Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
A site is using their competitors names in their Meta Keywords and Descriptions
-
I can't imagine this is a White Hat SEO technique, but they don't seem to be punished for it by Google - yet.
How does Google treat the use of your competitors names in your meta keywords/descriptions? Is it a good idea?
-
Great feedback folks.
Using Competitors names Is furthest from my mind. I prefer to focus on getting good Organic Search Traffic by ethical means. I was surprised when I came across this issue, because of who's doing it (a major player) and because it's a recent enough tactic of theirs, so I decided to ask for a second opinion.
Thanks for these great answers
Chris
-
Chris,
We ran into this with another firm in the Seattle area. They were using all the names their competitors in their meta descriptions and they did go so far as to include specific pages dedicated to each competitor. In the end several of the companies went after them for copyright infringement as they violated their copyrights to create these pages. This is a more aggressive path but it is one you could consider.
Ron
-
They will never rank highly for those keywords unless they dedicate the whole page to thier competitor so it's pretty pointless!! Using AdWords they might get a few visits but they will pay a premium for the clicks as the quality score will be low.
Also, and as mentioned above, it's deceiving the user which is never white hat SEO so I would advise against it.
-
It's an interesting question, because it leads to a whole lot hypocrisy on Google's part. If you can buy your competitor's name in adwords, then you should be able to use in your meta-description without any penalty. I'm not sure what ethical leg they would have to stand on in that case, but to answer your question:
Whether or not you should add the competition's brands depends a lot on what you're selling, but it strikes me as an overall bad strategy. For example, if you are competing with Zappos, it might be okay. Why? Because, people don't buy Zappos, they buy shoe's that Zappos sells. So, if someone ends up on your site, because they thought they were going to Zappos, but instead sees the shoes they want, it might be okay. People do this all the time with software.
Now, if your competition is the iPhone and you redirect someone to a Samsung site, I'd say you're in trouble. Not only will the user be far more displeased than in the previous example, BUT they are much more likely to pogo-stick, as well. It's one thing to have a pogo-sticking problem because you don't have good information, but if you actually had decent content and just slipped in the competitors name in the meta description, you may create a pogo-sticking problem for a site that doesn't deserve it. In essence, you could hurt your ability to rank for what you built the page for, in the hopes of picking up a few more customers on the fringe.
Best,
Ruben
-
It's definitely not a good idea. People don't like being deceived, and I imagine all of these pages have miserable bounce rates. As a user, imagine clicking on a search result thinking you're getting one company and you end up on the landing page of another. Definitely a poor user experience.
In Google's Quality Guidelines, one of the things they specifically mention is:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en- "Don't deceive your users."
As for this site using the competitors names in their meta keywords (outdated) and their descriptions, I don't know if Google has a specific penalty to address that specific issue (maybe others will comment on that), but I do know that Google is looking for accurate information in page titles and other areas of the page to return relative results to searchers.
Overall, it's a bad practice unless done so for legitimate reasons (you are The NY Times writing about new owners of The Washington Post).
Additionally, there's an exception here for AdWords where you can buy a competitor's name and show up for searches in the paid search results. But I'm assuming you're referencing organic search results.
Hope that helps. I know it can be frustrating to see.
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
-
What if i dont use an H1, but rather, h2 with multiple keywords.
the reason i dont want to use h1 is because i can have only one h1, however if i use several h2s. is it gonna help me rank? bacause google likes h1 more than h2, is google gonna give more priority or same priority to h2., and if that priority is gonna be less, what will be the percentage of that lessness? for ex: h1 gets 90 score if my h1 is missing how much score my h2 will get out of hundred(i know there is no such metric but i am just wondering anyways)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Keyword Appears In Top Level Domain
If i add a keyword in my domain so it will help me or not in search ranking.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MuhammadQasimAttari0 -
How to make second site in same niche and do white hat SEO
Hello, As much as we would like, there's a possibility that our site will never recover from it's Google penalties. Our team has decided to launch a new site in the same niche. What do we need to do so that Google will not mind us having 2 sites in the same niche? (Menu differences, coding differences, content differences, etc.) We won't have duplicate content, but it's hard to make the sites not similar. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ?
I've heard from some SEO's that H1 and Meta Title shouldn't be exactly the same, why ? Both of them describe what is ON the page right ? Why is it Spammy? Is it ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Tintanus2 -
Benefit of using 410 gone over 404 ??
It seems like it takes Google Webmaster Tools to forever realize that some pages, well, are just gone. Truth is, the 30k plus pages in 404 errors, were due to a big site URL architecture change. I wonder, is there any benefit of using 410 GONE as a temporary measure to speed things up for this case? Or, when would you use a 410 gone? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs20100 -
Why do websites use different URLS for mobile and desktop
Although Google and Bing have recommended that the same URL be used for serving desktop and mobile websites, portals like airbnb are using different URLS to serve mobile and web users. Does anyone know why this is being done even though it is not GOOD for SEO?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | razasaeed0 -
Using an auto directory submission
Has anyone used easysubmits.com and what's your experience with it? Any other directory submission or link building tools that help automate and manage the process like easysubmits.com says they can do? I'm just looking at it currenlty and wanted to hear others thoughts before I get taken in by some black hat method that hurts my websites instead.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Twinbytes0 -
Is using twiends.com to get twitter followers considered black hatting?
Hi, I've been struggling to get followers on Google Plus and Twitter, and recently stumbled upon twiends.com. It offers an easy service that allows you to get twitter followers very quickly. Is this considered black hating? Even if Google doesn't consider the followers as valid, am I likely to be punished if using their service? Even if it doesn't help rankings, it is nice to have lots of followers so that they will see my tweets which has the potential to drive more traffic to my site, and give awareness to my business. What are your thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eugenecomputergeeks0