that it is a very important thread that new members should pay special attention to.

Yellow highlight = Ongoing, of high importance.

Orange highlight = Last month's focus (some folks are a little behind LOL)

Red highlight = What we are working on this month.

I think the one that's highlighted is actually a different thread (the one with your diagram in). I understand about not wanting too many to be stickied; perhaps you could reference this one at the beginning of the one that is highlighted?

Isobel