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we are concerned about flower business that spam the av index for every city in the country even though they do not actually have a flower shop in that city - just a toll free phone number
making local florist searches much more difficult
we need the same access as the big guns to search indexes -
we have found one business particular that has spammed the av index for every major city in the country -
this company uses doorway domains and redirect metas once the page has been spidered - removing the submitted optimised the optimised content
what can the mom and pop florist do to compete with the redirect-a-page spammers of the web?
if we find one of these pages is it enough to copy the actual redirect page url and resubmit it to av?
will this scrub previously spidered content for the url? - if this were possible - we see this as the best weapon to ward off doorway domain spammers
if you do an av search for new york florist, atlanta florist, or just about any other city you will find the top listed returns domain doorways all pointing to [urls snipped NFFC]
what can the local florists of the world do to compete for accurate local florist searches by city???
we will post your suggestions on our site for our members-
Edited by: NFFC
As well as
Combatting Spam at Altavista [doc.altavista.com]
or
REPORT OFFENSIVE PAGE [doc.altavista.com]
more specifically....
if we find doorway pages that are redirects with optimised content removed - if we resubmit the page will it scrub clean the spidering for that url and start over???
Firstly and importantly, I would NOT recommend you simply copy any other material (content) - that is likely to be breaking copyright laws and could get you into hot water. I wasn't referring to urls.
Resubmitting a webpage may not help as the page may be cloaked. Not only that, you are focusing your time on reporting other sites - why not refocus on your own optimisation strategy?
Why don't I try to give you some ideas to help you form a strategy for yourself?
Think about it this way - if all you mom and pop florists got together and linked together on your members' site - how do you think that would help?
How could you link by town?
How could you link by region?
How could each linked page/website be utilised to create a national index?
What optimisation could mon and pop florists do to increase their page ranking and how could you help them centrally to achieve consistency.
What pages would you need to create on the members' website to help optimise the individual mom and pop sites.
When you've written down your strategy, follow it through, experiment, again, follow up with changes.
It's a lot to think about, but it's really worth the planning. It might take you several weeks/months to get things sorted, but it will be worth it.
AV is big on link popularity and link them together with text links will help each one of them.
While optimization for each site is most important you have to remember that the one-page-fits-all optimization does not work that well for every engine. However there are some things that still hold true, like the <title> <description> tags, for AV especially.
AV is a 100% text indexer similar to google and the context of each page is important.
If you read through the AV forum here you'll have a decent idea of how to build your pages for AV.
I have also had sites that get a higher rank if they are in Look Smart as well. But the mom n pops might not be able to afford the $199.
I would spend time optimization each site and building a link popularity plan.
My experience is that most SEs usually find and eliminate this stuff without my help. After it has persisted for several months and I've become thoroughly frustrated, I've occasionaly politely emailed an SE:
"Gentlemen
I frequently use your search service and recently searches on the phrase "flower shop" have become nearly useless. I find that most of the first 20 results your service suggests all direct me to one site, although they appear to be unique sites.
Any help you can provide in returning more useful results would be greatly appreciated."
Pose as a disgruntled user, avoid using terms that would identify you as an SE expert. Although it may take a month or two for the mess to get cleaned up, it invariably gets cleaned up.
go ahead and try a new your florist search and you will see what i mean -
this company has #1 0r 2 locked up in nearly every city in av -
the page presented is simply a meta refresh to the actual web site
how are they doing this??? how are they able to get this great ranking and keep it with blank pages??
is there a way ti simulate the av spider on the page to see if it is a server side host redirect?
are they submitting optimised pages watching for spider then pulling opt out and entering generic redirects???
please follow these links - all lead to doorway pages
[altavista.com...]
[altavista.com...]
[altavista.com...]
Back to the issue at hand;
>what can the mom and pop florist do to compete
They have to put as much effort into promoting their online business as they do for the walk-in store. imho
There were several dozen redirected doorway pages taking up the serps under hand made crafts, and you can't get more Mom and Pop than that.
