Interesting linking technique

SEO web page with client links

[ogletree]

I just found one of my competiters that had a good PR because the SEO they hired gives a domain.com/~client/<some links page related url>.htm page to each clinet on several of their sites that have a decent PR. I guess if an SEO can get several sites of their own with a decent PR they can help all their clients. It does not seem right that an SEO can do this. Google should be able to catch things like that. It is very obvious. I guess Google just randomly catches a tiny percentage of spammers. We have all seen to many schemes that work and work and work and never get banned.

[rogerd]

I'm not sure if this is really spam, ogletree. Many web developers have online portfolios, and may set up unique pages for each client. Replicating across multiple domains makes it a bit more fishy, perhaps, but I guess it might depend on the presentation. Spam is in the eye of the beholder, of course...

[Tropical Island]

If I was an SEO webmaster and had a PR5 or 6 site I would certainly have a customer list on a high PR page with a list of my clients websites. I would be a fool not to.

[ogletree]

The name of the page is <some links page related url>.htm and this guy has several pages like that in his back links. Everything is the same except the domain.com that it comes from. The pages are exactly the same words with a different color. That is pure SEO work nothing else. There really is no other way of looking at it. He paid for good SEO and got it I guess. I also found out this SEO hosts a store for the <some charity>. I did a little research and they have a huge elaborate link farm for put SEO purposes. This whole content is king thing is a load of crap. All you got to do is learn to be real sneaky. They only people that get banned are people that are not sneaky enough. If you work real hard and put a lot of thought into it you can spam Google forever and never get caught. Even if you do get caught you won't get hit too hard because your scheme is so huge and spread out all over the place. I have seen at least 2 SEO places now that have huge link farms that if you did not know what you were looking for you could never figure it out. All you need is lots of websites owned by different people and with different IP's and you are set. It takes quite a bit of effort to put it all together. There is no way Google has the computing power to catch all these guys and they never will.

[edited by: ciml at 6:05 pm (utc) on May 28, 2003]
[edit reason] See above. [/edit]

[rogerd]

<some links page related url>.htm, eh? That's pretty subtle... ;) I guess it beats PR-transfer.htm, though.

[edited by: ciml at 6:06 pm (utc) on May 28, 2003]

[ogletree]

I think the PR thing is great now that I understand it. SEO's can put themselves where they want to be. Google may not want that to happen but it makes Google a better place. If nobody did SEO Google would return worthless results a lot of the time. Most of the time SEO and even SPAMMY SEO makes Google a better place. Most SEO people don't spend much time trying to get themselves in irrelevant places on Google. I have seen some keywords where there is no competition and the results are worthless. Most of the relevant sites are not found or buried deep. If you are not where you want to be you have not tried hard enough or waited long enough for thing to sync up. I now know what to do. It may take six months but I am sure I can get a PR6, which is all I need to get to the top of most of my keywords.

[SEO practioner]

" There is no way Google has the computing power to catch all these guys and they never will. "

Ogletree... Not sure I agree with you. Google is now very sophisticated and will become even more as time goes by.

[ogletree]

There is just no way Google will find elaborate link farms they would have to compare things that are almost impossible to detect without comparing every page with every page and look at whois. Can you imagine how long it would take to make map of all back links on the Internet and find trends that find elaborate link farms? They could find some parts of link farms but not all. If you had a big enough and convoluted enough system they would never find them all. I have pointed out a few to them and nothing has been done. I would imagine they even allow link farms if you make sure it is not obvious. I would like to know if they really care about the ones that are very well thought out. As I said before they help Google be a better place a lot of times. The only bickering is between SEO's that are fighting over the top places.

[stever]

OK then, ogletree, I'd really be interested in the answer to this:

How and with what rationale do you class an SEO (or web designer) giving links from a site as spam?

You say you've "reported" it several times and nothing has been done.

Does the spam consist of the PR of the linking site? In other words, would it be alright if the page had a PR2?

Or do you consider it unethical for a consultant or designer to link to their clients at all? How about in the other direction? How about links from charity sites to designers? Is that spam because they have high PR?

