Has everyone gone over to the dark side?

Playing fair or foul

[Aberdeen]

I must say i am a little bit pissed off. After only 3 months of hard work, I have got my site up and running, and to #4 and #3 on google for my keywords and a PR 3. Pretty chuffed, and the boss gave me a pat on the back. Already got the next redesign done, so I started to look at the competitors code a bit closer, as i was confused how they could be so high up.

THERE ALL CHEATING. well 5 out 4 are, and the one that isnt, isnt a business. 3 of them are using DIV's with spam and one is using a javascript trick. Bast**ds.

Has anyone else been in this situation, when nearly all there competitors were using underhand tactics. If so what do you recommend. I still believe content is king, and all that mumbo jumbo, but how many months or years do i have to wait before google figures out these tricks.

Surely it must know already. i mean come on, anyone using a DIV which is hidden must be up to something.

But the real question is, do i tell the boss?

[edit_g]

You can report spam to google here. Include WebmasterWorld in the title (I think that is the drill).
[google.com...]

Only do this if your site is a clean as a newly polished whistle.

Tell the boss? Not unless he asks.

[mack]

Make sure your site is 100% clean and fire of an email to searchquality at google.com. Say you are not happy with the resuls for your serp.

Or play it the other way and fire off a spamm report. It might sound a bit cut-throught but sometimes it is the only way.

Mack.

[Nick_W]

>>But the real question is, do i tell the boss?

Only if you get a biscuit aswell as the pat on the back ;)

(only kidding...)

Nick

[oilman]

it's unlikely that the hidden divs and javascript tricks are what are getting those other sites to the top. Most of that crap just doesn't work. Have you looked at their linking structures closely?

[heini]

>I have got my site up and running, and to #4 and #3 on google for my keywords and a PR 3.

This means either
- not much competition
- very good onpage optimization (congrats)

In either case it looks like if you'd spend just a little effort on link building you'd topple the competition easily.

I wouldn't even worry about competition using hidden this'n'that - let them do their thing and you do yours. Get links, move up to #1, and be happy your competition doesn't have a clue ;)

[4eyes]

anyone using a DIV which is hidden must be up to something.

Although it may be true in this case, sadly it is not that simple in all cases.

Menu systems and interactive sites can all use hidden divs as part of the site features.

'Cheating', or 'taking advantage of flaws in the search engine algos' is something that many of us do. Some do it in a way that would pass a hand inspection whilst others take risks.

Its about balancing risk and reward.

Your choices are to beat them by using the same flaws in the algo or to report them and hope that Google reacts to the spam report.

The advantages of using hidden text are overstated IMO and are unlikely to be the sole reason for their ranking.

Look at the PR and incoming anchor text for more likely reasons.

I don't think content is king.

[trillianjedi]

Oilman has nailed this one.

On page spam content will not have all that much effect.

They are where they are because of anchor text and backlinks.

TJ

<Heini and 4-eyes beat me to the same thing too. That's four people telling you the same thing ;-)>

[edited by: trillianjedi at 4:38 pm (utc) on Aug. 28, 2003]

[4eyes]

wow - we all jumped on this one.

[Nick_W]

Yeah, one of those evenings 4eyes...

Nick