Spam link building with hacked sites to game google still working

[haseebnajam]

I was recently approached by a client whose sites were hit by some google algo. On preliminary competitor research, i came across this wonderful gem. have a look

img = [i.imgur.com...]

Now i know the tools arent always right but just look at the numbers here. On further investigation, the site has links from hacked sites. There is a complete article or blog post with auto generated content and link to that competitor site

There were some top brands sites as well. For example, honda site was also compromised. Now majority of these websites werent related to the competitor site niche yet the competitor site was ranking on all keywords in top 3 positions.

Anyone else has some info on this ?

[aristotle]

I have a question about that chart you linked to.

It says "New Referring Domains". The chart seems to indicate that everyday for the past 3 months or so, at least 100 new backlinks were discovered from new domains. Is that the correct interpretation? If so, how were these new backlinks discovered and reported?

Also, how do you know that most of these new backlinks come from hacked sites? Did you check 1000's of sites and determine that mozst of them are hacked?

I'm confused.

[JS_Harris]

Mentions are ranking like links and are harder to detect. A simple insertion of "example.com" without any hyperlink markup shows up in search console occasionally. The tools used to find links often only looks at hyperlinks and misses these.

[haseebnajam]

@aristotle Yes yuo are right on both counts. This is Ahref tools functionality.

Also i checked quite a few backlinks from these domains, plus there are domains in the list that wont link to that niche ever.

@JS_Harris These are not mentions. These are actual keyword based dofollow contextual links. I used ahref tool to check them

[martinibuster]

Red Herring
A clue that is misleading because it points to a logical and obvious suspect that is not the actual suspect.

Google is now using AI for 30% of all search queries. In 2018, Google made several major updates to their core algorithm that changed how it matched search queries to web pages, i.e. improvements to relevance.

Your ranking issues are far more likely to do with the updates to the core ranking algorithm than with scraper links that are common across the entire web.

- Spam sites link to normal pages.
- Normal pages don't link to spam pages.

The link architecture of the web reveals linking patterns that makes it easier to remove those kinds of scraper/spam links from the link graph- especially the kind of links that you are describing.

Your time may be better spent looking for a solution elsewhere other than spam links.

Good luck,
;)

Roger Montti

[haseebnajam]

they are not "spam" links...they are "hacked" links.

most of the site has wordpress and these blogs are hacked. There are links from domains like honda.com and several university sites...The source is a page added on the site with auto generated yet unique content.. And that article page links to target website.

Now an individual cant do this so there might be a service our there that is selling these kind of links. Just like sape network

[NickMNS]

I was recently approached by a client whose sites were hit by some google algo.

they are not "spam" links...they are "hacked" links.

There are links from domains like honda.com and several university sites...

Somewhere there is problem with the logic of your theory.
Site got hit by algo == many negative signals.
not spam :. (therefore) the links are coming from websites that Google sees as positive signals.
honda.com + university == Authoritative websites.

Links from not spam + Authoritative websites should == boost in rankings. Not drop in rankings.

The only explanation is that Google knows that these links are from hacked and/or spammy websites, thus assigns them no value => now see Martinibusters post.

[haseebnajam]

@NickMNS

I said "preliminary competitor research"

the site that was hit by Google is different than the site I am talking about.

It was a competitor who was using these type of links and he was ranking in top 3 for all major kws

[martinibuster]

You raise an interesting point about the distinction between hacked and spam.

It may very well be however once those infected pages link to spam, the whole site is considered spam. Check to see if they've lost visibility or are throwing warnings in Google. If so then that might be a sign that the links don't work.

Or it could be that they could cause damage in the short or long term.

It's a question that can use clarification from Google.

[NickMNS]

It was a competitor who was using these type of links and he was ranking in top 3 for all major kws

Basing yourself on what competitors are doing or have done is not the best strategy IMO. Your competitor maybe outranking you despite using these tactics. There really is no way of attributing which tactic of many that are employed by a competitor is the one that is pushing them ahead. An update may be on the cusp of happening and copying some sketchy tactic because your competitor does may cause you far more harm then good.

[FranticFish]

Mentions are ranking like links

@ JS_Harris, the context of this quote reads to me as if you're talking about unlinked urls.

Do you regard these as a ranking factor? And if so do you have a source? I checked and the most recent info I can find was someone quoting a Google rep back in 2015 that unlinked urls were used for discovery only.

I also thought it was generally accepted that 'brand mentions' were not a ranking factor.

I may be out of date though :)

Does anyone have the latest authoritative info on these?

[haseebnajam]

@NickMNS I am not basing on anyone here.

to summarize my thread: I just come across this website who is using "hacked" websites for backlinks. These hacked websites are pretty authority domains. The backlink is contextual in the form of an article on the hacked website which is also indexed by Google. The website using these hacked backlinks is ranking pretty well in Google

has anyone of you seen this technique before or do you have any more info about it?

[martinibuster]

has anyone of you seen this technique before

Not the way you describe it. Is the page layout different? What makes you think the page is hacked?

If the page is created surreptitiously and it's not linked from the navigation of the legit part of the site, then it's really just an orphan page with links created by the spammer pointing to it. There is no "authority" from the domain itself or any other advantage. The page stands and falls by itself as spam.

It could be a red herring, where a site is ranking not because of what you see.