So if you discovered something.

[drall]

I discovered something in one of my zillions of tests I always have running, something huge. Something so huge in fact that after several additional tests has me shaking today.

I do not think it is a bug, with one change I can outrank any site in Googles index that competes with me. For all you smart arses no it is not adwords. I have never seen anything like this, not since Google was born. Not since all the web or webcrawler or av.

So if you discovered this, what would you do?

[tedster]

I would not post about it on a public forum ;)

And I would be very cautious about generating a lot of dramatic ranking increases all at once - a fast increase in impressions and clicks is bound to bring a manual check.

[HuskyPup]

So if you discovered this, what would you do?

Well, you'd sticky me first to try it out and then we'd go for a few beers if successful:-)))

[randle]

So if you discovered this, what would you do?

Not tell a single person if I could avoid it; not the wife/girlfriend/partner/mother whoever.

Cap any rise in revenue, or clicks caused by implementing this at 35%, no more. If that means rising in the SERP's to # 3, instead of suddenly sitting at the top of the mountain then so be it.

Take my ego, lock it in a drawer and throw away the key. Resist the temptation to use this to elevate my status, or settle a few scores.

Stay in control and way under the radar. If theres one single thing Google hates its people who are smarter than they are at their own game. If they find this door you have discovered they will slam it shut and lock it for good.

Good luck, I hope this brings you great succes. Anyone who has been doing that much testing deserves reward!

[Leosghost]

IIWIYP I would use what you know..start posting here about what you've found, and you'll get 90 "Google is broken, unfair, irresponsible etc" ..and 5 "everyone agrees that no one knows how to avoid Panda/ do well in Google", 2 "you'd share it here if you really knew" and 2 "you make a fortune on Madison avenue"...
and at least 1 outright hostile reply..so ..

If you found something ..use it ..and yes the "zillions" of tests helps ..so does making sense of what one observes..and trusting "intuition"* ..:)

*intuition being IME the subconscious rapidly sifting what you experience and see, hear , observe etc and arriving to an often highly accurate interpretation of the information..usually much faster than the conscious mind ..which catches up later after it sees more "proof"...

Before "changing" anything on a current site ..test it on a totally fresh batch of sites in diverse "niches"..to be sure it hold over at least 30 days ..and bear in mind that Google "oscillates" results in some "niches" and some geo areas over periods of 24 hours one may see highly varied results..

So you need to be prepared to pass many days and nights of "unusual" hours and from as many different IP s as you can set up or get access to..to "confirm" what you noticed / discovered ..

the ATW and AV ref made me smile.. :)...

yes.. indeed

..

[edited by: Leosghost at 6:56 pm (utc) on Oct 26, 2011]

[Content_ed]

Here's a good test. Try outranking Google.com for "Google"

[Simsi]

Is your PM box full yet? ;-)

[brinked]

I would keep it to myself and take advantage of it while it works because one rollout or rollback by google can negate it quickly.

I discovered something similar many years ago and regret I did not take advantage of it as much as I should have. I was deeply depressed at the time and slept and drank most of my hours away and just figured this method would always work.

[buckworks]

Brinked is right that you're at the mercy of the next algo tweak, so plan accordingly.

It will be tough not to brag, but be aware that the more you talk about it, the sooner someone else will figure out what you're doing, and that will be the beginning of the end.

The ability to make a bunch of money and keep your mouth shut about it will be a major character test for you!

If you have an influx of money because of this, which I hope you do, be conservative in how you spend and manage it.

Treat yourself to a few luxuries, whatever that might mean to you, but do something with the main portion that will improve your future financial security. Above all, do not incur debt based on increased income which will likely be transitory.

[proboscis]

I wouldn't plan on just using it a little bit for a long time. I would use it fast and hard then walk away. Whatever you're doing do it BIG and do it from morning to night, you can sleep when it's over. Good Luck!

[rowtc2]

If you can outrank a competitor, think what will happen if this "trick" goes in wrong hands. It was something similar with WMT, where you can remove another site (fixed by Google after it was reported by the person who discovered).

[Panthro]

Like proboscis says, fast and hard then walk. Then enjoy profits from book/movie deal you sign after the adventure.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

This post brings up the issue of staying off the radar.

- Step #1, don't post things like this, anywhere.
- Step #2, implement it slowly, the slower the better.
- Step #3, reap the rewards, quietly.

Noisy wheels get greased.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 8:50 pm (utc) on Oct 26, 2011]

[wheel]

I would suggest that you remember the time I had you over to my house and let you swim in my pool. Remember that time buddy?

