The Ultimate Guide to get High PA/TF Expired Tumblr Blogs

You will learn:

• how to find expired tumblr blogs 10 times faster than anyone else
• how to streamline your process
• how to let the software work for you
• easy blog registration
• about the Tumblr system

Content:

1. Scraping — here you will find how to scrape, what google operators to use, alternatives to Scrapebox
2. Cleaning your lists and keeping your lists clean — cherish this the most ;)
3. Find blogs that are 404 — the easy, fast and hands-off way no one told you about
4. Check SEO metrics (PA, TF or whatever you fancy)
5. Find what blogs are available for registration
6. Register the mother fuckers
7. Uses for SEO
8. Other observations
9. Outro

Intro

I started 6 years ago to scrape for expired web2.0’s blogs with PR (for those that remember the days) and Page Authority. First I wanted them for myself. While I did this I noticed there is a market for such a service. Main reasons I started to sell Tumblr blogs with PR and PA were:

• although there were plenty of tutorials, not all people managed to get it right
• not many would invest their time and money to perfect the method
• there are always people that know the value of time
• there are always people that are lazy ( like I was :) )
• expired tumblrs are perfect as foundation links, before PBN links

So. What you are going to read in this guide are the things I learned during the past 6 years while I run the most successful selling threads for expired Tumblr blogs (here as a JV with virtualc08, here and here). Over 1400 replies and over 90.000 threads views. Add to those clients from Fiverr, from SEOClerks and clients that got recommended by happy customers.

<<<I no longer recommend fiverr as their fees, both for sellers and buyers, are simply outrageous. SeoClerks is better, especially for buyers as they don’t have to pay a fee on each order they make. And I am not saying this just because I am affiliated with them. You can check online the fees for fiverr and seoclerks.>>>

Getting back to our guide. On each step, there are things I discovered and developed things that made my job easy and hands-of 90% of the time.

Let’s start!

1. Scraping for Expired Tumblrs

You can skip this part if you are used to scraping. However, there is gold here as well.

Good old Scrapebox will save you lots of time. Also, it can be used for most of the operations needed to identify blogs with PA/TF.

• the link for Scrapebox is the one with the best discount you can find, and that link is not an affiliate link if that matters to you. ;)

a) The Simple Scrape

Open Scrapebox and set it up. I am not going to go into details of how to use Scrapebox. The basic information is available online if you are new to it. See looplines videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/looplinescrapebox/videos

It’s up to you if you are going to use private proxies (you will need quite a few since you aim for millions of unique Tumblr blogs scraped), or if you are going to use public proxies, or the public proxies offered ready to use with the V2 Scrapebox. I prefer private proxies for accuracy and speed. Keep in mind I scrape for millions of blogs.

Google operators for scraping / Footprints

The easiest and the one that I prefer is: site:.tumblr.com/

Same can be used for other platforms:

• site:.blogspot.com
• site:.over-blog.com (not sure if this one still allows re-registration of deleted blogs)
• site:.livejornal.com
• site:.weebly.com

On the keyword list, I used the lists from FuryKyle. You can find it here: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/seo-other/612419-untapped-sites-gsa-senuke-ud-more-10-foreign-languages-premium-scraping-list.html

As that thread is no longer up you can either scrape your keywords with Scrapebox or you can search google for dictionary lists that you can download. You can scrape further using Scrapebox. If it is your first run, aim to at least 10,000 keywords.

Sure you can get any other keyword list as long as you are able to scrape a few millions of blogs.

And since most Tumblr users are using English as their language, go for English keywords for the bulk.

insert your keyword list and the custom footprint

Once the scraping is over, clean your list: Remove Duplicate Domains ➞ Remove URLs NOT containing the word ‘.tumblr.com’ (without the commas).

I wouldn’t bother with niche related Tumblr blogs. They are few if any at all. Plus niche related blogs are made usually with the intention of some promotion (SEO or selling). And since the intention is profit, the blogger won’t delete the blog willingly.

This part is what most don’t understand. Tumblr makes available only the usernames that are deleted willingly by their owners. The blogs that Tumblr bans for spam are NEVER made available for registration.

➲ Users on Tumblr post and reblog about a wide range of topics on the same blog. This makes it easy to re-purpose the blogs for any niche and keeping the natural aspect of a genuine Tumblr blog, thus making Tumblr a powerful platform SEO wise.

➲ Specific niche related blogs are mostly made by IMers/SEOers. And which marketer in their right mind would delete his web2.0’s blogs willingly? None.

➲ If you are after adult niche those are plenty. ;)

b) Alternative Scrape — my favorite

I use this technique with great success. It is a combination of scraping google and scraping directly from Tumblr.

