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This post is for SEM(O) client educational purposes and to be informative, and not meant as an attack.
Anyone reading this post (here and elsewhere) can appreciate what to look for... names need not be attached.
In contrast - I firmly believe I am not an authority on "spam" or "spam tactics" this is always opened to interpretation.
Based on Google's indicated "hard line" on ethics... they are in a better position to determine the validity of my call.
I have removed the names of the potential parties involved, but did submit a Google Spam Report (my first one actually).
I was recently approached by a client of another "highly respectable SEO Firm". The person asked a very simple question -- "will you take a look, I am not sure my SEO firm is acting in my best interest?"I believe wholeheartedly in "ethics". What I found - was not easily detectable to the untrained eye. As a client of this industry is competely at a disadvantage - as there is no real clear cut way to determine 100% if the company is acting in your best interests without hindsight.
This isn't about ROI, or manipulating technology -- this particular case is clearly and simply using the "lack of understanding" a potential client has and the services comapny "unfairly" manipulating that relationship to be nothing but self-serving. The results of what I uncovered - 423 clients all in the same boat.
1. The SEM(O) conveniently added an extra link to each page that transfers all associated PageRank to a single common page in the site's domain. That common page (as suggested by the consultant) re-generates through scripts the sites backlink and would then normally re-distributes that PageRank back through the backlinks, which sends a slight bit more PageRank back to linked pages. As number of backlinks grow - the PageRank at the common page grows as well.
2. Basically this page gathers all possible PageRank "natural" & "internally passed" to a common place and not easily visible to the outside viewing public (normally the mainpage has the most PageRank) but in fact this page would have as much PageRank as the mainpage if not more, depending on the internal link structure of the site.
3. The Scam - The common page itself has "robot" and "Googlebot" specific tags to "stop" Google (and others) from indexing the page but to continue following all links. Such as:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="FOLLOW,NOINDEX">
4. This means that no PageRank is passed to any external links including own site backlinks since all are generated as external references rather than relative ones. This happens to be all outbound links from the page, except for two internal site links which, these pages are <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">, transferring PageRank externally to SEM(O) web site almost exclusively.
5. What's more -- the whole scam is clouded by a topical theme of the pages "SEO ethics" and as these two pages actually belongs to SEM(O) (as far as text copy and links) they are highly relevant to the SEM site's theme. Each client's site has similar pages denoting different keyphrases of the SEM(O) targeted terms. The SEM(O) basically leaches PageRank and derive relevancy from clients for the SEM(O) own benefit - the client is never informed precisely what these techiques are used for -- only that they "help search engine spiders/bots find their backlinks".
6. Not to mention that the client gets to pay for this, as well as believing "how ethical and professional" this firm is.
7. As the pages are basically link laundering and out of plain view, the scam is quite unrecognizable unless you investigate very carefully and have knowledge of all the techniques used.
8. Actual site optimization consist of next to nothing, simple Meta title, description, and meta keyword, nothing more - plus the normal page content (as is).
8. The SEM(O) WOWs clients with "off-page" optimized links, banners and keyword-rich pages without the clients true knowledge or understanding of how this is achieved, and the implications right up until the SEM(O) service (which is fee based and ongoing) is discontinued and then (I suspect) all SEM(O) controlled links are broken.
9. In hindsight - the client drops like a rock in ranks and then realizing the error of their ways - re-hires the SEM(O) since "they obviously knew precisely how to get them ranked"... must be ongoing maintenance, right?.
10. "A leader in the field" WOO's clients with "SEO Ethics" - all the while pointing to Google's SEO page for support of "ethical SEO's" and at the same time... is one of the reasons SEM(O)'s all have such a bad image problem.
11. This isn't knowledge and skill, this isn't professionalism, this isn't ethical, this isn't acting in the best interest of the client(s), the industry, or the markets. This is feeding off a clients lack of understanding, and the only way they will ever understand -- is to become an SEM(O) themselves.
I couldn't believe that someone with a "gift" of being both web saavy and search engine savvy needs to extort clients and then claim how ethical this practice is.
As before... buyer beware.
fathom
I bet he charges the clients a small fortune for his expertise also.
Amazing what some people get away.
Craig
Is this a firm fathom or a freelancer?
Not important, nor will I elaborate publicly or privately.
At best - this will be read by a client - and the "cat" will be out of the bag...
or worse... a ban and alot of explaining to do.
Can anyone point me to a thread or resource that explains how page rank is distributed/affected through the use of relative (internal)links versus external links (http://www etc) and how a noindex/follow command affects PR distribution and "distribution" of relevancy?
