Competitor Black Hat Link Building?
-
Hello big-brained Moz folks,
We recently used Open Site Explorer to compile a list of inbound linking domains to one of our clients, alongside domains linking to a major competitor.
This competitor, APBSpeakers.com, is dominating the search results with many #1 rankings for highly competitive phrases, even though their onsite SEO is downright weak. This competitor also has exponentially more links(602k vs. 2.4k) and way more content(indexed pages) reported than any of their competitors, which seems physically impossible to me. Linking root domains are shown as 667 compared to 170 for our client, who has been in business for 10+ years.
Taking matters a step further, linking domains for this competitor include such authoritative domains as:
- Cnn.com
- TheGuardian.com
- PBS.org
- HuffingtonPost.com
- LATimes.com
- Time.com
- CBSNews.com
- NBCNews.com
- Princeton.edu
- People.com
Sure, I can see getting a few high profile linking domains but the above seems HIGHLY suspicious to me.
Upon further review, I searched CNN, The Guardian and PBS for all variations of this competitors name and domain name and found no immediate mentions of their name. I smell a rat and I suspect APB is using some sort behind-the-scenes programming to make these "links" happen, but I have no idea how. If this isn't the case, they must have a dedicated PR person with EXTREMELY strong connections to secure this links, but even this seems like a stretch.
It's conceivable that APB is posting comments on all of the above sites, along with links, however, I was under the impression that all such posts were NoFollow and carried no link juice. Also, paid advertisements on the above sites should be NoFollow as well, right?
Anyway, we're trying to get to the bottom of this issue and determine what's going on. If you have any thoughts or words of wisdom to help us compete with these seemingly Black Hat SEO tactics, I'd sure love to hear from you.
Thanks for your help. I appreciate it very much.
Eric
-
If you go to the OSE results page, start clicking on the links, view source, then do a search for APBSpeakers you will find them. Here is the Huffington Post one, for example: “When I turned 5, I had had symptoms of AIDS. I had had fungus in my brain, blood infections, pneumonia,” Hydeia told Oprah back then.
-
The cnn link is on this page: http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/opinion/david-love-medgar-evers-trayvon-martin-survivors/index.htm
In this paragraph: Meanwhile, not unlike Myrlie Evers-Williams, Sybrina Fulton found her calling through grief nearly 50 years later.
-
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/human-rights-advocate-mavis-leno/ -- Link is in the external links section with the anchor "Ms. Leno's Bio"
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/20/eric-schmidt-google-alan-rusbridger -- Link is on anchor Jared Cohen
I didn't see the reference to a link from CNN.
-Jake
-
Hi Linda,
Thanks for your input. Much appreciate it. Can you show me a page or two where you see those links located? I actually searched the page source for variations of APB, speakers bureau, etc. and saw nothing. Perhaps I wasn't looking in the right place.
Thanks again for your help.
Eric
-
Hi Jake,
Thanks for taking the time to dig into this and provide me with some advice. You bring up some good points that are well taken.
I will speak with the client about this and reach out to you at Angular if we need a hand.
Thanks again.
Eric
-
Hi Eric,
I understand it can be frustrating and challenging to succeed and manage client expectations when working in a competitive space where business may use tactics that your client is not comfortable with. It's also unfortunate that links often have such a strong signal that rankings can still be achieved regardless of the quality of onsite SEO.
Typically many of the large publications no-follow their comment links and links on paid advertisements. It is important to note that Google may still consider those links as part of some other signal and that achieving a placement on those sites can often lead to additional press, citations, etc. on other sites that may place followed links.
... however, you must also consider that Google's goal is to confidently provide the website it believes searches will find most relevant to their query. A few facts I quickly dug up on APB
- has been in business for over 50 years compared to your clients 10+ years.
- has a long history representing US Presidents, Foreign Prime Ministers, Martin Luther King, Andy Worhal, Mikhail Gorbachev, Dan Rather, etc. etc..
