@De_0O7 put my X posts in Claude and asked about my tools:
A ‘little’ post about what tools I use (sorry, ended up long):
I don’t use any tools you could buy.
No Ahrefs. Only the free version. Doesn’t give me enough value for its price, and limits are ridiculous.
Stopped using Xrumer/GSA in 2015 and haven’t touched them since then.
Not using Hrefer/Scrapebox/Aparser for scraping Google anymore. But I use custom scrapers for Google or sites I want to scrape data from.
Nothing sophisticated, just simple, often hacked together, scrapers.
It’s often one time scraping, so no need to build anything ‘clean’ for it.
There’s a post in the making where I write more about such custom scrapers.
While it tickles my ego how Claude writes about my custom tools I want to make clear that it’s nothing crazy.
From a programmers point of view this might be considered as ‘easy software’.
And that’s exactly what I want to teach. That you could do the same. Yes, YOU 🫵🤡.
If you would just put in a little bit of work there.
You don’t want to become a professional programmer programming large scale software, you just want to do your own tools, using programming as a tool.
And who knows where this journey ends… this might be just a stepping stone… 💫
I wouldn’t say my approach is advanced. It’s simple. I just brought it down to what’s actually needed and cut away all the fluff and BS.
Here’s what I use:
- Servers/VPS mostly Hetzner
- Custom webserver / site generator
- Custom webserver for PBNs
- Expireds metrics bulk checker
- Drop catcher
- Domains pool (Reg, Nameservers, …)
- Indexer
I have a larger backend system which I started 2011 maybe.
Was meant for automating Xrumer in the beginning, became a site generator and is now mostly used for setting up sites, connecting everything and giving me a quick overview on stats and health.
Always wanted to do a more modern version of it, but too lazy 🤡
I have plenty of small bash, php, python scripts that aren’t worth building a real tool for. Just a few lines of code.
Your own Twist
The point is, this suits my kind of work, my kind of sites, my kind of workflow.
You need to build tools that suit YOUR workflow. It’s pointless running after what everyone else is using and doing, or what I’m using and doing. You need to give it your own twist.
We didn’t rank in Payday Loans because we used Xrumer like everyone else. We used a modification for Drupal not many had access to. Kind of our own twist to Xrumer.
If everyone else tanks, you will be tanking too. If everyone else is waiting for a new tool, you are waiting too.
If doggy barks, sheep is jumping.
You’re not able to come up with something new unless there’s a new tool. This is what made many quit splogging/doorways years ago, because the tools didn’t adapt to Googles changes.
Claude talks a lot about hacking and exploits. Want to make this clear again:
If you see hacking as a (legal) way to play around with search engines or tech in general, I’m a hacker. If you see hacking as breaking into servers and breaking the law, I’m no hacker.
And I suggest you also stay away from anything that could bring you into legal trouble, unless you know EXACTLY WHAT you are doing, WHY you are doing it, and you are AWARE of the possible consequences.
Breaking computer systems is considered as serious crime in most (all?) countries now, especially if there’s commercial interest behind it. You want your computer for having fun and making money, not seized.
Don’t want you to read my blog from the prison library 😱🤡
Thanks for your content Ralf. Your 10-step plan motivated to start working on all these domains I have accumulated and not really worked as much as I should have. Looking forward to the scrapping tools article. Will use some SERP API to start, not to overcomplicate things.
One server for all PBN? Is that “split all your sites on several IP to avoid footprints” also a myth? 🙂
I have good results with cloudflare only, but it’s hard to split test, since there are so many variables. I would say, if you bought expensive expireds for a PBN, those few extra dollars for a unique IP won’t hurt. If you have plenty of lower quality expireds you registered for reg price, maybe just slam them all on cloudflare.
Beside cloudflare (or similar CDN’s) I wouldn’t host all domains on some shared account/vps that’s only used by yourself. That’s really too much of a footprint, also for snooping competitors.
It’s always a balance between how much money/energy you want to put in something vs the risk. Same as with the content you put on your PBN sites. You could do very simple spammy kind of stuff or you could do full, real sites. One has low cost/high risk, the other high cost/low risk. Depends on your project I guess and how much risk you are willed to take.