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I'm mainly talking about hidden text, or text that is only just off the background colour.
Now I have reported the two sites in question many many times over a period of several months. I hoped with the new google spambot and the latest dance they would drop. However they didn't.
This really annoys me as I'm a good guy, but in the index they beat me on every keyword.
Is there anyone I can contact directly? Or anyone on these forums that can help?
Would you report them if they were below you in the serps?
>>This really annoys me as I'm a good guy
Now you are but, what if google suddenly decide to start penalizing sites that heavily crosslink pages on the same site?
You'd be a spammer then wouldn't you?
It's probably best to stop worrying about hidden text, (it's very unlikely to be the cause of them being better than you) and spend more time working on content and links..
Nick
There are any number of search term combinations, and those techniques do help sites gain in the search results.
Those techniques have been clearly defined as inappropriate.
Report them.
Google has asked that people report them, and they have put in place a process for reporting them, and they have defined specific things that should be reported.
Every time I read that someone should just focus on their site and not report someone, I always think that the person that wrote that is using those techniques.
Report any site that is using inappropriate techniques. Little by little Google will weed out those companies.
Yes, as would everyone. How is that relevent. The fact is they're purposely trying to abuse the system.
>It's probably best to stop worrying about hidden text,>(it's very unlikely to be the cause of them being better >than you) and spend more time working on content and >links..
It is directly the reason they are better in the listings.
Google has asked that people report them, and they have put in place a process for reporting them, and they have defined specific things that should be reported
What a shame you don't get paid for all your hard work.
PS, I hope you don't use that form that is designed only for webmasters with the toolbar on.
Nick
I would be very surprised if that were so. On page factors are just not worth spit these days.
Nick
I think cross-linking four or five of your sites is worst than hidden text.
Dave
Yep, another excellent demonstration of the Google Public Relations Machine in action.
Q. How do you get away with providing bad SERPS?
A. Call the problem SPAM, blame it on Webmasters and get those same Webmasters to endorse this fact by providing them with a form (specially for them) and a few solicitations for 'Help'.
Whichever side of the argument you stand on, you've got to hand it to Google, that's just outstanding work.
Nick
And it only takes a moment to report a site.
Wow! All that time you wasted in the world of CSS when you could have been really shaking them up in the Google forums. You should take a stroll over there and pop in once in awhile just to keep things, er, a bit interesting.
Jim
I'll take your word for that. It sounds like you're an old, experienced hand at filling in spam reports.
Personally I think you deserve some kind of compensation from Google for your sterling efforts. A small trophy perhaps?
Possibly they could have a competition to see who can report the most websites in a month. Webmasters would get to hunt the SERPS finding sites that had hidden text and the winner would get.... what? Some ideas...
Nick
Nick
In marketing, if you suddenly found that your competitor was offering discounted prices, you would aggressively match the prices to your existing companies, if that's what it took to keep the business. If everyone starts offering longer product warranties, then you may well have to match this. Many have made the parallel between marketing and war.
In the case of naughty websites, thankfully you don't have to match their naughtiness. If they aren't caught by Google's new spamming filters, then make sure that Google hears about it. What you win is enormous. Your competitor off the air for possibly months. Any competent marketing group should be scanning their competitors' websites for bannable behaviour. It's a much cheaper exercise than PPC or whatever.
Barry Welford
I never looked at it like that before. Got to hand it to Google. Pass the buck.
Waaaahhhh, there's spam above me on Google. Fill out a jealousy-- uhh, spam report. Oh yeah, use the email address from your site you@siteinthatsetofserps.com and make sure to do it with the toolbar on, too.
>Possibly they could have a competition to see who can >report the most websites in a month.
I'm in. How big is the trophy? What does it say on it?
It's a very small trophy, but it's very, very shiny ;)
Nick
Actually, why take time to "scan" anything, take the shotgun approach and report all of your competition, it works a LOT better.
Every sad, single, solitary one of us is trying to snow Google to one degree or another (yeah, right, you really would have done that reciprocal link with the Amsterdam hotel directory had there been no Google!).
It's a war and the differences between us are in the risks we are prepared to take.
Equally Google is trying to snow webmasters to cover up their inability to deal with the gaming of their search results that is taking place. And, judging by the reception they get from a lot of people in here, they are doing one fine job of it.
All's fair, love and war - but don't stand in the middle of the road holding your hands up because that's where you get run over from both sides.
Time it took to find & report spam, multiplied by the $$$$ the person earns either salary or consulting (whichever is higher, and if salary is used, should be multiplied by 2 to reflect what the going consulting rate would be).
Then, it should say below that dollar figure, I wasted that much money doing volunteer work - yippy for me.
Unless, of course, you enjoy doing volunteer work that will also make your job harder in the end and if that is the case, imho, you have some real issues to work out that go beyond the "SPAM" you have been seeing on the SERP above you.
Try looking for some SPAM that doesn't outrank you, don't be biased.
I'll keep making more $$$, and more than likely, beating you in the SERP - because I focus on my business, not other's.
I thnk i'll start leaving some cryptic comments in there too
<!-- begin advanced googlebot ranking code polarity reverser -->
I'll have 2 new links by the time they figure this stuff out :)
If you're going to do it, do it. Do it quietly and do it Properly. And stop pretending it's for some 'greater community good' or some other such rubbish.
If you want to screw your competitors, then go ahead. Just don't pretend it's not what it is.
Nick
So, when you report it, you are reporting a site above and below you...it just depends on the keywords.
What is the big issue with reporting people that don't play fair?
My immediate guess is that you guys are using these techniques. Why else would someone get so upset by the idea of others spending the time to report known spam techniques?
If that is the case, I hope you sleep with one eye open, because Google is out to clean up their results, and spammy sites are in the bullseye.
Of course, if you aren't doing anything spammy, you don't have to worry.
It's the Hipocrasy that I find distastefull.
Yeah.
I hate this topic so much that I'm reluctant to post anything but....
This really annoys me as I'm a good guy, but in the index they beat me on every keyword.
You're self image has nothing to do with this. Wait, why is this in the cloaking forum?
Who wants competition in the search results? Just send a spam report on all of them, its quick and effective, just get them before they get you...hurry along now...
By all means, go ahead, that was my point.
Please, report me, my friends, and everybody else I know -> we must be doing something wrong, because we make $$$ & rank well.
I'm occupied with running my business & building it, making it better, etc.
If it means good ROI auto generating a few thousand pages & cloaking them, so be it.
If it means 'hiding links' so be it.
If it means changing my sites so they get a better EPC than before, that's what I'll do.
Good luck with your spam reporting, I'm sure one day, in the big GooglePlex in the sky, you'll be rewarded. :)
Well there we have the whole caboodle, don't we?
Maybe you could ask all the search engines (just noticed this wasn't the forum I thought it was!) for a special toolbar that zaps you with a painful number of volts every time you feel the urge to put a keyword in an h1 tag or every time you write to another webmaster asking for a link. Kind of like an "unfairness" aversion therapy?
Wrong in my case. I'm just aware of what the spam report REALLY is, an SEO report that works BOTH ways for Google. Think about it....
Let's see the guy that got reported is a spammer/seo, and so isn't the guy that reported it, otherwise he wouldn't give a shift about the sites in his sets of serps. Hmmm, this info could come in really handy, maybe spark a new algorithm tweak in the future.
I sleep with BOTH eyes open.
