Why Proved Spammers are on 1st Google SERP's Results
-
This question is related exclusively to few proved spammers who have gained 1st Google search results for specific terms in the Greek market, targeting Greek audience.
Why he looks spammer and very suspicious?
For instance, the site epipla-sofa.gr, sofa.gr, fasthosting.gr and greekinternetmarketing.com look suspicious regarding their building link activities:
1. suspicious spiky link growth
2. several links from unrelated content (unrelated blog posts forom other markets, paid links, hidden links)
3. excessive amount of suspicious link placements (forum profiles, blog posts, footer and sidebar links)
4. Greek anchor text with the keyword within articles written in foreign languages (total spam)
5. Unnatural anchor text distribution (too many repetitions)
So the main question is: Why Google is unable to recognize/trace some of these (or even all) obvious spamming tactics and still these spammy sites as shwon below reside on the 1st Google.gr SERPs.
Examples of spam sites according to their link building history:
www.greekinternetmarketing.com
All their links look very similar. They use probably software to build links, or even hack authority sites and leave hidden links (really dont know how they could do that).
Could you please explain or share similar issues? Have you ever found any similar cases in your industry, and how did you tackle it?
We would appreciate your immediate attention to this matter.
Regards,
George
-
For smaller markets especially, this can be infuriating. I would recommend looking at the recent changes and trajectories in markets like Italy, Spain and Portugal that have had these problems but where Google is gradually focussing effort. I think a lot depends on your timescales, but if you are building a business that you want to last, you should be using sustainable tactics IMO.
-
Hello Again & Thanks for your responses.
Well, while there are some generic concepts that you suggest me to follow, such as "quality links", "quality websites", "authority" etc, I don't see the point in them, they're all theory and let me explain why.
If you see google unable to recognize some of the MOST obvious spam tactics, where's the point in talking about "authority" & "quality" links? Some examples:
-
Most of the links come from the footer section of the websites
-
Most of the links come from blog comments and forum profiles
-
Most of the links come from websites with no relation at all with the publisher's website. For instance, the website is talking about furniture, and most of the links come from blog articles that talk about CSS Techniques, Iphone and technology.
-
Several links are stuffed nearby hunders of others links, in sections of the website called "partners" & "friendly websites" (obvious paid links sections)
-
Several Directory links
-
Spiky Link growth "from zero to hero" in 2 weeks
Well, the only thing I can think about Google's failure to recognize this obvious spammy tactics, is that most of the links come from "authority" and high page rank websites. The spammer did a good job recognizing (and buying) "authority" and "trusted" links, that gave him the advantage over the competition.
We have already reported the spammer, however I don't think Google has the resources to solve this kind of issues. Especially when we are not talking about Google.com
-
-
Well the only way to tackle it is to report the site for spamming to google.
However if your real question is how you can duplicate what they have done and whether you will get caught, then you can make a sister site of whatever your site is and use blackhat tactics and see the results. If google slams you at least you wont lose the main site.
-
That's right... don't try to beat someone by mimicking their methods - instead do something superior.
-
If you are competing with this guy, dont replicate what he has done. Prove to google your site is more popular by getting even better quality links. Google wont have a choice but to rank yours if your link profile is more authoritative.
GREG
-
What if I link bombed your website? Every month I pay someone $5 on fiverr.com and buy thousands of super spammy black hat links. Not just your website, the top 5 in the SERP for a certain keyword that I want to get ranked for.
I run a test like this before. Link bombed a website with 15,000+ links, reported to Google but nothing happened so far. It would be too easy for competitors to ruin each other's online reputation with spammy links.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Significant "Average Position" dips in Search Console each time I post on Google My Business
Hi everyone, Several weeks ago I noticed that each Wednesday my site's Average Position in Search Console dipped significantly. Immediately I identified that this was the day my colleague published and back-linked a blog post, and so we spent the next few weeks testing and monitoring everything we did. We discovered that it was ONLY when we created a Google My Business post that the Average Position dipped, and on the 1st July we tested it one more time. The results were the same (please see attached image). I am 100% confident that Google My Business is the cause of the issue, but can't identify why. The image I upload belongs to me, the text isn't spammy or stuffed with keywords, the Learn More links to my own website, and I never receive any warnings from Google about the content. I would love to hear the community's thoughts on this and how I can stop the issue from continuing. I should note, that my Google My Business insights are generally positive i.e. no dips in search results etc. My URL is https://www.photographybymatthewjames.com/ Thanks in advance Matthew C0000OTrpfmNWx8g
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PhotoMattJames0 -
How long before our website bounce back after Google Penalty?
