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1. This company hosts free counter/web analytics services with over a millon users.
2. The tracking tag each user pastes to his site/page contains a hidden keyword-targeted link (either by invisible or small font) to one of 100 subdomain-based pages of the domains this company owns, such as < keyword.this-company's-domain.com > and so on.
3. The company now has over 100 subdomain based page with over 10,000 links from various sites, and each page is ranked highly on search engine under the targeted keyword.
4. Now, the company rents this subdomain page to their client for several thousand dollars per month.
5. Once the subdomain page is rent, the company sets the 301 redirect on that page to the client site. So accessing the subdomain page simply redirects you to the client site.
6. After several days or a few weeks, the client site appears on top of search engines replacing the subdomain page. Both the client site & subdomain page are having the same backlinks.
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I think I understand how it works (I work in the search engine marketing industry), but is this one of those innovative, advanced search engine marketing services or another spam trick soon to be banned? To me this seems an obvious spam practice in many ways, but most of their client sites are appearing on top under major keywords on Google & Yahoo. If many people of this forum thinks it's not an obvious but gray practice, I might even consider renting one of their subdomains, as long as it works.
One note. This service is not for English sites but for Japanese language sites (& keywords). It might be a reason search engines failing to ban. I have a feeling their domain is completely banned once found by search engines, and will have negative effects on the redirected domains.
I appreciate any kind of your feedback!
[edited by: tedster at 7:09 am (utc) on Jan. 10, 2007]