Why use it? This method will bring to surface blogs that you won’t be able to get by scraping search engines, because they are old and not in google index, but they can have tons of backlinks. Plus with this method, you will need fewer proxies, compared to scraping from google for example. After that, you are ready to rock.

The first thing you will need is a list of Tumblr posts. We will scrape them from google.

Here is the operator/footprint to use in Scrapebox: site:.tumblr.com/post/

You can add to the footprint: ‘50..500000 notes’ (without the commas). You will understand why later if you read and decide to use your brain as well. :P

Add your keywords. Get at least 10k unique URLs or go crazy over. :)

Clean your list: Remove Duplicate URLs ➞ Remove URLs NOT containing the word ‘.tumblr.com’ ➞ Remove URLs NOT containing the word ‘post’ (again, without the commas)

Now it is time to scrape directly from Tumblr. For this, you will need TumblingJazz or a custom bot able to scrape notes (likes/reblogs) from Tumblr posts. Scrapebox, for example, is not able to scrape more than a few notes from such a page.

I use TumblingJazz. The developer is a stand-up guy. He keeps the software up to date and is opened to suggestions for new features. Also, you will be able to use it to register the Tumblrs easily in bulk.

And if you are into Tumblr for traffic, the software is up for the job with all the functions you need. It’s on the market longer than any other Tumblr software that I know of and I’ve seen plenty come and go.

The notes are shown on most Tumblr posts on the bottom. In case you haven’t visited yet Tumblr posts, here is how notes are showed:

example of how notes on Tumblr can look like

Each user that makes a reblog or gives a like on the post will get a link back to their blog. We will scrape those blog URLs.

This technique is so valuable because you will be able to find blogs that still have a bunch of beautiful backlinks and amazing SEO metrics. Since they haven’t been live for years they are not in google index. If you follow the guide you will see how to find blogs that are clean and easy to index back in google.

Ok. So you have your list of URLs with posts from a bunch of Tumblr blogs. Save it as a .txt file.

Open TumblingJazz and go to Scrape section.

Here you will insert your list:

Hit scrape and let the software work for you. It will take a while depending on your PC power, internet speed, list size and how many notes are on each page.

Once it is ready you will see a pop-up message:

You will see that you get a bunch of .txt files as a result.

Now, head over to Scrapebox and open DupRemove Addon. Select all the .txt files that TumblingJazz got. Merge them all into a single .txt file.

Open the file in Scrapebox to clean it: Remove Duplicate Domains ➞ Remove URLs NOT containing the word ‘.tumblr.com’ (without the commas)

c) Sure you can scrape the blogs however you like.

Use Hrefer, GScraper (in case it is still kicking) or even paid services available.

2. Cleaning your lists and keeping your lists clean

🔃 cherish this the most ;)

Ok. Until now you have scraped your list of blogs. You should have at least one million unique blogs so that you can get a bunch of decent blogs each week. I will explain later.

If you have more than one millions of blogs (like I do), split them.

Use Scrapebox Addon DupRemove to split your list into little lists. I prefer that each list has a maximum of 950,000 unique blogs, as this way Scrapebox will handle the list easier.

Keep the lists organized. Make a folder only for these lists.

If you want to know how to find the blogs 10 times faster than anyone else and why I say cherish your lists the most. Keep on reading.

3. Find blogs that are 404 — the easy, fast and hands-off way no one told you about

For this step, we will let the good old Scrapebox do the work. This time ‘old’ has 2 meanings.

Get yourself a copy of Scrapebox V1. I use 1.16.6. You will want this version for Check Links.

For this step, we will use the Check Links function to find the 404. You can also use the Alive Check Addon. I just find it slow. The reality is that Check Links function on Scrapebox V1 works faster for me.

On “websites” load a .txt file with any website. I prefer something that doesn’t exist, like http://jfhe2shsh222219.org. On “blog list” load one of your lists from Chapter 2 (previous chapter).

Hit Check Links. It will load a separate window. Now click on Config (bottom right).

You will see something like this:

Link Checker Settings

I prefer the settings: 20 connections and 1 error retry. This way Tumblr is not blocking me. But, you should customize settings as this may differ for your IP and computer/VPS.

This step is to identify 404 error codes on blogs (dead blogs). Hit Start and let it run overnight. Depending on your resources it may take from a few hours or up to 9–10 hours. Once it is done, export blogs as excel or csv.

It’s time to get friendly with excel. Here is how the output excel will look like:

You want to see mostly the following 2 codes in the column D:

- not found; this means that the blog is live

- 404; this means the blog is deleted or banned

If you have too many other errors, it is a sign that you get blocked by Tumblr. In this case, reduce the number of connections.

Select all columns and arrange them by column D. Go to ‘Sort & Filter’ ➞ Custom sort ➞ Sort by column D ➞ Press Ok.

Next select first row, right click and select Insert. This way the first row will be empty.