It was not Alta Vista - it was Inktomi partner sites. I reported this unrelentingly, and finally got results via an email to www.canada.com to whom I am grateful.
I did not, however, feel I had any justification whatsoever to gripe about it, not even one little bit, until I did everything possible to make my pages optimized to achieve high rankings.
If I had a site with pure graphics and no text, or a Flash site - in other words, nothing to feed spiders, then I would not have been justified in complaining, not at all. I would have been doing nothing more than playing the "blame game" and pointing the finger unjustly, trying to blame the competitor for my low ranking, which in reality would have been the result of unprofessional, ineffectual, poorly done optimization attempts.
Until I do what is necessary to achieve good rankings on pages, I have no business trying to unjustly blame the competition, no matter what they are doing.
In my case, my pages were doing just fine with Google and Alta Vista - and now that the violators have been dealt with, I am doing just fine on Inktomi partner sites. Could be better, but that is up to me. It is not the fault of any competition - it is up to me. If I am # 6 (which I am), then I am the one who has some tweaking and nudging to do.
i have imported the meta dorway refresh pages and there is absolutly no content on any of these meta refresh pages that even mention the word florist--
THE QUESTION IS:
how are they able to acheive this wonderful ranking with blank pages???
i have done everything to Try to figure it out ---
i do not believe they are cloaked pages -
i think they are submitting optimised pages then watching for scooter then deleting content ---
for a month i have been submitting the blank pages back to av - yet they stay on top ---
HOW DOES AV STORE SPIDERED INFO???
DOES AV SCRUB STORED SPIDER AND RE-STORE UPON NEXT SPIDER OR RE SUBMIT OR IS THE STORED SPIDERED INFO SIMPLY ADDED TO???
until I did everything possible to make my pages optimized to achieve high rankings. >>>>>>>> From Marcia
THE WELL RANKED PAGES ARE BLANK
this is the page actually obtaining great #1-5 top places
i see a redirect to a web positioning company here ---
all i see is this is after the fact for billing purposes
see sample html
iggy99, for the third time the url's are not needed. NFFC
I doubt anyone here can really help you. AFAIK, none of us work at AV.
i have been reporting them for over 30 days
iggy, you cannot make them do anything. And we cannot make them do anything. None of us can do anything about this. It is their web site, it is their seach engine.
It does no good to malign Alta Vista, It does no good to malign any of the competition. That merely defeats the purpose of this forum, which is to assist people in optimizing web sites to get high ranking in Alta Vista.
If it is the web site in your profile that you are having a problem with, I can only say that if I were in your place, I would re-assess my entire keyword and optimization stategy.
The options as I see them:
1. Re-do the pages with a re-ordered keyword schema and plenty of rich, indexable content, incorporated into a themed web site, utilizing all necessary tools and techniques, such as internal directory and linking structure, directory listings, and well chosen reciprocal inbound and outbound links. Information on how to do this abounds in the research topics forum.
2. Engage the services of a third party search engine optimization firm or individual to do # 1 for you.
3. Spend $2K to set up arrangements with a company that will then charge you a fixed amount for traffic sent your way.
4. None of the above. Simply boycott Alta Vista by not using their search or submitting pages to them any more.
I personally like Alta Vista. I have never spammed a search engine because, frankly, I would not know how even if I wanted to. I could learn, but have no need to.
My final thought: Let he who is without search engine spam sin cast the first stone. ;)
There goes my stone... I wouldn't know how to do any of the tricky stuff I hear about here.
but the problem i have is this -
please read this carefully
- THE PAGES I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH ARE COMING UP IN MANY CITIES FOR FLORIST SEARCH AND THE INDEXED PAGES ARE COMPLETELY BLANK SHORT OF A META REFRESH -
is the se return showing a cloaked page?
would the cloaked page if this were what is going on be served to me of would it be served to the se search list first?
if we have to compete with BLANK pages in av getting wonderful returns then we are all in trouble -
The link is at the top of the page, if you've never used it before. :)
Iggy,
Each December, when I type in the term Denver florist, I truly don't care whether or not the site that is listed number one is located in Denver. I also don't care whether or not the company is a middle man who resells my order to a local florist. What I care about is whether or not my Grandmother gets flowers delivered to her on her birthday.
