Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
[google.com...]
However no action was taken and site is happily #1 still.
Why Google doesn't hear spam reports?
What can you do in that case?
People have got to remember that hidden text and cloaking do not help you rank better. The only reason people use those tactics is because they believe that what it takes to rank in the search engine is ugly and they don't want their users to see it.
I disagree. In my case, I accidentally found a spammer that had 50,000+ (just think about it!) identical doorways on 30+ domains, containing only black text on black background. The pages consisted of all kinds of senceless words on various topics (not adult content words!), and all these 50,000 doorways were pointing to a pornsite. I ran into these doorways searching for a topic that had nothing to do with porn at all! Since then I have a hard time reporting this mass spam to Google: I cannot use their spam report page cos it's not 1 "misbehaving" page but 50,000 and it will take me a week to report them all via form, all my emails to them bounce back with instructions to use forms, when I do try to use forms, nobody cares, I am stuck!
I strongly believe something has to be done about it, this shouldn't be that way. And the worst part is that the amount of these pages multiply every day, with more and more innocent keywords pointing to that pornsite.
By the way, when several times before I reported one doorway page with a hidden text, the action was always taken and the page dropped from Google, but this time when I try to report such a HUGE spam, no action! It's illogical, this case is much more serious.
Listen! This thread was never about "being beaten" by the spammers.
Yes! The 50,000 doorway spammer that I found was not my competitor at all, in this case I was just a regular user, as I always use Google for my searches. But being a webmaster myself I always try to take some action (cos I am a dreamer and believe that we still CAN make the Internet a better place LOL), while an average AOL user would just probably go away, disgusted.
remember googleguy, he was someone from google who used to stop by and post comments giving people advice on how to get over a "Major" problem which indirectly helped google solve their "Problem"
now even he does not care anymore
(sigh)
BeeDeeDubbleU, if you accept that keyword density has such an important role to play that you need to focus on it (and I accept that some people do) then surely the art of successful webmastering or optimisation is to manage that task in such a way that it both reads well to the consumer and does not raise the potential warning lights that you and others believe are being raised but ignored at Google and other search engines.
Can you remind me where I said that KW density has "such an important role to play"? Please don't credit me with something that I did not say and I do know how to write KW copy. (The guys who don't use hidden text!)
You also refer to my belief that warning lights are being raised and ignored. This is not a belief. This is a fact. Several people in this thread have actually spoken about the spam that has been reported with no action being taken by Google. This is what the thread is about. It doesn't matter if you think that it is right or wrong. What matters is that Google asks people to report this then they appear to do nothing about it.
I know you and Google will say that it will be handled by algo adjustments but when they cannot, after all these years, detect basic HTML hidden text then the algo is clearly not working. Perhaps we should all start doing black hat?
Googleguy?
I ran into these doorways searching for a topic that had nothing to do with porn at all!
I was just about to post the following:
Google are highly unlikely to take individual action against individual sites from thousands of SPAM reports from other webmasters who are no doubt themselves busy SEOing their own sites to try and improve their rankings.
The SPAM reports they will take individual action on are those where a regular searcher reports they searched for widgets and ended up on a pornsite.
But evidently I am wrong.
I wish I can publish here at least one URL out of those 50,000 doorways! I am sure all of you guys would agree with me, if only you could see that. And Google folks would agree too, cos any sane person would agree. But the thing is that they don't even bother to take a look!
If I was him, I woulnd't post here any more either.
Posters chased him away and now whine about why he doesn't post.
I myself find the Google forum not much help and don't spend much time here anymore either. I spend it working on my site and making it better.
It's a noble cause to want to rid the world of spam but it will never happen and it's a fact of life. Report it if you see fit and move on but don't dwell on as it will consume time you could be spending on improving your site.
Take a chill pill matey, I was being sarcastic, remember having a laugh, its what used to happen in this neck of the woods once ;)
Posters chased him away and now whine about why he doesn't post.
I don't think so.
He was probably told to keep quiet because of the IPO last year. The problem is that he was the only way you could get any information from Google. There is now no way that we can get any response to questions like this because their "support" organisation is dreadful.
Fast forward, billions of dollars in stock valuation later. Google's now the search engine 'category killer', and a Wall Street giant just like GM or GE. There's a king's ransom of money being made, and of money to preserve, shareholders to answer to, annual reports to spin rosily so the stock price won't dip. Brin and Page are swimming in the $tuff. "Evil schmeevil, whatever," might read the new unofficial motto, "We're tired and wanna enjoy the fruits of our tedious labors. Who cares about the cutting edge, we could care a fig about a noble battle for an Internet which is now throroughly infested with seo spam. Here's some lip service for you, loyal customer base, you valuable assets who still devotedly love us like gangbangers love their Nike logos- here's a Google cap for you, have a Google coffee cup, here's a Google T-shirt to help us spread our brand identity. Take our corporate love. Now show us the money. How do we maximize revenues?"