Then select all columns again. Go to ‘Sort & Filter’ — >Filter → Press Ok. Click on the arrow on column D (see below photo).

Select to show only blogs with 404 code and hit OK.

Now select the entire column A and copy it. You can paste this into a .txt file before you paste into Scrapebox. Go to Scrapebox V1 and Import URL List à Paste/Replace from Clipboard.

4. Check SEO metrics (PA, TF or whatever you fancy)

If your list is over 100.000 blogs, I usually start with Page Authority Check. It’s hands off and it saves time and resources, compared to TF for example.

For this use Scrapebox Addon Page Authority Check. Make or buy a bunch of MOZ free accounts. Get private/shared proxies. I use buyproxies.org. Set-up the Addon and let it run through the list. The more MOZ accounts you set-up on your Addon, the faster it will be. Once the check is done save the list as excel or as csv. Sort it as we did with the 404 list, based on PA. Eliminate any blog with PA bellow 50 (or whatever you like). Your list should be now at a few thousand.

Now you have a list of a few thousand or hundreds of blogs with PA+50.

TF is harder to check. There are a few free online checkers, but they are not accurate or they simply don’t work. The best solution is to have a paid account on MajesticSEO. After you clean the list, check PA, check availability, and then you can head on to MajesticSEO with that list. Or even before checking availability, depending on how much you want to abuse your credits on MajesticSEO.

I prefer to use PA for a few reasons although PA is not as good as TF. The first reason is that it’s easy to check PA and free. The second reason is that we are talking about web2.0’s here. And web2.0’s filter most of the spam (if any at all). So, as long as it has PA and some backlinks it will do its job considering the low price.

5. Find what blogs are available for registration

You can use either Scrapebox or TumblingJazz to check for availability.

No matter what software you are going to use, get yourself a bunch of private proxies.

5.1 Scrapebox availability check.

On Scrapebox, mark ‘use proxies’ on Scrapebox main window.

Load Vanity Name Checker Addon. Import your list (the one that has PA). On Addon got to Settings (down right) and set the number of threads at 1.

If you have like over 50 private proxies, you can increase the number of threads. If you your list is over 50 URLs and your threads are too many, Tumblr won’t return the real value. Basically, it will block your proxies and you will have to repeat the verification step. So go slow, but sure on this step. Plus it is hands-off once you set it right.

Let it finish. Save the available blogs in a list.

Delete the ‘taken’ blogs.

Save the rest of the blogs. This list you can re-check for availability after 24 hours. ;)

*This method does not work as Scrapebox change the way it does this check. Some time ago it used to check on the registration page. Now it only checks HTML text on the page and that is not enough, as Tumblr shows the same 404 page for both banned and deleted blogs.

5.2 TumblingJazz availability check.

On Scrape page, you can see the section named “check if usernames available to registration — Enter Filepath”. Enter the .txt file with the usernames you want to check for availability. Enter proxies on the proxy tab. Hit “Scrape“ button.

This is straight forward. Make sure you use plenty of private proxies.

See bellow print screen:

Now about expired blogs and Tumblr.

After a user deletes his blog/username, Tumblr gives him 24 hours to change back to his username. During this time, only the previous user is able to re-register that username. After the 24 hours, the username is made available for all.

This is something that most don’t get. Same with scraping new lists each time you want expired blogs. From the millions of blogs you already have scraped and cleaned, each day there are users that will delete their blogs willingly. This means that you can go directly from chapter 3 (find 404/check links).

The trick is to keep track of blogs already verified. For example, blogs that you check for availability and one more time after 24 hours, and they are still showing a 404, there are 99% chances that those blogs are banned by Tumblr. Save them all into one list as banned. You can clean your scraped lists on Scrapebox with “Remove/Filter ➞ Remove URLs containing entries from “ banned list. In time this will save… time and time.

6. Register the mother fuckers

If you are doing this for your own use and you aim for a few dozens, you can register them manually. Also, if you cherish blogs with amazing and rare metrics I suggest you go manually for those accounts, so you avoid getting the username banned just because you didn’t set-up the software good enough.

If you are ready to register more than a handful of blogs, TumblingJazz is the real deal if you know how to use it.

Any way you choose to go (manual or software), keep in mind these 2 rules about Tumblr:

• Always clean your browser cookies; I prefer Ccleaner or Glary Utilities, free edition. Close browsers and use the software to clean cookies.
• Change your IP for every 1–5 logins; if you do things manually you can change IP after 4–5 logins on different accounts. If you are blessed with a dynamic IP address you will save money on private proxies.

Also, you can use your home IP (even if it is not dynamic) if you register a few blogs per day. However, clean your browser cookies between each login.