- has a record in the Guinness World Book as largest lecture agency in the world.
- has been receiving legitimate press with a 10 page feature in the NYT, repeat coverage in Newsweek, etc. since the 1960's
Regardless of the link sources, etc.. this business is in the knowledge graph and Google can reliably and confidently present this business to people searching for competitive terms. Now that I've tooted their horn a little, please don't feel overwhelmed or interpret this to mean you can't compete with large global companies that have a long history of success and are well established in the SERPs... this is why I love SEO.
However, to be successful, you need to change your mindset a little and focus on what you can control:
- Instead of focusing on those highly competitive terms, you are going to have to "chip away" by finding and establishing your authority within various niches. Is there a specific industry or topic area where your client is more strong? APB appears to have invested heavily in the civil rights space at one time, and also in the global leaders space.
- Instead of counting their links and judging their link building practices, ask what you can do to build your own authority? Can you build press around your clients talent? Does your client sponsor/donate for charitable events? Has your client written "the Bible" on various topics within the speaking industry? Does your client have an internal publicist or PR agency getting their executives international speaking engagements?
- What can your client do that they can't? If you want to rank #1, you have to be better than them... make sure that message is clear to every person and machine....
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Jake
-
I took a quick look at those links and I am not sure why you think they are black hat. They seem to have a lot of well-known clients which would account for the authoritative domains.
And when I clicked on the sites listed in Moz, I saw that there were in fact links back to APBSpeakers.com. [Even if the company wasn't named, its speakers were--you have to look at the page source, not just do a site search.]
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
-
Do links from subdomains pass the authority and link juice of main domain ?
Hi, There is a subdomain with a root domain's DA 90. I can earn a backlink from that subdomain. This subdomain is fresh with no traffic yet. Do I get the ranking boost and authority from the subdomain? Example: I can earn a do-follow link from **https://what-is-crm.netlify.app/ **but not from https://netlify.app
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | teamtc0 -
Dodgy links across top ranking sites in a certain industry - Could this be negative link building?
Hi, I've noticed repeated low value / high spam backlinks directing to a site that I manage, and despite disavowing, new links showing similar anchor text keep appearing. See sample in the table below: <colgroup><col width="514"> <col width="407"> <col width="364"></colgroup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Alexanders
| biz.mfso.info/files/images/vertical-blinds-for-bifold-doors.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers vertical blinds for bifold doors |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/install-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers install vertical blinds |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/cutting-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers cutting vertical blinds |
| rre.uere.info/files/images/high-quality-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers high quality vertical blinds rre.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers high quality vertical blinds |
| dig.uere.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds dig.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| dig.uere.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds dig.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| hja.uere.info/files/images/cost-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers cost vertical blinds hja.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers cost vertical blinds | I also looked across 5 high ranking sites in the same industry and noticed they too have these 'dodgy' links in their backlink profiles. Could this be negative link building? If so, does anyone know a way to trace it or get it stop?0 -
Drastic surge of link spam in Webmaster Tools' Link Profile
Hello all I am trying to get some insights/advice on a recent as well as drastic increase in link spam within my Webmaster Tools' Link Profile. Before I get into more detail, I would like to point out, that I did find some relevant MOZ community posts addressing this type of issue. However, my link spam situation may have to be approached from a different angle, as it concerns two sites at the same time and somewhat in the same way. Basically, starting in July 2017, from one day to the other, a multitude of domains (50+) is generating link spam (at least 200 links a month and counting) and to cut a long story short, I believe the sites are hacked. This is because most of the domain names sound legit and load the homepage, but all the sub-pages linking to my site contain "adult" gibberish. In addition, it is interesting to see, that each sub-page follows the same pattern, scraping content from my homepage including the on-page links - that generate the spammy backlinks to my sites - while inserting the adult gibberish in between (basically it's all just text and looks like