The fact that a company doesn't have a brick & mortar location in a particular geographical area doesn't neccessarily disqualify them from obtaining rankings for city or state specific terms. The deciding factor when determining whether or not they have crossed the term relevance line has to do with whether or not the particular company can service the area in question.
Trying to convince any particular SE that a SERP for the term atlanta florist should somehow only contain results from brick and mortar florists in atlanta is a waste of time. If they are returning results that include 1-800 type companies that will deliver flowers in Atlanta, and they're not getting complaints from their users, they won't be in a big rush to make any changes. There are plenty of big companies (a prominent online book seller comes to mind) who engage in far more agressive SEO strategies and they never seem to go away just because someone reports them.
With that said, I think the biggest mistake you are making is drawing the conclusion that the fact that some larger companies have hired an SEO firm who has been sucessful at getting them some top rankings means that all the Mom & Pops have somehow been stripped of their ability to compete. I did look at the AV searches you provided and found that AV only has 33 pages in it's index that contain the phrase "atlanta florist." The term "new york florist" only returned 178 pages. These are far from what would be considered competitive phrases and are certainly not (IMHO) worth pursuing a tattle tale strategy.
The fact that some of the big players show up for your desired terms can actually be a good thing (Big Brand Proximity) if you can get your site(s) position fairly close. In your particular case, it seems that it would have even greater value do to the fact that your USP requires a bit of consumer education to take place.
The best strategy would be to forget about trying to figure out how the competition is delivering their pages, (for the record, the reason the pages you have found are blank is because they are cloaking and you are only seeing the page they have set up to redirect an identified browser.) and do what Marcia suggested and spend your time making your site(s) search engine friendly. Develop a good navigation structure and create good organic content and I think you will find that it really won't be that difficult to compete for geographical florist terms.
The key thing to remember is that getting the competitiors that you feel are spamming removed only benefits the next site in line. If that site isn't yours, then it's probably a wasted effort.
Totally agree. If they are offering services from a florist to anyone in Atlanta, no matter where they are located, then they are relevant to the performed search.
Surely the valid term would then be 'national' or something like that?
By the above token, If you had a international delivery company you could justifiably optimise for every city in the whole world, like "Turku delivery company", "Shanghai delivery company", "Buenos Aire delivery company" or "Islamabad delivery company". Just because they can go there, doesn't make it a good search.
To put it another way, I could go to Saskatchewan tomorrow to do SEO, if I felt like it, or send them advice etc. Does that mean I can put myself down for "Saskatchewan SEO" or something like that?
IMO, it's spam.
Looking for florist in long island services or information?
The internet's best source for florist in long island services. Providing your area with a wide range of fresh cut and unique gift-giving products...
This could be more of a problem with AV's indexing methods. I've had tons of pages picked up under keyword phrases I didn't exactly target. Is that spam?? No, that's a problem with AV's algo. Yes it is clear that these guys did an all-out campaign(redirects and such) to get listed in AV but it is not their fault entirely. I could pull out at least two sites from the results of almost every search phrase that are not "totally relevant". So just because those sites pop-up is that considered spam?
I would agree that the part of the problem is AV's algo. However, the bigger problem is that there are simply very few local Mom & Pop flower shops online. When you start getting into page counts that low, you end up seeing alot of partial, non-relevant pages showing up at the top. If each city had a wealth of local florists using the web, and then the pages in question were showing up at the top, then I would probably agree with Georged. But with these particular search terms, I found that quite often the "spam" listings were by far the most relevant results in the top ten.
The top twenty for several cities included sites about adoption, wedding planning, online radio stations and truste.org. If this is the only content a particular engine has for a search like Phoenix florist, then having a national chain that can deliver flowers in Phoenix show up at the top is not a bad thing.
ps: Iggy, have you seen any ads this company has placed at AV? The above mentioned prominent online book seller is one of big online money spenders. Would you penalize one of your best customers for spamming? Just thinking....