I am particularly interested in the PR affect of using full urls (http://...) to link to internal pages vs relative links and whether there is any difference. I have heard differing/confusing opinion on this and would like to hear from an expert who really knows.
TIA
how a noindex/follow command affects PR distribution and "distribution" of relevancy
If I followed everything correctly, the PR of your site is/can be distributed to sites you link to.
I don't think your share PR (in terms of you losting some of it through linking), but instead if robots see external link to site, it must create a 'trasferable' PR based on the page it came from, that he will bring with it to the linked site.
By using noindex/follow, you said to the robot to follow the link but not index the pages it originally came from hence 'transferable' PR stays on the page before the robot lives your site.
I think this is how it works ... but I realise that I'm also confused now.
Leo
I was confused by Fathom's Point 4 where he talked about PR not being distributed because of the use of "external links".
So...
How is the distribution of PR affected by using relative links (internal) compared to using external links (http:// I presume)?
What if the "external links" are to the same domain? Is there any difference if they link to an outside domain (another site)?
I also understand what noindex/follow does but would like to know the impact on the distribution of PR where this command is used.
I obviously need to deepen my understanding of how PR is allocated and distributed but please don't suggest I read the University paper of the Google founders. Took one look at the maths and ran away fast.
I already have the basics covered but would like to have a more advanced understanding presented in less mathematical terms.
Can anyone suggest a good resource?
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="FOLLOW,NOINDEX">
This means that Googlebot will crawl the page, determine and follow all outgoing links, and (most likely) use them in their PageRank calculation. The only thing they may not do is return it in the SERPs.
As far as I know, the relevance of those two meta tags is exactly the same for relative and absolute links. A link is a link. Whether that link is just to a page relative to the linking one or has the http://www.example.com string in front of it doesn't change anything in the semantics. I'd be extremely surprised if Googlebot treated the two forms differently in any way.
I may be missing something fundamental, but given the above understanding, I'm not quite sure what the excitement is all about.
I may be missing something fundamental, but given the above understanding, I'm not quite sure what the excitement is all about.
I you refer to the original post:
I think that's because of the way they designed the site and this PR optimized page. If I understood correctly, the page auto increment it's PR by not letting any of the 'transferable' PR go away with this linking structure.
Leo
I think that's because of the way they designed the site and this PR optimized page. If I understood correctly, the page auto increment it's PR by not letting any of the 'transferable' PR go away with this linking structure.
An unranked page is unranked, thus it has no PageRank. Basically the SEM(O) transferred PageRank to a "unusable" state... making each page of the site (and PageRank passed to each adjacent page) that much less than before they starting working with the client.
I supect... as before the attempt was to passed all of this to themselves (since no external sites were receiving this) as the site itself was losing it.
In reviewing other sites where the same setup was used... regardless of whether the SEM(O) knew what they were doing or not... they in fact were making the client's site performance less adequately (without the SEM(O) continued intervention) thus somewhat of a guaranteed of retaining the client long into the future.
Cost... $14,400 US per year.
As before:
The results of what I uncovered - 423 clients all in the same boat.
I think we don't really have enough information here to tell what really happens. The PageRank calculation happens long before the page appears (or doesn't) in the SERPs with (or without) some green in the Googlebar. Do we know at which point in that process the "noindex" pages get removed from the data?
Maybe someone has performed controlled experiments to make a more educated guess, but so far I think this discussion here operates exclusively on unverifiable assumptions. I'm not saying that your assumption necessarily must be wrong, just that it isn't the only reasonable one, and others may be just as likely to be correct. What you're calling a scam could also be a smart move by someone, or simply a failed optimization attempt. With my current understanding and knowledge, I am unable to decide which one it really is.
Even if it actually was a scam, I'm not sure if it would really work the way as intended.
Do we know at which point in that process the "noindex" pages get removed from the data?
Interesting point.
I suspect (since I am only one viewing) that most of the transferred PageRank is lost.
Google ranks pages of importance based on its knowledge of the www. Unranked pages of unranked sites are obviously not part of the "ranking importance"... but would a noindex and follow page of a site with other "ranked pages" still transfer PageRank to pages even though that page is not in the index?
The subsequent pages pointing to the SEM(O) sites do have PR however, I did not investigate beyond the initial (visible) links.
I shall take another look.
