Originally Posted by Libertine

THE CORE PROBLEM

For commercial webmasters starting up new projects, this creates a major problem. Until they have been assimilated into the network, with regular readers, diggers, bloggers linking to them, etc., they will receive very little traffic. Even if they manage to promote their site well, it may take months before it starts getting any significant traffic (which is needed to generate more traffic). For the enthusiastic blogger who will keep blogging no matter what, that's not a problem. For the businessman who creates websites for profit, it means it may take months before he gets any indication of just how much potential his new idea has.

Worse yet, a project might lose it's full viral potential due to a lack of traffic, since you'll lack the visitors to reach the critical mass needed to gain exposure for any but the most viral content. For example, for every viral piece of content posted here on GFY, there are usually a number of people here who already saw it somewhere else but didn't post it.


THE NETWORK - A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

The traditional solution to the aforementioned problem consists of time, time, and more time. Persistence is key for almost any new mainstream project. Since time is money, this isn't a particularly attractive solution.

Another solution would be to simply simulate the organic viral processes. And that's exactly what I'm proposing.

With a few dozen webmasters participating, there are several things we could do to boost our traffic immediately. For starters, boosting each others best content pieces on things like social bookmarking sites and surfer forums would be fairly simple. While the same can of course be easily achieved through the use of proxies, simply working together on it would be both easier and safer.

Aside from that, and more importantly, by creating a network that tries to get links from the outside while sites within the network mostly link to other sites within the network, all sites profit from all traffic which comes into the network. So as sites within the network grow, other sites within the network grow along with it, all of them more rapidly than would be possible if they acted on their own.

An additional benefit is that the structure would be extremely beneficial for search engine positions, since all sites within the network would mostly link to other sites within the network, while at the same time being linked to from sites outside the network. In effect, this will act like a chained link exchange network of sorts, of the "A -> B -> C -> D -> E-> F -> A" type.


WHAT'S NEEDED

Highest up on the list of what we need are simple, good quality blogs with somewhat original content and regular updates. Original concepts would work best, of course, but copying the concepts of existing sites can work fine, too. If you're entirely uncreative, a good start would be a blog where you simply post anything funny you come across online. Please note that splogs are of literally zero value for this idea. The idea is to gain loyal, durable traffic, not just to spam our way to the top - and inevitable fall down again.

So the very least you should be able to add to the network is a simple hand-written blog which you update once or twice a week, and in which you fairly regularly link to posts and sites that are of interest and are within the network. Creating link trades with sites that are outside the network is, for reasons that should be obvious, completely out of the question.

Next to blogs, another basic ingredient of the network are high concept linkbait sites. Humorous hoaxes like bonsai kitten, shock sites like 2girls1cup, entertainment concepts like a big celeb quiz or a dating test, etc. They require little effort to make and are great for gaining inbound links, and by using them to feed your other sites with traffic and PR, the entire network benefits from them.

If the network gets enough participants, we can also start eliminating our reliance on existing social bookmark sites. At least partly, anyway. A network like this would likely provide the critical mass needed to make at least one new social bookmarking site successful. In exchange, those within the network would get things like preferred submitter status. Similar things could be done for a small number of other sites in heavily competitive areas.


WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT, AND WHAT'S EXPECTED OF YOU

What I'm proposing is not a magic trick, or a crafty way to exploit loopholes in the system. Instead, it's a way to emulate the organic forming of networks online. That means your main goal should be to build sites that would have the potential to grow on their own. If you can't do that, this isn't for you.

Next to that, we will more or less be cheating on things like social bookmarking sites, by voting each other's best content up. While that always results in some extra traffic, your content needs to be of high enough quality to get boosted further up by surfers after it's been kickstarted by the rest of us.

You will also be linked to by others in the network, but again, only if your content is up to par. Otherwise, linking to your content would be detrimental to our own sites. So you increase chances of being linked to on other sites, while in exchange linking to anything good you come across in the network. In practice, we'll probably have a specific area where webmasters can request specific pieces of content of theirs which they consider to be of high enough quality to be linked to, dugg, etc.

It will probably also be beneficial to you to engage in link exchanges and/or rss exchanges with related sites in the network. This is something you'll need to arrange yourself, so again, high quality content helps you here.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the network will help speed up the organic growth of sites considerably, but it won't create growth where there is no potential. The harder and smarter you work, the more you'll be able to benefit from it.


TL;DR

We boost eachother on social networking sites, link to each other's (quality) content, only engage in link exchanges inside the network, and avoid linking too much to sites outside the network.

In essence, we fake existing popularity to create actual popularity.