20 replies to this topic

[BrianR]

I'd value some input on a site that I think is blatantly spamming Google and getting No.1 rankings at the expense of one of my clients. And I'm wondering whether I should report them to Google.

If you let me know, I'll PM the appropriate url to you.

Thanks for your help.

BrianR

[Scottie]

I think that is a personal call.

If it were in my client's best interests to report it, I would.

[powerofeyes]

Hello Brian,
I personally you should definitely complaint about spamming search engines especially google. Google is my favourite.
I already opened a forum similiar to yours here it is
doorway pages in google

Please complain google about spamming sites and make google clear,
thanks,
VIJAY

[Jill]

Brian, can you tell us what the site is doing that you consider spam? (Without posting the URL.)

Thanks!

Jill

[mcanerin]

Hi BrianR,

I've got some time on my hands so feel free to send me the URL, on the condition that if there is something interesting in it we can publicly discuss the techniques, etc. in a manner that doesn't require reference to the actual URL. (Though I'll PM you on it if you want).

It's a waste of time discussing a particular URL in a forum because usually in a month or year or whatever the URL is gone or changed and no one would understand what we are talking about anyway. It's best if the forum stays relevant for as long as possible.

Ian

[Jill]

It's a waste of time discussing a particular URL in a forum because usually in a month or year or whatever the URL is gone or changed and no one would understand what we are talking about anyway. It's best if the forum stays relevant for as long as possible.

Yes, there's that.

But my real motivation with not posting the actual URLs is that it isn't really fair, imo, to call someone a spammer who may or may not be. We don't know the circumstances surrounding any given site. Sometimes it's just an old site that used techniques which were no big deal 3 years ago, and that sort of thing.

Discussing techniques and what may or may not be spam can be productive, but singling out some one or some site as a spammer is never productive, imo.

J

[mcanerin]

Good point Jill,

It's good to stay away from accusations of liable

Not to mention the fact that it really can be unfair - even if it looks like it's roundly deserved at the moment.

Ian

[BrianR]

Ok, I'll PM the url to Ian (thanks, Ian), but meanwhile, here's what they are doing:

They have a site which purports to be a directory for installers of a particular product. The site is split geographically by all the many counties/ regions in the UK (a bit like the states in the US, I guess).

The visitor is invited to click on their local region to find the recommended installers in their area. The only problem is, no matter which of the many different regions you click on, the same four installers are always put forward!

And this little tactic means that they appear at #1 in Google for a some of the important keyphrases in that market.

I hope that explains it ok - if not, ask away...

Thanks.

BrianR

[mcanerin]

Yup, that's what they are doing, all right.

The trick here is that they have basically 2 sites and a few customers, and have created about a zillion pages using php. Actually, it's more like a whole bunch of different links with different keywords in each link going to dynamically generated pages - which all have the basically the same content (4 addresses with banners).

It is certainly spammy, but is it spam? For this post, I'm defining spam as "something Google is likely to consider spam" instead of my own version.

If I was defending them, I would point out that it's intended to be a directory and therefore this constant repetition would diminish when they get more clients (listings) and in particular ones that only focus on certain areas. After all, if you are just starting out, some slack should be given - they DO have an active link on every page requesting more business, so it's not like they are trying to lock out anyone - presumably even your clients could join - if they wanted to spend the money.

On the more negative side - this is THE SAME content - over and over and over and over. It's pretty clear from the design that it was intended to rank highly for locale searches by creating "landing Pages" for every one of them. Most SEO's would consider that tactic to be questionable. Not to mention the fact that the second site is just about exactly a mirror, but with a very slight focus change.

Should you report it? I don't think so. All of the pages except the main one have been rated as a 0 on the page rank bar (as clumsy as it is) and the site only has 6 back links. Basically, it looks like Google has already penalized them (with a 0) but since there is nothing better at the moment, they are still on top.

IF people really are searching to that degree of specificity for this market, it's not unreasonable to try to present their clients to those searchers (assuming they actually serve those markets).