When I use new accounts I like to make a few random actions (likes and/or reblogs) on the blogs before I rename the blogs. You can use TumblingJazz for these actions. What most do is they try and register the blogs directly with the expired usernames. This is a No No for 2 reasons:

• If you mess anything upon registration, that username will get banned along with the account.
• It is a waste of time. A real waste of time.

I prefer to make new accounts or buy Tumblr accounts with random usernames. And after I have the accounts ready, I rename them with the expired usernames I found.

Here is the fast way on how you rename the blogs with the usernames you found:

Go to ‘Update Accounts’ section.

Insert the usernames you found available (remove the http:// and the .tumblr.com part of the URLs).

Import the accounts that you already have registered on Tumblr. Make a .txt file with email and password for each account.

Make sure you set up private proxies on the software before starting, especially if you want to rename more than a handful of blogs. Keep the number of threads at 1. You want to make sure each blog is live. This step is essential to be error free. And even at 1 thread, it will run fast, considering that each rename takes a few seconds.

The random pause I keep it between 5–50. I was never in a hurry on this step, thus I haven’t tested the fastest settings. I prefer to use another 10 minutes on this step, just to make sure the accounts are in good condition.

And from the reviews on my threads, you will see that there aren’t complains about banned accounts. In 6 years, from the tens of thousands of blogs I made, less than 1% got banned.

You can see on the print screen that there are other options to customize the blogs: theme change, blog title, description, avatar, etc. Use them or don’t. It is up to you.

If you did all previous steps correctly, now you should be close to 100% success rate on registering the expired usernames.

Export the accounts once the software has done all the actions you wanted.

Double check that you renamed the blogs with your usernames. Take the blogs address and check their PA. This is to make sure you have re-registered successfully the usernames you wanted. In case some accounts don’t have the usernames you wanted, you can introduce them again in the software and rename with available usernames.

7. Uses for SEO

What was hard is done now.

For the SEO part, here are a few ways you can use these blogs:

1. Tier 1. Directly to your website. Many still use expired tumblrs as foundation links before they start using the big guns (guest posts, rented PBNs). Some are afraid to point to many Tumblr blogs to the same website, thinking that Google is some kind of freak with no understanding on the masses. Many fail to understand organic SEO. When a blogger decides to share valuable news on his blog, his friends (that use Tumblr as well) will share that news as well. Now if Google would penalize all websites that have too many links from the same sources (.tumblr, .wordpress, etc) it would be chaos on google and viral news wouldn’t exist. You can use expired tumblrs in conjunction with this money making method in the adult niche. It can help you bring google traffic and some traffic from tumblr as well.
2. Parasite sites. These blogs can rank easily by themselves on google. For small niches, they need only a small push (a few backlinks).
3. Tier 2. I am not a fan of this method used on expired web2.0's, but some use it.

Most of my clients use them as tier 1, as I like to use them. Some build a second tier as well, others don’t. This is up to your SEO strategy.

A few months ago I tried the parasite sites method and it worked ok for me. From 10 blogs all showed in google for the particular keyword and 2 of them went to the first page. However, I would say the niche was low on competition.

Main link placement on Tumblr blogs:

• Inside of a post; it can be a photo, article, etc or even on reblog post type.

• Inside the blog description; this will always stay on the front page where most of the blog juice is, no matter how many posts you make. It has no redirect applied.

Tumblr is a blogging / social network. Almost 80% of the posts made are photo posts. Less than 15% of the posts are article posts.

Post types made on Tumblr

Most of the photo posts made have a few tags and a small percentage have a title or a description.

You can make photo posts with small descriptions and your link in it. I prefer to post articles of at least 300 words, ideally up to 1,000. You can always outsource the writing for a few bucks on SeoClerks if you hate writing yourself.

I have seen better results with long-form content than with small descriptions, but feel free to experiment on your own with any part of this guide. You can always mix things up: embedding your link on the photo itself, make a video, or a link post.

8. Other observations

This is a long guide. More than 4,000 words, 10 print screens, 2 photos downloaded and about 10 hours to write it down.

I am sure there are a few things I missed. However, the essential things that I do, things that no one else has talked about in any other guide, are noted in this guide.

It’s up to you to follow the guide. Once you will apply it once, you will see there are some sequences that you can change their order, depending on what you want to achieve.

If you are into getting hundreds or thousands of Tumblrs with decent metrics, you will appreciate mostly keeping the lists clean. Keep a track of the banned blogs, blogs with no metrics.

Rumbling now:

And since you now have the ultimate guide to get Expired Tumblr blogs with PA, there is nothing stopping you from building a huge network of Tumblrs. Make posts related to your niches and track their performance. Once they rank in google, you have hit the jackpot.

9. Outro

I am sure there are a few of you that will put to good use (for your own use or for selling) all the information I share here.

Enjoy my monster guide.

And in case you want to save time you can buy expired Tumblr blogs from me. :)