as if a bot is at work). Therefore, it's not like my link is being inserted "specifically" into pages or to spam me with the same anchor text over and over. So, I am not sure what kind of link spam this really is (or the purpose of it). Some more background information: As mentioned above, this link spam (attack?) is affecting two of my sites and it started off pretty much simultaneously (in addition, the sites focus on a competitive niche). The interesting detail is, that one site suffered a manual penalty years ago, which has been lifted (a disavowal file exists and no further link building campaigns have been undertaken after the cleanup), while the other site has never seen any link building efforts - it is clean, yet the same type of spam is flooding that websites' link profile too. In the webmaster forums the overall opinion is, that Google ignores web spam. All well. However, I am still concerned, that the dozens of spammy links pointing to the website "with a history" may pose a risk (more spam on a daily basis on both sites though). At the same time I wonder, why the other "clean" site is facing the same issue. The clean sites' rankings do not appear to be impacted, while the other website has seen some drops, but I am still observing the situation. Therefore, should I be concerned for both sites or even start an endless disavowal campaign on the site with a history? PS: This MOZ article appears to advice so: https://moz.com/blog/do-we-still-need-to-disavow-penguin "In most cases, sites that have a history of collecting unnatural links tend to continue to collect them. If this is the case for you, then it’s best to disavow those on a regular basis (either monthly or quarterly) so that you can avoid getting another manual action." What is your opinion? Sorry for the long post and many thanks in advance for any help/insight.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Hermski0 -
Paid Link/Doorway Disavow - disavowing the links between 2 sites in the same company.
Hello, Three of our client's sites are having difficulty because of past doorway/paid link activity, which we're doing the final cleanup on with a disavow. There are links between the sites. Should we disavow all the links between the sites? Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Are links on a press page considered "reciprocal linking"?
Hi, We have a press page with a list of links to the articles that have mentioned us (most of which also have a link to our website). Is there any SEO impact with this approach? Does Google consider these reciprocal links? And if so, would making the links on the press page 'nofollow' solve the issue?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mikekeeper0 -
Sure, but what about non-keyword rich anchor text links?
Could spammy non-keyword rich anchor text liks help your website rank? Of course, there's been a lot of discussion around Google's update of its link scheme. Specifically, they target press releases with do-follow links on keyword-rich anchor text and "Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links". Well, that leaves the question unanswered, what if you're doing these spammy linking techniques, but on non-keyword rich anchor text, such as "click here", "find information", and "click here". Will you still get smacked down by Google then? Given that links on non-keyword anchor text can still help increase domain authority, it seems like Google left a door open here for large scale publication of a certain class of spammy links that can still assist rank, no? Also, in answering, please distinguish between best practice, and effective. For instance, purchasing links isn't a good practice, but it can still be an effective technique. While spammy links on non-keyword rich anchor text is certainly not a good practice, is it nonetheless effective?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ExploreConsulting0 -
Are back links from audio sites any good?
In light of G's view of links from directories and other sources I have heard that links for audio sites like soundcloud.com can be beneficial. Has anyone had any positive experiences building likes from sources like this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Aikijeff0 -
Removing Unnatural Link Penalties
As soon as I began working in my current position at my current company I noticed my predecessor's tendency towards buying link packages from blackhat companies... I knew we were being penalized, and had to prove to him that we needed to halt those campaigns immediately and try our darndest to remove all poison links from the internet. I did convince him and began the process. There was 57% of our backlinks tied to the same anchor phrase with 836 domains linking to the same phrase, same page. Today there are 643 of those links remaining. So I have hit a large number of them, but not nearly enough. So now I am getting messages from Google announcing that our site has been hit with an unnatural link penalty. I haven't really seen the results of this yet in the keywords I am trying to rank for, but fear it will hurt very soon and know that I could be doing better in the meantime. I really don't know what to do next. I've tried the whole "contact the webmasters" technique and maybe have had 1/100 agree to remove our links. They all want money or don't respond.. Do I really need to use this Disavow tool?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jesse-landry
I hear mixed things about it.. Anybody with experience here like to share their stories? Thanks for the moral support!0