Otherwise, per proboscis, cover your tracks completely - new server, new credit card, new registrar, new hosting, new everything. And start looking into insurance, credit cards, pills if you're so inclined, weight loss, on and on. Anything that pays per conversions, quickly and high dollar. Then rank like crazy.

Of course as soon as you rank on something like that you'll have every top SEO in the world examining you with a fine tooth comb and duplicating it. So these things have a limited shelf life (but exploit like nuts in the meantime).

Good luck!

[netmeg]

I wouldn't have posted about it in the first place.

(!)

[brinked]

I would not be surprised if a rep from google already saw your post and is looking into it right now.

There are so many little tidbits of info I learned over the last 6 or so years and I would never even think about posting them on any forum. Not even here where I like sharing with people. I only ever shared very vague basic info that was non specific. Yes, I was holding out from my good friends at WebmasterWorld but I was just being extremely cautious.

[mhansen]

Do whats best for your users, but with that much power... Don't be Evil.

[zerillos]

Since panda began, the biggest as***les in my niche are outranking everybody on everything. At the scale they are doing it, it is unreal. So, they must know something. I guess such a backdoor in the system really exists. Care to give us a hint? :)

[wheel]

Care to give us a hint? :)

Yeah here's a hint. Don't believe everything you read on the internet about some secret Google backdoor :).

If he's got one, excellent, and I sincerely hope he freakin' rakes it in large, and want to see a post in six months about how he made enough money to buy Yahoo.

But until then, I'd assume that maybe he's a bit more excited than he probably should be. In the meantime though, no reason to spoil the fun.

[Joshmc]

My bet is on that he discovered meta keywords... pretty much like google gold...

just kidding, really do hope you have something that works well!

[koan]

I would wear a cape and fight crime.

[Pjman]

I would call a new York times reporter. Prove it and make them look silly. They have been making all of us look silly by drinking their cool aid for years and then pull this profit is everything culture with the new CEO.

[drall]

Thanks for the feedback fellas!

Actually I discovered it quite by accident, one of my test pages was coded incorrectly on a find and replace. Page still loads properly (sorta)..

Took a while to figure out what was exactly going on, though I have no conclusive way to prove this it does seem to have something to do with something that was being tossed around here over the last month as a new major factor for panda.

The overall opinion seems to be

A. Make up ghosts accounts for everything and exploit the living hell out of it.

B. Mildly exploit it to try and stay below the radar.

C. Do No Evil and promptly report it to the Google team!

D. Make a funny lp and redirect thousands of terms to it for a brief few hours to minutes.

I think I am going to go for option A as long and hard as possible, ordering the new server right now in my motherinlaws name. When it's over I will show your guys everything, Im recording it all with camstudio:)

It isnt really a backdoor, if I am right it is just a huge ranking factor miscalc by someone at Google.

[Leosghost]

I would make that server(s)..doesn't sound like the same "thing",or "combination", but then it would have been surprising if there were only one or two ways to get to page one, or the top spot(s)..and hold there.. with very few backlinks and a page or two..

Don't use the IP that you use for here to run with it..as Sgt_Kickaxe mentions in a concurrent thread, the +1 button ( that was here until he mentioned it ) knows who you are..and thus, so do Google..

One would expect them to "backtrack" to what your IP has been doing, searching, looking at, the sites it apparently controls etc, recently ..and what it will be doing..

[drall]

I just dont have it in me to exploit it. What the hell is wrong with me?

I have decided to have some fun with it though that will bring it to Google and the worlds attention pretty damn fast.

Throw me some ideas, what kind of landing pages would you make?

Nothing vulger, I was thinking something funny or a non profit or something.

[gyppo]

Just be careful, if anyone suddenly jumps out of nowhere and outranks me I will spend a fair bit of time looking at what they are doing.

But otherwise, have fun - would be funny if this issue was causing all the rest of our sites to tank :P

[brinked]

drall,

If you're going to go that route. I would setup a simple wordpress blog. Make a post exposing this exploit as proof you are the one who in fact discovered it. Point google to your blog and start a thread on the most popular webmaster forums and watch your blog get nice flash in the pants traffic for a few weeks.

[whatson]

Do something to bring the Panda fiasco to the attention of more. And show the users just how ridiculous G SERPs are, perhaps with also a link to Bing where SERPs are not yet compromised.

[ron15]

My guess is that Google is already analyzing this thread to determine the posters IP address.

[brinked]

The most hilarious thing you can do is make bing rank #1 in google for google.