It's not done as effectively as it could be though. I don't know the UK market, but I'm not sure they are actually focussing on the right key phrases - there doesn't seem to be a flow from how most people would actually type in a search for information.

If I type in "blue frog" and there are 2 possibilites - one that mentions "frog - blue" and the other mentions "blue frog", then the second one will be on top of the first in the SERPS, all other things being equal.

With a little bit of work, I think it would be fairly easy to beat them - after all - all you actually need is some content!

In one case here locally, I discovered that 2 local directories were showing up higher than my client on the SERPS, so I registered my client on both directories, then optimized the site so that it was number one (with help from the "competitors"!). Now my client is in ALL THREE TOP SPOTS! One for his site, and at the top of the other 2 directories.

This is a perfectly legitimate way of increasing your visiblity. Plus some people prefer to click on a directory so they can do some "comparison shopping". I don't know if it's for you, but I studied Judo in the past and am a great fan of using an opponents wieght against them

It's not the best site in the world, but I could see an argument for it being legitimate. They are not cloaking, or using invis text, or any of the other "bad" stuff. If I was Google, I would not rank it highly do to the lack of content, but rather wait for someone else to come along with a better site. In the meantime, it's possible this is the best site available for those searches, and the visitors certainly deserve to get "something" when they do the search.

I'd look at it like a challenge. It's not a tough challenge, but it's always nice to crush the competition...

Ian

[powerofeyes]

Hello Moderator Ian,
I showed you some examples you said they are not spam. Mr Brain has showed you some example but you have replied they are not spam. But you said in your previous post in the topic I started that you have complained to google about some spamming sites and google removed them.
if you have any example please send it through PM what you call as spam. I am eager to know what a real spam is,
Thanks,
VIJAY

[mcanerin]

It's harder to find than you might think (since whenever I do I report them )

The other thing to note is that just because Google may not consider a site to be spam does not necessarily mean that I agree - just want to be clear on that. Google and I disagree occasionally

BUT when you talk about reporting someone, then the question becomes, reporting to who? If the answer is: Google, then obviously the only things that you should report to them are things that they care about.

I don't have any current ones, but I'll look for some today and PM the URLS to you. It shouldn't be too hard to find.

The bottom line is: most things you find on Google are not, by Googles definition, spam (or they wouldn't be there). The only things that would be are cloaked pages, invisible text and other systems that "fool" Google.

Does that mean there is no Spam from my prespective? NO! There is tons. But you will find that definitions on the net are vague, at best. For example, technically SPAM is a meat product. Or even mass distributed, unsolicited emails. Neither of which count as a website on any search engine.

So when I use the term spam personally. I mean "something I don't like". But when I use it professionally, I mean "stuff that the search engines don't like". There is a difference. And neither definition is official in any way.


Ian

[powerofeyes]

Hello Ian,
ill be eagerly waitng for your URL samples.
thanks,
VIJAY

[mcanerin]

I just sent the link. You will see the difference right away, I think. As a matter of fact, you will notice that the product they are selling is search engine cloaking software.

The fact that I found it in about 10 seconds means it's not very good Right now they have a fairly high rank.

Now watch me go ruin it by the end of next week Actually, all I'll do is helpfully tell Google about them, with examples, and leave them to Googles tender mercies...

Ian

Edited by mcanerin, 30 September 2003 - 02:43 PM.

[powerofeyes]

Hello Ian,
That was a very good example which you gave me.
They are very interesting people I dont know how they sell cloaking software to today's search engines. Any way it is good to complain about these sites,
VIJAY

[BrianR]

Ian

Thank you very much for taking the time to analyse that iffy site - I appreciate it - particularly your positive approach of simply beating out-optimising them!

I had the client on the phone today, bending my ear about this site. And the more I look at the site, the more I am convinced that they are guilty of badly misleading site visitors and hence, by implication, also tarnishing Google's reputation.

So I've decided to opt for a 'belt & braces' approach: I'll enjoy the challenge of out-optimising them, but I'll also report them to Google because I've got nothing to lose by so doing.

BTW - you mentioned there were 2 sites - could you PM me the second URL please as I'm can't see it! - thanks.

BrianR