Links & Negative SEO. Why?

[Simsi]

Something has been bothering me for a long time and I just can't work it out: why is negative SEO allowed to work.

Leaving aside conspiracy theories and the like, I can't understand why Google would not simply discount a bad link. Why would it penalise one? I see the argument that they want to punish spammers/black hatters but that's not logical: it's not rocket science to realise that that would then allow those same unethical folks to be able to hurt a competitor and potentially remove a genuinely good & useful resource as an obstacle.

I don't have an axe to grind here at all - I've never been involved with a site that has been hurt by this (yet!) but I do constantly worry that they could get targeted and as a consequence, I and others spend time that could be better spent elsewhere building defences, reading forums like this one and watching for a negative SEO attack. Which is also slowing down the process of what Google ultimately wants us to provide: a higher quality resource.

Love them or hate them, Google - collectively - is very, very intelligent and I simply can't work out why they wouldn't just simply nullify a bad link. Surely everyone would benefit from that ?!?

[EditorialGuy]

I'm not one to file spam reports, but it's amazing how some people talk one behavior, yet have a ton of doorway pages and manipulated links on/or leading to their main site.

Maybe you mean things like "forbeslife dot com" pointing to the Forbes Life section of forbes dot com or "tonightshow dot com" pointing to the Tonight Show pages at nbc dot com? Such legitimate redirections aren't "doorway pages," except to people who don't know any better.

[JD_Toims]

Links & Negative SEO. Why?

Idk, because it really doesn't make any sense to me and I don't "buy" the "market share" argument -- Between 2012 and 2013 Internet usage in the US increased by about 2%, but Google's searches increased about 15%. If Google's results were really better post-penguin, why did it's searches increase more than Internet usage growth which was much less?

To me, if usage of a site usage should increase at 2% [based on overall Internet growth in an area] but searches on the site increased by 15% I wouldn't think "doing great", I would think "WTF is wrong with my site/search-engine", because if I already had 70% or 80% of visitors for [whatever] my searches shouldn't increase 7X the increase of my possible user-base if the results of my search are better.

Based on the numbers I've seen, I think Google's results are better for Google making money, but for searchers finding what they want with less queries? I don't buy it, because based on what I've seen and not paying attention to the info/FUD Google provides, the numbers are *way* off for searchers being "more satisfied" and finding the results they want now than they were previously.

[JD_Toims]

Stop and think about things for a minute -- You run a search engine and your possible market increases by 2% but your total searches increase by 15%, are your results really better so people find things faster or do you promote your results as being better because you make more money when people search more to find the answer they're looking for?

[goodroi]

Google is a company looking to make money and that definitely impacts their decision making process. I am also in the business to make money and I make decisions based on short term & long term profit potential. If we want to really debate whether Google search results are better or worse after Panda we should start a separate thread. Let's try to get this discussion back to the focus of why Google assigns negative value to some links.

One reason why Google has been moving towards assigning negative values is that there is a huge amount of spam. If you crawl a trillion webpages and only 1% is spam, you are still talking 1 billion spam pages. To better deal with spam & seo manipulators like me, Google wants to use every tool that is efficient and scalable to make sure their search results are good enough to keep the users coming back and for advertisers to keep spending money.

Google isn't perfect and it is easy to find flaws. To be honest I doubt any search engine could be perfect with trillion of pages and millions of users with different preferences. It doesn't matter. Why spend a lot more money on developing a perfect system when a "good enough" solution that costs much less will still protect your profits and market position.

Since Google is a business that acts in their own best interest and not yours, it would be wise to diversify your traffic sources so you don't need Google for your website to be profitable. The funny thing is the more you diversify your traffic sources, often you will find your websites ranking better in Google and better insulated from potential negative SEO.

[glakes]

Stop and think about things for a minute -- You run a search engine and your possible market increases by 2% but your total searches increase by 15%, are your results really better so people find things faster or do you promote your results as being better because you make more money when people search more to find the answer they're looking for?

I read this JD_Toims and you are exactly right. I find it much harder to find anything in Google these days. I'd argue that even having a percentage of relevant spam returned for my search is better than what they are returning in November of 2014. Still, savvy internet marketers will do whatever it takes to be on top - even if it is harming other websites with toxic links. It's all about the buck and most everyone, Google included, will do what is necessary to make more money.

[samwest]

I was wondering why none of my images show up in Google images search anymore...I did a few searches and did find my images on OTHER websites...then, once I click the images, it either throws up a Virus warning or takes me to one of these "can't escape" website redirects leading me to some scam advertising. No wonder I don't rank anymore. I did none of this. I have a pretty good idea who is leading this sneaky negative linking campaign.

[JD_Toims]

I am also in the business to make money and I make decisions based on short term & long term profit potential.

Agreed.

One reason why Google has been moving towards assigning negative values is that there is a huge amount of spam. If you crawl a trillion webpages and only 1% is spam, you are still talking 1 billion spam pages.

True, and I agree with your previous post about taking signals into account, but by shifting a ranking signal from positive to negative, elimination of the manipulation of an algorithm isn't achieved. How it's manipulated is the only real difference.

By moving to "negative points" for certain links, Google didn't eliminate manipulation, it simply *shifted* the manipulation from "good" to "bad" and how someone manipulates the results changes with that, but it *absolutely* does not quash the ability for people to manipulate what's shown in the results.

The completely on-topic answer from me, which is in one of my previous posts is: IDK because it doesn't make sense to me -- To reiterate: Shifting a signal from positive to negative doesn't cut down on the ability to manipulate; it simply shifts the method of manipulation from one way to another.

