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I've seen a site which, according to Google, has over 3,000 backlinks. After looking at them, it turns out about 2,995 of the links come from their own site. It looks like:
example.com
a.example.com
b.example.com
c.example.com
...
*.example.com all link back to the parent at example.com.
If these hosts were all at the same IP, I would have reported this as spam to the SE. However, they do have many different IPs.
Even though this might not be SE spam, it's certainly not 3,000 backlinks. Why doesn't Google catch this kind of nonsense? If this is acceptable, maybe I should do it too. I could even say that all the hosts have the same IP right now but that's because I have yet to split them up (or some other such nonsense).
What's right?
-GT
Last time I saw that the game lasted for about 15 days. They are nowhere to be found these days.
I don't see why the IP has anything to do with whether a page is spam. Google doesn't rank based on IPs; it uses URLs, on page content and links.
As Macguru points out, schemes like that don't always last long.
Just because they have a lot of links, doesn't make it spam.
Frankly, there is little difference between
example.com
a.example.com
b.example.com
c.example.com
...
and
example.com/
example.com/a/
example.com/b/
example.com/c/
...
If the pages themselves are real content and not duplicates or phony doorways, then 3000 backlinks is legit. If there are lot of dups or they are using other spammy techniques, then that is another story and it won't last.
Another thing to look for, are there any "real" backlinks from 3rd-party websites mixed in with their cross-links? And, since cross-linking wasn't always a no-no, this is a huge grey area that an algo might only be able to flag some for review.
I don't see why the IP has anything to do with whether a page is spam
If they really need 3,000 hosts to serve the site, the SE certainly shouldn't penalize them for it. Each host should link back to the home page without penalty.
Then again, if one web farm can serve 3,000 sites from one host, why are these people using 3,000 (mostly virtual) hosts to serve one site?
Just wondering.
-GT
It is also absolutely normal to have the majority of your backlinks to a page coming from your own internal pages. Out of the 277 backlinks that Google will show me for my home page, 237 are from internal pages. If you have a site that has members, and they tend to link to their own profile pages, most of your PR will be coming in to your site through deep links. In this case, you could have a highly rated site with no external backlinks to the home page.
Now if all those pages are lacking in content, or they are duplicate content, then you probably have a good case.
Frankly, there is little difference betweenexample.com
a.example.com
b.example.com
c.example.com
...and
example.com/
example.com/a/
example.com/b/
example.com/c/
If the SEs see these two as the same, then, I agree, there's no spam. I just hope that the SEs see a major difference between a backlink and a cross-link. There is a tremendous difference as far as page value to the customer. If my site gets linked by 3,000 sites, that's a whole lot different than if I link to myself 3,000 times.
Taking this to the extreme, which is exactly what the site in question does -- I have n pages. I can build n-1 virtual hosts that all link back to my home page:
product1.example.com
product2.example.com
or more detail:
product1.location1.example.com
product2.location1.example.com
...
Put up a little page with an explanation of product one and how it's distributed at location one, etc., and I can build 3,000 backlinks to absolutely any worthless product and get first class PR doing it.
Does this seem acceptable?
Okay, let's put theory aside for the moment. Does anyone know what Google does? Are they the same to Google?
-GT
You are going through all sorts of trouble for something that isn't going to make a difference, other than make you look bad.
BigDave is right. Sites don't link out, pages do.
<If my site gets linked by 3,000 sites, that's a whole lot different than if I link to myself 3,000 times>
No, it's not different at all.
Put up a little page with an explanation of product one and how it's distributed at location one, etc., and I can build 3,000 backlinks to absolutely any worthless product and get first class PR doing it.
Also, even though they are not topically related to my main site, I do have advertising on them for my main site. Could that get me into trouble? It's no different than when I had them named as www.domain.com/wigets, just that now they are on what appears as a different domain. I'm only talking about 4-5 pages here.
Also, if I use a 301 redirect to these new pages, will Google pass on any page rank they had prior to the change?
I've been fretting about this for days. Wanting to make the change or organization sake, but not wanting to make the google gods angry.
Some people choose to use multiple domains in the hope that more people will link to them. That would provide some extra PageRank into the system, but personally I think that there are better ways to encourage links (like having some interesting or useful content).
Google give different weighting to the link text if it comes from another domain (I don't know if this even applies to subdomains). In late 2001 Google discarded the backlinks of many domains, heavy cross linking was a common theme of these domains so many of us would be inclined to avoid this approach.
a.example.com
and
www.example.com/a
and this CAN be used for spamming, but not the way that you might think.
ciml is correct that PageRank is calculated by pages, not by sites.
But Google does consider third-level domains to be different sites.
If these various sub-domains identify and contain unique content, this is perfectly OK. For example, search.msn.com or support.microsoft.com.
If these domains contain IDENTICAL content, this can actually do them more harm than good, as Google's duplicate page filter will likely find and remove all but 1 copy of each unique page.
However, if these sub-domains contains duplicate but slightly altered content or layout (so that they're not caught by the duplicate page filter), then this can be used to spam.
The reason is that Google normally limits search results to a maximum of two results from the same domain. By using this technique, a company can "hog" more than their fair share of two listings on search results, or even try to "take over" the top 10 on a search!
This does not even require many virtual hosts, all of the sub-domains can be configured to direct to a single site, and server-side programming could be employed to slightly alter the layout and color of the page, depending on which sub-domain was used to access the page.
GanblinTraveler, check to see if these sub-domains contain duplicate or nealy-duplicate content. If so, report them as spam.
Some people choose to use multiple domains in the hope that more people will link to them. That would provide some extra PageRank into the system, but personally I think that there are better ways to encourage links (like having some interesting or useful content).
ciml has a very valid point.
Having completed a number of these the greatest disadvantage is audience confusion and disorientation.
Some examples: the company's main site was not the one entered -- but was the site that replied to an email?
The person bought from widgets-plus.com but widgery.com charged their credit card?
My favourite - two owned sites sell the same product but packaged differently, different descriptions, reviews, etc., to accommodate different market needs. First a customer buys a product at one site, finishes... follows a link to a new site (really the same site - but different domains) finds a similar product and buys it... only to receive both from the same company, and the exact same product, under a different name... this cost a client dearly.
Hidden links can get you is trouble with search engines... visible links get you in trouble with your markets... you lose both ways?
In the end, what you think you gain in search engine visibility can also depreciate your returns, where it counts.