Where's Google Guy? When you call a company's sales line to make a purchase, they pick up right away, but if you call about a technical problem, you'll be on hold for half an hour. That's a reflection of the corporation's choices and priorities. Google is not the same company, can not be the same company today that it was before this astronomical success, it's axiomatic.
Thats where the real SE optimization discussion takes place. For most of us ( IMO ) newer guys content creation is the real issue. Once I get several thousand articles, then I'll come back and look at SE optimization techniques that can improve the overall ranking of my site. Gambling on my 20 articles via aggressive SE optimization is just that gambling.
The real thing I have learned on WW is that I need to spend more time on product development and research, and less about what everyone else is doing.
I respectfully disagree about the IPO thing. Yes, in the beginning because of the quite period that is required.
Now, I don't think so.
If Googleguy were to come here an confirm or deny anything, it gives the SEO companies which Google is not to fond of more information to work with.
For the most part, Googleguy trolled for spam reports after a major update so they could work on the bettering the filters and algos and get feedback.
He is certainly not going to get into a debate about how their algo does or does not work. He wants to see search results and quote often asks for them.
They are a business whether public or not. Google does not exist so SEO's or Webmasters can make money. They exist so Google can make money.
If we all end up making money in harmony, then every thing is peachy. Some win, some lose. That is they way it has always been and will always be. For every winner, there has to be a loser.
If a person finds spam and feels compelled to report it, so be it. That is what the spam report is for. After reporting it though, move on and forget about it.
If someone got wiped out in an update because and their business is ready to fold because of it, well then they didn’t really have business to start with any way.
The only reason I even visit the board any more is for a distraction. It used to be helpful, it is not anymore. The posts are always the same and there are to many egos here.
People have got to remember that hidden text and cloaking do not help you rank better.
With respect, I disagree that hidden text cannot help you rank better ...
With semantic writing, comes strategic keyword placement, which at times, can be clumsy or overly aggressive for most tastes.
Rather than taking the time to carefully craft well written sentences which include the keywords needed to achieve what some SEO has decided is the ultimate density (in the right order) he or she wishes to achieve, it is much easier to just insert an "invisible" keyword at the most strategic point and carry on ... leaving the writer's copy untouched.
I have seen some very well crafted use of hidden text over the past year or so and anyone who is knowledgeable about semantic writing for search engines can easily manipulate results by simply moving hidden keywords around the page.
I've seen it done and even tried it on a friend's site last month just to see what would happen. Worked like a charm. He didn't want his copy messed with, so I gave hidden text a shot. His page went from #237 on Google to #2 inside of two weeks. I've just moved the hidden text a tad to see if I can get him the number one spot. Hey ... why not? Its not as though Google does anything about it even when it is reported!
I have never played with this sort of thing in the past and make a point of keeping my own site completely clean and within the guidelines set out by Google, but when doorways and hidden text are making it to the top of the heap ... what the heck!
When it stops working, I'll remove the hidden text from his page. Its that simple. He's not concerned about penalties as he's never had any search engine traffic in the past anyway.
Me on the other hand ... I'm a coward! I plan to leave my site alone. :)
The only reason people use those tactics is because they believe that what it takes to rank in the search engine is ugly and they don't want their users to see it.
OH come now ... that's not the only reason! ;)
Whether you choose to call these tactics spam or not, they can be and are used (successfully) to get ahead of the competition and IMHO, its silly to say they don't work or have any affect. They most certainly do. It just depends upon how skilled or sophisticated the competition is at SEO.
Use DHTML and put a button on the page labelled "View Spammy Stuff" - as long as the visitor can click something to view it, then it's not hidden.
If hidden text is the only reason a site is outranking you, then all you have to do to beat it is add some good text to your own page and get one inbound link. Your time is better spent doing that than filling in spam reports.
Most of us already added all "good" text that we need, and most importantly, that our visitors need. So, it will be actually "bad" text. And next step will be creating a doorway. Then maybe couple hundreds of doorways. Then creating a junk-directory entirely pointing to our site. Then starting a link exchange hype. Then completely abandoning the content and starting producing tons of junk trying to beat other junk...
Because of such "advices" the Internet is the way it is now. Good content sites are dying, while the junk directories and doorways are growing like mushrooms after the rain. I wonder what all these "pointers" will "point" at when all content sites are gone? At each other? This is so sad...
Most of us already added all "good" text that we need, and most importantly, that our visitors need. So, it will be actually "bad" text.
If you are on a SEO forum it would seem to me that you are looking for what the SE's need to make one page rank higher than another. That then would not include "all the good text you need" but the good text the SE's need.
