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[emerce.nl...]
Small 'translation' in English of the method used:
-Ilse.nl uses startpagina.nl's catalog in search index.
-The more your website shows up in that catalog, the better your 'page-rank'
-A company called Onetomarket manipulated that system
-Employees signed up as editors for a few topics.
-With some creative coding they could insert hidden links to their clients websites.
-Their client websites had more links to their website in the catalog than opponents on their 'theme', and their websites ranked higher as a result.
Now Ilse.nl is pissed off and kicked the editors of the system ;-)
First a quick background:
Startpagina.nl is a directory system, which has many 'daughters' at somesubject.pagina.nl.
It is run by volunteers who can place a limited amount of paid links on the pages they manage in return. It is owned by the same company as Ilse, and Ilse uses the pagina.nl listings and their own directory as a primary source for search results.
So, in short, to get good ranks in Ilse you need directory listings at some.pagina.nl site.
Summary of article:
Ilse fired two volunteers who they claim where working for a seo company, Onetomarket.
Onetomarket admitted to be responsible and said it was doing 'a test'. Onetomarket also complains about the daughters abusing their position for financial gains.
An anonymous source reported the spam to Ilse.
The article speaks of 'invisible columns' being used to trick Ilse, which they achieved by fiddeling with the 'source code'. (this is no free translation, the article isn't very technical)
Both daughter sites were taken offline. An example [ilse.nl] query is mentioned, listing no. 7, exposing their use of the two daughter pages and at least one of Onetomarket's clients.
According to the ceo, Ilse determined Onetomarket was behind this by looking at the results, which turned up results from companies they knew to be customers from them. "We can also check it by domain names and an ip adres that appears to belong to onetomarket. We are considering both technical and legal action against them."
The ceo claims this trick is no longer possible for the other daughters, and points out that any pagina.nl editor caught using similar tricks will be fired as is stated in the contract the editors signed.
Onetomarket denies that what they did should be labeled as spam. Their main argument is the sites where only targeting relevant searchterms. They think Ilse's reacton is a little too much, "we only did it for a short time and had stopped already, it's all just a game between search engines and seo's"
>it's all just a game between search engines and seo's
Interesting from a legal point of view. It sure can't be unlawful for an SEO employee to apply for editorship at an volunteer directory. So the issue would be the alleged manipulation?
Would be nice if you kept us informed.
I've been thinking about what they could possibly charge the seo company with. Sanoma could possibly call this an illigal infiltration into their company. The pages with the spam that were spidered are owned by Sanoma, who also owns Ilse.
That's a difference to a page you put up on your own domain and Ilse happens to spider it.
I think personal feelings partly explain Ilse's reaction too. Ilse thought they got rid of all technical spam when they switched to this system a few months ago. The seo company and Ilse know each other from before this , and Ilse tried blocking them before. An important reason for Ilse to change to this new system was to get rid of the spam which they couldn't fight anymore in the old system.
I'd be surprised if they would really take legal action. I'll keep you posted.