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Added: Let's think about how SEs "countered" manipulation via the keyword meta tag for a minute -- They didn't say it's going to be counted as a negative if it's "overdone", what they said is basically: "Stuff it all you want, we don't count it any more..." and as knowledge of it's non-value grew people stopped using it and stuffing it.

Bottom line: The way SEs dealt with keyword meta stuffing worked and was/is effective -- Shifting how a ranking signal is interpreted, rather than ignoring the same ranking signal when it's "out of line" makes it so results *can* be manipulated and is *not* as effective in cutting down on the attempts to manipulate as much as making sure it's known what worked to manipulate SERPs yesterday isn't going to today -- It's been proven, because people don't bother with keyword meta tag stuffing any more since it's completely ineffective.

[JD_Toims]

I read this JD_Toims and you are exactly right. I find it much harder to find anything in Google these days.

Thanks! I'm glad at least one person sees what I'm saying.

BTW: Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

[Clay_More]

It's all about the buck and most everyone, Google included, will do what is necessary to make more money.

A true statement when we realize that for every possible search term/phrase there are either sites currently in the SERPS doing whatever they have to in order to retain position, or sites coming up that will do whatever they need in order to get on that first page.

Good posts by goodroi and JD_Toims.

[Simsi]

Added: Let's think about how SEs "countered" manipulation via the keyword meta tag for a minute -- They didn't say it's going to be counted as a negative if it's "overdone", what they said is basically: "Stuff it all you want, we don't count it any more..." and as knowledge of it's non-value grew people stopped using it and stuffing it.

Great observation JD_Toims. This to me is what would make sense here too then we could all stop wasting time & worrying about whether our competitors or malicious people are targeting us and get on with more productive tasks.

[goodroi]

Actually Bing a long time ago admitted they were using meta keyword stuffing for potential demotion aka assigning a negative value to it.

I doubt meta keyword stuffing is enough by itself to demote a webpage in the search results. It could be one of the signals they look at and if you accumulate enough negative signals they might move your webpage from the innocent/ignorant category into the malicious/manipulation category which does get penalized.

[TapFam]

For SEO in 2014 forget about links. If you want traffic to a web property then you'll have to pay and it's simple as that. Too much competition on the organic side, so if your not grandfathered in, then it's almost impossible to get there. SEO is a waste of time in my opinion beyond 2014. Google puts who Google wants on the first pages of the search engine results pages and that's the secret sauce that they won't be transparent about, and it's the way search has always worked, but it's more noticeable now because of too much competition. Sorry for my opinion :( I can't understand why SEO, negative SEO and links matter anymore, when the whole process is about building a whole bunch of crap the internet audience doesn't need. Why negative SEO is allowed to work is just to confuse webmasters into wasting time and money.

[JD_Toims]

Actually Bing a long time ago admitted they were using meta keyword stuffing for potential demotion aka assigning a negative value to it.

But how much influence did Bing have a long time ago, or even today? Yeah, it's got a bit, but any announcement Bing made wouldn't have an impact like Google saying openly it's not used by Google or any major search engine at the time -- Basically, a Bing announcement a long time ago likely wouldn't have carried enough weight to be what caused it's use to "die off". It's much more likely it was the lack of use by Google and Yahoo made public via Google's statements that caused the stuffing to stop.

[mrengine]

By moving to "negative points" for certain links, Google didn't eliminate manipulation, it simply *shifted* the manipulation from "good" to "bad" and how someone manipulates the results changes with that, but it *absolutely* does not quash the ability for people to manipulate what's shown in the results.

This move may have bought Google a little time, but I think we are already witnessing a preview of what Google's search results will look like in the future. The level of manipulation is so high now that displaying big brands is the easiest and safest way for Google to please their visitors. Though Google likely ranks results for profit, just as they make page modifications to drive more paid clicks, the webmaster community in general shares some of the blame too. For the most part, we have steered Google in a direction where their only option, absent an algorithmic way to judge the quality of content, is to put trust/value in well established national or multinational brands. Signals, which were used to rank websites, are mostly tainted and untrustworthy.

[System]

The following messages were cut out to new thread by goodroi. New thread about Matt Cutts Sabatical at: google/4713090.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Please be careful to stay on topic and start a new thread to discuss other topics :)

[edited by: goodroi at 1:53 pm (utc) on Nov 4, 2014]

[buckworks]

using meta keyword stuffing for potential demotion

Being demoted for meta keyword stuffing isn't something that an outsider could do to you. The only sins you'd suffer for would be your own.

[JD_Toims]

Being demoted for meta keyword stuffing isn't something that an outsider could do to you.

Exactly!

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Maybe a bit more background before asking the question would even make sense.

Keyword meta tags don't count in rankings, and "stuffing" isn't a penalty in Google.
Only a site owner/operator could legally do it.

Description meta tags don't count in rankings, and "stuffing" isn't a penalty in Google.
Only a site owner/operator could legally do it.

Title attributes on links don't count in rankings, and "stuffing" isn't a penalty in Google.
Only a site owner/operator could legally do it.

Duplicating content doesn't count in rankings, and isn't a penalty in Google.
Only a site owner/operator could do it.

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Why is there a Google penalty possible for inbound links, which legally, any reader, any site operator, any SEO, any negative SEO, really, anyone can place to any site they feel like and it is *not* necessarily the work of the site owner?

Seriously, Google simply "disregards" things only a site owner/operator could legally do, but when it comes to something anyone could legally do there's a chance of a penalty from Google -- How On Earth does that make any sense?

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Basically, what only a site owner/operator could legally do isn't a penalty in Google, but what anyone can legally do could be -- That's not being "super smart", that's completely bass-ackward.

[toidi]

Basically, what only a site owner/operator could legally do isn't a penalty in Google, but what anyone can legally do could be -- That's not being "super smart", that's completely bass-ackward. 

or desperate!