What is Parasite SEO?
Parasite SEO is a strategy where content is created on third-party platforms with high domain authority to rank well for specific keywords. This approach, also known as Barnacle SEO or Parasitic Hosting, advantages the authority of these websites to gain visibility and traffic in search engine results.
Background
During 2023, review articles were the hot topic on most traffic websites that are available for guest posting articles. Seeing this trend, I decided to try Parasite SEO too.
There were a lot of examples of some “Top Services” review articles on websites like outlookindia.com or finance.yahoo.com:
My Parasite SEO Experiment
I tried out parasite SEO by posting about 10 guest posts on high-authority sites.
The results? Mixed, to be honest.
Out of the 10, only a few made a difference. But there was one article that ranked well on high KD (Keyword Difficulty) keywords in organic search results.
Everything was going pretty well until Google rolled out its Core Update in October 2023. After the update, page rankings dropped. I tried to build some links, but it just delayed the fall, not stopped it.
Conclusion and Key Takeaways:
- Topic Relevance: Parasite SEO works best on websites that have articles covering the same topic.
- Vulnerability to Updates: Changes like Google’s Core Update or Helpful Content Update can impact your rankings.
Domain Stats For the Top-Performing Post:
Ahrefs:
- Domain Rating (DR): 70
- Organic Traffic: 180,000
- Organic Keywords: 77,000
Semrush:
- Authority Score (AS): 43
- Organic Traffic: 120,000
- Organic Keywords: 101,000
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