Maybe someone has performed controlled experiments to make a more educated guess, but so far I think this discussion here operates exclusively on unverifiable assumptions. I'm not saying that your assumption necessarily must be wrong, just that it isn't the only reasonable one, and others may be just as likely to be correct. What you're calling a scam could also be a smart move by someone, or simply a failed optimization attempt. With my current understanding and knowledge, I am unable to decide which one it really is.
... and I am not saying that any assumption I have made are 100% correct. Thus the reason I sent everything I had to Google. If they wish to prove or disprove, or even look to this, so be it.
The cloak and dagger of the consultant to inform the client that the page "helps" search engine find backlinks is a little ridiculous, particularly since you really can't "automatically" find "backlinks" unless a search engine actually "indexes" a page, or you have a "known location"... As far as I know you just can't "ping" the entire web (all nodes, data centers, and primary and secondary backbones) to get all previous unknown responses (links). If this was the case - likely Google would be deploying the technology and have 10, 20, 50 billion web pages indexed.
Even if it actually was a scam, I'm not sure if it would really work the way as intended.
Maybe so... and the SEM(O) obviously has many other links/sites pointing to them.
Bearing that in mind - they are highly visible in search results... their clients are not, seems backwards to me... if they're that good.
Again, yes... many assumptions, as well I am not an expert in spam tactics.
I will say that I deploy something similar so that important web pages of the site get the importance they need to rank more and "contact us", "privacy", "shipping" etc. rank less.
Notwithstanding... (from an outside view) it seems "SEO ethics" is used as a cover-up, and design to assist the SEM(O) not the client.
I think that what I'm hearing now is that:
1. relative vs external links makes no difference in the passing on of PR, they are in fact equivalent to each other (please correct me if I'm wrong)
2. the NOINDEX/FOLLOW robots tag stops/hinders the passing of PR to outgoing links from this page.
If assumption 2 is correct, how does the SEM gain any value (in PR terms) from links to his "SEO ethics" page that are housed on the client's site (and linked to from the NOINDEX page)? It seems to me that if NOINDEX/FOLLOW stops PR from being distributed, that these "SEO ethics" pages should have a PR of 0!
So I cannot understand the assumption that the SEM has done something that benefits himself to the DETRIMENT of his client.
I'm having trouble following the logic in this issue (I'm not pursuing this to prove anyone right or wrong, just to clarify the techniques used and better understand the impact of using them)
I think that what I'm hearing now is that:1. relative vs external links makes no difference in the passing on of PR, they are in fact equivalent to each other (please correct me if I'm wrong)
Based on the original PageRank theory - correct! Alot of things have changed since then but still a valid assumption.
2. the NOINDEX/FOLLOW robots tag stops/hinders the passing of PR to outgoing links from this page.
This really depends on how the "follow" part plays in the calculation of PageRank when associated with "NOINDEX". The assumption I "assume" a page "not index" is "unranked" regardless of the amount of PageRank that is actually transferred to it via "ranked" pages. Again - this is only an assumption - I really have no foundation of controlled experiments to prove or disapprove this assumption.
If assumption 2 is correct, how does the SEM gain any value (in PR terms) from links to his "SEO ethics" page that are housed on the client's site (and linked to from the NOINDEX page)? It seems to me that if NOINDEX/FOLLOW stops PR from being distributed, that these "SEO ethics" pages should have a PR of 0!
In theory -- yes (sort of) the additional pages added after the "NOINDEX" should be "unranked" as well. However, as I previously indicated I did not check for "hidden" links (only visible ones). Also the SEO page could be linked to externally from other sites... and as the only links outbound (on the page) are to the SEO site, all PageRank (and relevancy) would belong solely to the SEO but from a clients unique IP.
These two points may or may not be true... just a couple of many possible ways the SEO "could" maximize their own results without assisting the clients. (when time permits I will dig deeper to address these issues.
So I cannot understand the assumption that the SEM has done something that benefits himself to the DETRIMENT of his client.
If as previously indicated the "Unranked" is a PageRank deadend -- that is the passed PageRank to it - at approximately 85% of each Ranked page current value (divided by the total number of outgoing links per page in a logarithmic scale) reduces the total PageRank shared by all other pages. (you fill up your car's gas tank - a neighbor siphons some out - you don't travel as far now, but the cost remains the same you only need to buy sooner.) ;)
In effective - if 100 links developed this PageRank the SEO is reducing the effectiveness of those 100 inbound links... Pages to the SEO site (of all sites I investgated) all have PageRank.
This is coming from somewhere - and 100% benefits the SEO, with 0% benefit to the client.
thanks for your help.
Hagen
