Social Monkee is one of the most popular backlink package programs available today.
However, in spite of what you may have heard about it, I’m going to explain why using this service’s approach to SEO may be a very bad idea for your website.
Social Monkee in a nutshell:
You can sign up for free and get backlinks sent to your website on a daily basis. There are up-sells available once you join and you will be encouraged to buy them. Some upsells include even more backlinks being sent to your site while others are cross promotions for other products.
For those of you who do not know what backlinks are, allow me to quickly explain: Backlinks are basically any site or video which provides a link back to your website, thus the term back-link.
It is believed that if you have a lot of backlinks pointing back to your site, you can gain faster rankings in Google and thereby receive a lot of traffic. Though as you’ll find out in this review, this belief is no longer true.
How it works:
There are 3 membership levels to Social Monkee:
Silver:
This is the $7 advertised package on the homepage. You can select 1 URL and have 25 backlinks sent to it every single day. However you will be encouraged to buy the higher priced up sells. In this case…
Premium:
This costs $47 (one time cost) and you can select any 3 URLs and send 100 backlinks a day to it. Additionally there are other opportunities to resubmit new links every 5 weeks.
Elite:
This one is the most expensive at around $57 I believe. You can also select 3 URLs and get up to a 150 backlinks a day to each site. Additionally you also get the ability to retry the system if you see your site isn’t ranking well.
But hold on a second…
Didn’t I say using Social Monkee is a bad idea? Yeah I did and here’s why:
Almost all forms of backlink packages are now frowned upon by Google. What used to work in 2010-2012 no longer applies. Companies like Social Monkee who send backlinks to your website/s are considered low quality links and Google will see your site as trying to manipulate it’s ranking system.
If you get caught, and sooner or later everyone does, your site will be slapped by Google or even blacklisted. This form of SEO is considered to be black hat and anything that is associated with that is penalized by Google’s algorithm updates which they do every few months to clean up their search engine.
This is why I strongly advise against using Social Monkee. Though they are upfront about what they do for your site, do not let the glamour of “instant rankings” seduce you into doing this. Typically all backlink packages will provide some sort of initial boost in the SERPS, but eventually and this can be weeks-months, your site will come crashing down.
I’ve personally experienced this from a company called Bring The Fresh. Though their backlink packages were different, it showed that Google does not discriminate. Anyone who tries to play with Google’s algorithm will get punished and it’s not worth risking your entire website’s income for this, especially if you’re looking to build a a stable online business.
Pros:
- Pretty upfront about what it offers.
- No shady charges.
Cons:
- Backlinks of these sorts no longer work. Additional reasons why.
- This approach to SEO can get your website Google slapped and even blacklisted.
Final Rating: Social Monkee
2 out of 10 stars. Not recommended. It’s VERY risky and there is a high probability your site will get slapped. See #1 recommendation.
Final thoughts:
Usually when I review products and give them a rating, I’ll get into a whole explanation on why I ranked it high/low/good/bad. In Social Monkee’s case, there isn’t much more to explain. Any kind of backlink package, no matter how high quality it claims to be is a bad idea in my personal opinion. I have my own experiences with such things from the company I mentioned as an example.
In short, it is a bad idea because again it tries to game the system Google has set up. Google does not like this and they have become very good at spotting this sort of shadiness. If you still try to risk it and go ahead with it, you may likely see initial results, but again sooner or later all of this will likely come crashing down.
It’s never worth risking your entire website’s future on this method of SEO. It’s wrong, it’s risky and it’s even unethical. The game of SEO has changed since 2012. Now quality content is what really matters on your website and that’s a great thing because it really cleaned up the search engine of crappy looking websites which were ranking high only because they had a lot of backlinks.
If you’re someone who is looking to create a successful website and have it rank high in the SERPS, do not use backlinks. Stick to writing quality content and if you need help with this, I would strongly recommend my #1 recommendation as it will help you avoid all of the pitfalls that come with SEO.
As I said before, I’ve seen first hand what backlink packages can do to websites and it doesn’t end well. Avoid making the same mistakes I and so many have made and keep making in believing the only way to get good SEO results is through backlinks. This is pretty much dead.
If you’ve tried this program before or any type of backlink service, please share how it worked/didn’t work out for you. I’d love to hear your story!
In 2019, Social Monkee appears to still be active and offering a similar type of service. Well I honestly cannot recommend it still for the very same reasons I put up years ago when I did this review originally. The backlink side effects I pointed to then still exist now and will likely be even more enforced by Google’s algorithm moving forward, so no, Social Monkee is still not recommended…
Good information you have here about the actual backlinking strategies. It will help a lot of people to make up their minds regarding backlinking!
Thanks man,
Johan
I’m actually on Wealthy Affiliate as well but I was searching to see if there were any current users being hurt by this service. It’s been on my naughty list for quite sometime but I was curious if anyone was still finding success with it 2 years later after seeing it advertised somewhere yet again. Great post :)!
Well it may still work for you, but only in the initial stages. That’s the problem with backlinks like these. They will basically destroy your website’s rankings.
Great article Vitaliy! I was wondering if Social Monkee was worth using and now I know to stay away. This is another example of bad internet marketing concepts that many gurus were (and maybe still are) teaching. It’s amazing how one little mis-step can can ruin all of your hard work because you followed the advice of the wrong person. So glad I found the Wealthy Affiliate program.
There really is too much misinformation out there Roland. Like I said before it’s like a field of land mines. Honestly, I have yet to find a place which teaches as much as WA does, legitimately that is.
Great article, Vitaliy.
Many internet marketers concentrated on backlinks in the past and often spammed the heck out of every single forum and blog just to get a backlink – this is mostly why Google took massive action to punish such practices… which is great, in my opinion.
– Alex
Google was right to do it Alex. Their own reputation was on the line. Plus it levels the playing internet playing field 🙂