I read a similar thread to this one this month where someone was bemoaning the fact that a competitor had "hundreds" of pages and that this was spam that they couldn't compete with.

Google have their own point of view and may or may not feel that their interests would be best served by an algorithm that would benefit the mediocre, the incompetent and the lazy.

NB. Try looking at a visual mapping engine like touchgraph for a linkmap.

[ciml]

All of the sites in someone's portfolio links to each of the others? I wouldn't recommend that approach to anyone not wanting PR0.

[ogletree]

Hey I'm not bemoaning anything. There is no way to know if that kind of thing is SEO or not. The point is it works. At this point you need to make a link farm that does not look like a link farm. That needs to be part of any SEO project. If a company does SEO for a living and you see stuff like that you know darn well the only reason those pages exist are to get better placing on the SERPS. Actually they are not being very careful. I would not name a page that basically says PR passer page.

I guess the reason I brought this up is to say "hey this is another tool for SEO". It should be important part of any SEO project. Just try to not be obvious and you will be safe.

[stever]

I understood that ogletree was saying that links (or a link - looking at it logically it makes no difference) from a high PR SEO or designer site or sites to clients were "spam".

It's an interesting point of view, since again logically it works in reverse. Thus if we were both competing in the web design field and he had a high PR charity client that he placed a link to him on, and I had a lowly PR widget-producing client giving me a link, I could claim that he was "spamming" our web design area...

[Shak]

I guess the reason I brought this up is to say "hey this is another tool for SEO". It should be important part of any SEO project. Just try to not be obvious and you will be safe.

A Good SEO NEVER reveals his clients :) and neither does a good PPC manager.

Ogletree seems like the time spent researching "this" SEO could have been spent doing lots of other constructive things.

Shak

[killroy]

Since this has become such a popular type of thread, I'd like to point out a few things.

First of all no algorithm dealing with human factors such as natural language can be perfect. Secondly, it is quite eay to escape teh mesh of a net as huge as teh google bot. I personally could sprout 100s of schemes puttin millions of content apges on evadign duplicate cehckers and any other spam filters google might want to come up with. In fact the only reason I don'T is because I'm a coder and not a business man, and as such have not a single for-profit website ;)

Please try to think of your visitors and your customers. Dragging somebody who doesn't want your product and scamming them into an unhappy buy is not the way top build a successful business. The more you spam the PR system the less valuable it gets until we're back to keyword only based ranking. Let's not do that to ourselves.

Try this: for every spammy PR sucking, page replicating scheme you see, identify it's target market, it's profit source and then build a content based, conversion oriented solid website to the guidelines published in this forum. Compare your traffik and profits and rankings in Google 2 months later. I imagine you will suddenly not feel they have an unfair advantage, and you will realise that good content does actually win out. Most of us jsut don't try it often enough.

SN

[ogletree]

I am not saying this is to be done to get visitors you don't want. I am saying it is a worthwhile tool to get to the top of the search engine in your keyword. I said earlier that most people doing SEO, work hard to get good visitors not random visitors. There are very few keywords that have perfect results. What I meant by perfect results is "results that even remotely have anything to do with the keyword". Every key word I have ever typed in, there was at least one result and most of the times more than one that have nothing to do with what I typed in. Google needs to understand that what some call spamming makes their search engine better. Right now most of the time if you have keyword in title and description the highest PR site with those things will be first. I have one site with a PR2 but is buried way deep because every site with one of the 2 keywords in their title will beat me out. Google needs to change the default from OR to AND on multiple word phrases. I think that would solve a lot of problems.

Also on another note how hard would it be for people to paste their posts in Word for a spell check. It is very hard to read some of these posts full of typos.

Also I am not saying to reveal clients. The only way you could find out the clients this way is through lots of research and a working knowledge of Google.

[killroy]

I'm sorry about my spelling, I'll try to make a better effort.

To the mods: you should look at the open source aSpell spell checker. If you need help implementing it into your forum software, I'd volunteer, I love linguistics work.