Add to that a couple of good inbound links and you are back ahead of the "site positioned above me" site for a time at least.
This is exactly why Google sucks these days. They want to use an algo that just doesn't work. Obviously they need to do a combination of hand editing and algo adjustments to provide good quality serps. Get on it G.
That there's funny I don't care who you are. Would be even funnier if it weren't so close to true. I am waiting to see the index get to 10 billion indexed out of the mere millions of actual content pages out there. It's beginning to be like javascript, somewhere there is an actual few folks writing the scipts everybody else right clicks and pastes into their code.
G$$GLE is on the way IMHO toward full pay for play listings. This is just a stepping stone in the roadmap where they are heading. I see them losing search share and gravitating toward the less savvy webtv and aol type users that wouldn't know a paid ad from natural serps.
I should clarify my post above when I said you can't spam G$$GLE... I didn't mean to imply that you can't get away with it, on the contrary, the spammier the better it would seem and if you include adword syndicated ppc's even better. When it's all spam... then there is no spam. Alot of us undoubtedly remember when most of the www sites were cnet yellow before they were all ibm blue... not so far ahead we will look back at what once was from the 'plex and remember the good ole days that were.
Can you remind me where I said that KW density has "such an important role to play"?
Actually my words were "such an important role to play that you need to focus on it" which was prompted by your statement below.
The use of hidden text gives people the opportunity to increase their keyword density through the use of repetitive text that would not read properly if it were visible. This is it - plain and simple.I think most of us would accept that Keyword density is still a factor in SERPs so hidden text provides an advantage, however small, to those who use it, or as Google advises ...
I don't think I've ever focused on keyword density per se (as opposed to placement), but, as I mentioned, I accept that you and others might consider it more important.
My view on it, just to be absolutely clear, is that there are many other more important aspects to ranking than placing more text on a page.
And just because a site using hidden text is ranking for a phrase does not mean that it is ranking because the text is hidden.
As far as the "fact" of Google ignoring your reports, let's take a look at what Google says:
At minimum, we will use the data from each spam report to improve our site ranking and filtering algorithms. The result of this should be visible over time as the quality of our searches gets even better. In especially egregious cases, we will remove spammers from our index immediately, so they do not show up in search results at all.
My reading of that is that Google wants reports from especially knowledgeable people such as webmasters to help it improve its product. How it does that varies according to the seriousness of its effect on Google. For me, the logical conclusion is that if Google has left sites using hidden text in its index for such a long period of time, then it must not be such a great problem for Google.
(And further, one reasonable implication is that it is not such a great problem because it does not have a great effect.)
And if it is not such a great problem for Google, then why should it be such a great problem for those of you who wish to improve its value to the user and/or its commercial performance?
Our relationship with Google is symbiotic. It uses our content to fund its commercial expansion. We allow that for the benefit that ranking in Google brings. Virtually all of us here are involved in tampering with their search results (whether you argue that you are not breaching their guidelines or not).
Google would rather that its results were untainted by artificial manipulation (or, if you prefer, attempts to help the user experience). On other other hand, Google is quite happy to take actions that I am unhappy with [webmasterworld.com].
The difference between us is in our expectations of the company.
For example, assume the widgets and wodgets are exactly the same thing, just two different words people call them. This website has pages for:
blue widgets and another page for blue wodgets, both pages are identical except for one word being replaced in about 10 different places. Now multiply that by 10 different domains and sub domains each changing one or two other words, then multiply that by interchanging; light blue, dark blue, medium blue, etc. on each domain and for each widgets and wodgets.....
All of the pages show the same 20 products, most are interlinked, most are on the same server and most at are the top of the serps.
I have filed a spam report every 6 months for the last 2 years, nothing has ever been done, except the site keeps adding more duplicate pages and getting more top serp rankings.
It's clear that Google doesn't follow their own rules and has no interest in fair business practices, if you want to make a difference, file this report: Tell everyone you know not to even bother going to google, they can get a better variety of results from any other search engine.
i suggest one (or all) of 3 approaches:
1) ignore and leave them up to their own demise (eventually the engine will get it right)
2) if you can't beat 'em join 'em ... get disposable domains and do what they're doing too
3) be so good with your 'white hat' stuff that the 'black hats' can't come near you anyway
SIMPLE
I've filed numerous spam reports, and have seen action taken... may take a month or 2, but it's always worked. When filing a report, I'd say stating exact details matter more than personal emotions/opinions.
how about invisible text Brett?
I mean about 100 or so words with all the keyword combinations. That's no mistake either.
Couldn't have said it any better. I was one of those that cried about all this black hat stuff under a different screen name. It was a waste of time. It probably took me two years but I finally have a site that blows those guys away nowadays. Many of them I cannot find anymore except for some scrapers here and there.
It takes time...
