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Isn't there a limit to something like this? It's been that way for a few months now and they continue to crank out newer sites that clog it even more. Anybody?
Happy New Year!
Beat 'em at their own game. If the sites are relevant to the query, etc - there's no problem in Google's eyes.
So, you build more sites - get more quality links - up the ante - make it very hard for them to compete with you. They do something - you do it better.
Business - play to win. :) Isn't that what IBM says about ebusiness? lol.
The truth at last.
It's really a free for all!
Cheat, mirror, duplicate, cross-link, become an ODP editor, spam...ad neauseum...
Let battle commence.
I was searching hard through a particular industry last week. Somewhere out of the top 800 sites, over 50% were owned by one company and a good 40% more were affiliates of that company. And this was a huge industry.
buy some adwords - get yourself noticed.
Excell,
One man's junk is another man's livelihood. It is not junk. The only reason you have to "suffer" reading about it is because people like hardwood-guy and me have to suffer the economic consequences. You might be playing at it - we have to earn our living from it.
Brett - I advertise on adwords, overture and espotting so it costs me a lot of money.
It does not make it any less galling when cheats come top.
We will keep whingeing until something is done about it.
Someday you'll join the fight..
fortunately, they won't hog all SERPs for all search terms on all engines, so you'll still get traffic. rememebr the link at the bottom of google pages saying "Dissatisfied with your search results? Help us improve"
In fact I'm quite serious about doing something about cleaning up the *junk* and I will call it that thanks.
Working within the search engines published guidelines and making your site the best it can be has always been the best for long term results.
What happens when a brand name becomes so widely recognized, that people target the name? What about targeting "amazon" or "microsoft" keywords? Surely, you'd think microsoft sites and amazon sites should come up first for their own name? What if microsoft had one site for every version and name of software they have ever produced?
There are lots of different ways to look at results and who should come up first. It will never happen, but I have mantained since the beginning, that hotmail.com should NOT come up for a search on "hotmail" on a search engine. Different strokes - different folks.
Herein lies the rub that I probably should tape to the mirror to remind myself, get off your duff and go build some content - don't whine about the competition, compete with them. Good content and brand loyal long term repeat users trump all spam.
I called some of my "honest" competitors, to share the information with them, and they all asked me to forward the list of offending domains to them, many of them filed spam complaints, and emailed yahoo with complaints. I let them know that one of our fellow competitors was violating the TOS, breaking the rules and having an unfair market advantage over the rest of us, you would be surprised how quick they jump on board, especially if you have done all of the research and email them the facts.
To those that defend breaking the rules: If everyone cheated, it would end up getting out of control. The idea of the internet is to compete on a level playing field, that the little guy can go head to head with the corporate giant, and win! If you cheat the system, it will come back to bite you. More and more webmasters are starting to see this and will be reporting, even if you all try to talk them out of it. I keep hearing "don't waste your time, work on your own site" and all I have to say is, I would rather spend a couple hours a week reporting those who break the rules, than to stoop to their level. When your site is banned and nowhere to be found, I'll be #1. For now my top ten position is working, and I'm taking out the cheaters.
There is strength in numbers, this board is full of those who "bend the rules" but there are still those of us who decide not to go that route. I would suggest that you make a list of all of the mirrors/duplicates/doorways, etc. and share them with a few of your competitors that are not using them, preferably those who also advertise and/or sponsor related directory categories and keywords. Take this list, refine it into a comprehensive report and use it against those who break the rules.
You see, there has to be 10 sites in the top 10, if 8 of them belong to one company, there is something wrong. If they are breaking the rules you have two choices, break the rules, or take action against them. I am not one to sit around and be beat by someone who is cheating, and I'm not a cheater. Yahoo takes action against people who violate their directory TOS (terms of service) very quickly, dmoz will remove editors if you show them the facts, google, well, they seem to ignore all of this so far, I would hope that they don't wait until it becomes a huge problem for surfers. See, if everyone does this, where does it leave the searcher? Wading through page after page of mirror sites all owned by a few companies.
Anyone can buy a domain name and fill a page with keyword rich content, how many can walk the straight and narrow and succeed without cheating? how many are willing to take action? how many are just going to complain and do nothing about it? how long will google allow them to cheat? When google wizens up about this, this board will be filled with people complaining that they have been banned, telling us their sob stories about how Google ruined their business. Too bad for them, any tactics that try to manipulate results or PR will eventually be filtered out or get them banned, they make the choice, and who's going to stop them, me? you? anyone?