Regarding the multi word searches. It's a semi fuzzy algorithm, appropriate for the large dataset they use. Basically they give additional rankings to sites that include more keywords, but also include matches of fewer words.

SN

[ogletree]

I don't think it is that fuzzy. I see sites that come up high with only one word of a 2 word phrase search all the time. One of my keywords brings up a site that only has one keyword of the 2 because it has a PR8. There is no reason for that. The first time anybody types in a phrase they want it to be keyword AND keyword not keyword OR keyword. I always have to put the "" to get better results why don't they default to that.

[MNBill]

ogletree made a bunch of interesting observations, & is - IMO - a smart cookie. E.g. ---

(4:11 pm on May 28, 2003 ogletree)
"I guess if an SEO can get several sites of their own with a decent PR they can help all their clients."

I'm aware of that point actually being used to PROMOTE to potential SEO clients, Og.

(4:26 pm on May 28, 2003 ogletree)
"This whole content is king thing is a load of crap. All you got to do is learn to be real sneaky. They only people that get banned are people that are not sneaky enough."

I can - and have - shown this forum top-10-ranked pages that have TWO words on them. Period (actually, not even a period!) There's your "link popularity" at work, GG. Forget content.

Remember though when content DID matter? Couple years ago? Man, that was a lot of work! I look at those old, archived pages now and just shudder. MUCH easier now, thank you, GG.

(AND, )
"All you need is lots of websites owned by different people and with different IP's and you are set. It takes quite a bit of effort to put it all together."

Aaaaaaay-yup! But not as much as hand-crafting content used to take.

(4:45 pm on May 28, 2003 ogletree)

"Most SEO people don't spend much time trying to get themselves in irrelevant places on Google."

Exactly. What is Google worrying about? Why would any real SEOer TRY to deceive their clients' potential customers? Huh? (Anyone done a GG search on 'hubris'?) If my client has a shoe store, why would I put out a "Pets" sign? Duh.

(AND)
"I have seen some keywords where there is no competition and the results are worthless."

The irony, eh? What IF Google's results are improving BECAUSE the incidence of SEO is increasing?

I have a couple clients in obscure categories (no other SEOers around), and man, it's easy to rocket to the top over the jumbled mess of results. I can show you search results right this minute on GG where only 1 out of 20 results is 'legit' ... i.e., has content related to the search, and is not a link farm; mine.

(at 6:45 pm on May 28, 2003 ogletree )
"Google needs to understand that what some call spamming makes their search engine better."

Oh boy.

I nominate ogletree for king of Internet search, if that position is open. If 'New Users' can't nominate, then I'll second your nomination.

Bill in MN

[steve128]

How can a SEO be accused of spamming by showing client sites?

If the seo site shows for a relevant query, whats the problem?

If the clients site shows for a relevant query, whats the problem?

So the seo is doing his job correctly, the git.

Occasionally the seo site will show for a client query, especially if a high PR, so what, it will be a link and maybe a short description, with no intention of spam.

This is not spam, legitamate maketing may be.

It is no wonder google ignores so many "spam reports"

[BigDave]

I don't have a problem with a portfolio link. What he is describing sounds more like a link farm.

I have come across a couple of SEO sites that a big portion of their SEO seems to be giving you a link from their portfolio page. It's kinda funny when you realize that the small company buying their services think they are getting something more than a link.

That link may not make much difference to a large site in a competitive area, but if you are a donut shop in a little town in Iowa, that one PR5 link would make you look like a miracle worker.

You could even manipulate those lieel guys to periodically rehire you by removing their links as "old clients" and telling them that google has changed their algo and they need to rehire you for a tuneup every few months.

[ogletree]

Actually that is the way things are going these days. All the big boys are in congress right now trying to get laws passed so they can sell subscriptions to software and not likenesses and if you don't pay your fee they can disable the program. This includes Microsoft.

People who pay SEO's don't care what they do as long as they deliver. Right now I have a PR3 site that is at the top of one keyword that is important to me. I am working on getting it to a PR6 to get to he top of my other keywords. If things go the way they have been I should have it in a month or 2. Unless Google starts ranking people by how many pictures of chickens a person has on their site I should be ok. The way things are going it could be anything.