One of our client websites got recently hacked. In a span of 4 days, it received random backlinks from random websites with random anchor texts. We are already in good standing for some of the keywords we are tracking and the attack got us a penalty from Google and we lost our rankings, moving out of the top 500. We already disavowed these dirty backlinks though we never really diagnosed where these came from. How long do you think our client's website will bounce back from the penalty?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SirAdri110 -
Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!
Reading up it seems like there's complete free reign to enter what you want in the meta description and they are not considered a direct ranking signal However I have added contact numbers to the meta descriptions for around 20 reasonably high ranking pages for my company and it seems to have had a negative effect (taken screen grabs and previous rankings) More strangely when you 'inspect' the page the meta description features the desired number yet when you find the page in the serps the meta description just does not feature the number (page has been cached and the description does not carry on) I'm wondering whether such direct changes are seen as spam and therefore negative to the page?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing1 -
Spam signals from old company site are hurting new company site, but we can't undo the redirect.
My client was forced to change its domain name last year (long story). We were largely able to regain our organic rankings via 301-redirects. Recently, the rankings for the new domain have begun to plummet. Nothing specific took place that could have caused any ranking declines on the new site. However, when we analyze links to the OLD site, we are seeing a lot of link spam being built to that old domain over recent weeks and months. We have no idea where these are coming from but they appear to be negatively impacting our new site. We cannot dismantle the redirects as the old site has hundreds, if not thousands, of quality links pointing to it, and many customers are accustomed to going to that home page. So those redirects need to stay in place. We have already disavowed all the spam we have found on the old Search Console. We are continuing to do so as we find new spam links. But what are we supposed to do about this spam negatively impacting our new site? FYI we have not received any messages in the search console.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | FPD_NYC1 -
How to deal with spam heavy industries that haven't gotten the hammer from Google?
One of our clients works in the video game category - specifically, helping people rank higher in games like League of Legends. In spite of our trying to do things the right way with white hat link building, we've suffered when trying to compete with others who are using comment and forum spam, private blog networks, and other black hat tactics. Our question is - what is the right approach here from a link building perspective? Is it an "if you can't beat them, join them" or do we wait it out and hope Google notices and punishes those who don't play nice? Some test terms to see what we're up against: "elo boost" and "lol coach." Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who's dealt with a similar situation.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kpaulin0 -
Google Panda and Penguin "Recovery"
We're working with a client who had been hit by Google Panda (duplicate content, copyright infringement) and Google Penguin (poor backlinks). While this has taken a lot of time, effort and patience to eradicate these issues, it's still been more than 6 months without any improvement. Have you experienced longer recovery periods? I've seen sites perform every black hat technique under the sun and still nearly 2 years later..no recovery! In addition many companies I've spoken to advised their clients to begin right from the very beginning with a new domain, site etc.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GaryVictory0 -
Google Preferred Agency???
I just stumbled upon an SEO company's website that says they are a 'Google Preferred Agency'. This isn't just a line of copy on the site, it's featured prominently on the site, and they use the Google logo as well. I've never heard of a 'Google Preferred Agency'. One would think that even if there was such a thing, that it would involve a link back to a profile page on Google like they do with AdWords/Analytics partners... Am I missing something, or is this company doing something a little shady? I don't want to toss the name of the company out there because I don't want to publicly bash them.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | stevefidelity0 -
Is it possible that since the Google Farmer's Update, that people practicing Google Bowling can negatively affect your site?
We have hundreds of random bad links that have been added to our sites across the board that nobody in our company paid for. Two of our domains have been penalized and three of our sites have pages that have been penalized. Our sites are established with quality content. One was built in 2007, the other in 2008. We pay writers to contribute quality and unique content. We just can't figure out a) Why the sites were pulled out of Google indexing suddenly after operating well for years b) Where the spike in links came from. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dahnyogaworks0