The original question was: How can they get away with it?
The answer: Until more people decide to do something about it!
<snip> In my spare time, I am compiling a list of facts that will bring down dozens of corrupt dmoz editors, this is just a start : ) I have opened the lines of communication with supervisors of the Yahoo directory and spent quite a while letting them know how to spot offenders, Y! wrote me a few times in the past couple weeks to thank me for the info and let me know that they will be taking action to clean their directory, I am helping by going through categories I sponsor and compiling lists of duplicates/mirrors/doorways.
So cheaters? you still think I'm wasting my time? You may be able to scare a few people off, but there will always be people like me who will not stand for it.
You may be next!
Happy New Year! :)
[edited by: NFFC at 2:10 am (utc) on Jan. 2, 2003]
[edit reason] As per TOS [/edit]
MOST of the sites that rank high in Google dont rank because they have content..they rank because of LINKS.. which is TOTATLLY swayed to the corrupt webmasters that build hundreds of websites and thosands if not tens of thosands of pages of RUBBISH..
Trust me I'm working on getting ahead and I've done it in one regard but waiting for the most recent update to see if a few important search phrases get ahead of these guys. I've subscribed to the keyword rich content theory and take it very seriously wherby the other one prefers to copy from several .org sites they are members of.
I have no intention of following their ways and do not whine about their presence and their activities. As a matter of fact I've asked for a link from them which I was told very recent it will happen, but we'll see about that. One good thing has come out with this...they are aware of what I'm doing, but they don't know the 'lil secrets I've discovered. God forbid if the webmaster belongs to this board.
Darn:
Give me some time on this:)
Actually, it's the best and most consistently successful advice I've heard.
/$0.02
What WILL get you to the top is join 4 or 5 of your webmaster buddies and crosslink each other over thosands of pages...and IMO thats unethical
Not that I have seen. What most do is promote webmasters building good sites that compete. We promote accountability. You can't do much about that site that is accross the tracks, but you can do something about your site - that's 100% in your power. The spammer down the street won't last forever, you can be there when they fall off the radar. You do that with quality long term content. You want to do that until you don't need the search engines at all and that the traffic they do bring is just icing on the cake.
We also promote search engines taking care of their own business. When I have a chargeback, that's my cost of doing business. When a suspect page causes a problem for a search engine, that is the search engines cost of doing business and theirs to correct.
I have been interested in leveling the playing field for quite some time now
Darnbarn also said,
The idea of the internet is to compete on a level playing field
Darnbarn also said,
You see, there has to be 10 sites in the top 10, if 8 of them belong to one company, there is something wrong.
Darnbarn also said,
How can they get away with it?
I do get so sick of these people that come out screaming cheater/spammer just because their site is getting beaten in the SERP. Of course THEIR SITE is the best and most relevant and should be on top of the results, anything else and there is cheating going on. Give me a break...
I want a level playing field. I am currently #2 & #4 for a few terms that bring me over $50k a month, I have more content than any other site that is remotely related to my category, and I submit dozens of articles that are added as content and distributed to many other sites and newsletters every week. What I don't like is that one of my cheating competitors, has a dozen of the top 30 results, all doorways/crosslinks/mirrors/etc.
So, I am going to spend a few hours a week, compiling information against those who cheat, dmoz editors who abuse their power and anyone else who may have slipped under the radar at dmoz or yahoo. I am also going to share this information with the direct competitors of those doing the cheating and encourage them to send emails, fill out reports, etc.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me messages, I will develop some tools to help better organize the fight. Am I wasting my time? I don't think so, I'm making progress, and working on developing tools and resources for others to do the same. I think there are more of us that will fight against what is wrong, than those who will join in the cheating. Who do you think will win? In the time it takes for someone to purchase a couple dozen keyword-domain.com's, fill them with content and link them together, I can add all of my content AND report them.
Not all that dislike this have a vested interest or concern to do with the positioning of their own site.
You seem to be posting on a lot spam threads lately. Sticky me with your domain. I am curious to see it.
Thanks
I don't think there is - not for a second. In general searches I've run, I rarely run into anything that I'd call spam. I bet it's been six months since I've seen a true doorway page, a kw stuff page, or even hidden text. The top results are darn good.
Thanks
Well, except for maybe Tijuana Chicken p*rn sites.
(joke)