I just started doing this 2 months ago and have learned a lot. I want to charge for my services eventually and I figure I need a site with high PR before I can convince people to pay me to do it for them.

[steve128]

Yeah there will always be fall guys, but it is not spam....which the origanal poster insinuated.

[steve128]

ogletree
You just shot yourself in the foot with your last comment, re PR6....you are wanting the same, but begrudge others?

[steve128]

BigDave
Thats exactly what most do "PR for Sale", though a donut shop is unlikely to fork out 1k a month for a PR8 link.

What you say is completely true but it is reletive throughout the scale of competiveness.

The donut shop, yeah sure, they charge 500 bucks make a few changes to title, pay someone 50 for a pr 5 link, they are in page 1...thats business not spam.

(So long as they sell donuts) ;-

[ogletree]

I started the post thinking it was spam but came to a new relazation after some more thought. I do not begrudge anybody I am not sure what you mean.

[SEO practioner]

" You could even manipulate those lieel guys to periodically rehire you by removing their links as "old clients" and telling them that google has changed their algo and they need to rehire you for a tuneup every few months. "

LOL

[SlyOldDog]

Also on another note how hard would it be for people to paste their posts in Word for a spell check. It is very hard to read some of these posts full of typos.

Olgetree - I think the typos above may have been intentional....

[BigDave]

Ogletree,

I think I may not have gotten things quite right when I read it originally.

1. Are you talking about what is strictly a portfolio type link?

2. Or are you talking about creating a link farm between all your client sites?

3. Or a link farm with several sites owned by the SEO?

The first is proper, the other two are playing with fire. What I thought you were talking about was #2, but after rereading it, I'm not so sure.

[pageoneresults]

Link Farm, Web Ring, there are all sorts of names for this. Here is the scenario as I see ogletree describing it...

One templated page that contains SEO client links. That one templated page gets updated on each clients site as a new client comes on board. So, if there are 50 clients in the portfolio, there are most likely 50 identical link pages sitting out there.

I'd be very skeptical of even attempting to do this. If there are not that many links, it may not hit the radar. But, let's say there are 50 in the ring, that is something that I believe can be detected with ease.

Could it be classified as spam? Depends on which classification you choose to use. Most of us here know exactly what those pages are intended to do, pass PageRank from one site to another. If they are calculated into the mix now, I would expect that they won't be in the future. Changes seem to be happening daily with the SE landscape.

Ogletree mentions that they found one of their competitors with high PR. And? Do they also hold respectable positions for their targeted keyword phrases? Let us not forget that PR is just one factor in the equation. You could take your PR3 and outrank your PR6 competitor. These days, you can take your PR0 and outrank your PR7 competitor! ;)

Ever since one of the Mods here spelled out what SPAM stood for, I've had a completely different perspective. ;)

SPAM
Sites Positioned Above Me

I'll never forget that. It is a perfect summation for most of what we discuss here day in and day out.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 1:23 am (utc) on May 29, 2003]

[ogletree]

I am talking about a very sophisticated link farm. There would be no templates. Each client would have his or her own directory. Each page would be different. It would look like a legitimate thing to do. The way to create a link farm is to make it not look like a link farm. There are legitimate sites that do such a thing. There would be no way to know the intent of the site developer. I promise there are lot of sites out there that are controlled by one person or company that could be considered a link farm. Google has no way to distinguish between a well thought out link farm and a company that owns lots of sites because they are a web designer/developer or a company with lots of divisions.

I have never seen a site beat out a high PR with a low PR. Maybe right now there are some but you cannot go by anything you see right now. Google is a complete mess right now. Besides even if that is possible it has so many factors that nobody knows about. You are throwing darts blind folded and you have no idea where the board is. Besides I challenge anybody to show me a low PR site that beats a high PR site and they both have the keyword in the first word of the title and description. If you have those 2 things you will always win with higher PR. If you find one or two they are flukes and you could never plan such a thing.