I use to think statements like this were a waste of time. Until I tapped into the “newbie” market and discovered that some people do not have the experience to not believe everything they read. Newbies are bombarded with information that seems to make sense and will get them what they want most, at a affordable price.

If I were unethical, my standard of living could greatly increase.

As you have probably noticed, Google traffic can make you money (by targeting the right terms). On the other hand, social networking traffic, in my opinion, is good for branding, and for getting links to your site. Depending on what your goal is, you might need to adjust your strategy.

I can tell you that as long as you are not targeting money keywords, your risky techniques (Viralinks and content generators) will not be detected. Why? I guess you are not facing real competitor yet. Once you do, they would must definitely benefit from having you removed from the results, so they can move up in the rankings.

The only disadvantage I see in using translation software, is that you might want to have a friend (that speaks the target language) proofread it for you. This will make your foreign visitors feel more comfortable.

Providing the same content in different languages is not deceptive but useful. I don’t think you will have problems with this.

Google recommends you use top level domains for you country specific content, ie.: .de, .jp, etc.

I have installed such a translator on sitelogic.co.uk and now have sone 1200 pages indexed in google.

I get traffic from non-english google searches so in that sense it works… but, on a niche site do you think this could damage SERP’s in any way?

I have not installed this on my niche blog for this reason…

I doubt I will get a ban for it, we will have to see.

I have a few sites, including three wordpress blogs.

One I use virals and social bookmarking on, one is WH niche google targeted and another is niche targetted but using automated content genearators to hit longtail search terms.

They are all interesting in their own way… but it is really google I am interested in learning more about.

I find social bookmarked / blog traffic easier to generate but almost worthless… wheras targetted google traffic earns money.

I understand your point. I see the value in increasing your Technorati ratings. If you don’t mind Google potentially banning your site for this practice, then I don’t see a problem. There are many ways to drive traffic to your site.

Please note that Andy Bates, the inventor, promotes it for increasing PageRank:

Viralink - This will increase your page rank!!

That is why I felt it was necessary to tell others that long term, this might help achieve the opposite.

I can tell you that I do not like Google much as a company. I think they are too arrogant. Unfortunately I do like the traffic they bring and I feel many webmasters are on the same boat.

One of the most interesting aspects of blogging is that google is not all powerful….