Looking for recent bad SEO / black hat example such as JC Penney example from 2011
-
I am giving a presentation in a few weeks and looking for a "what not to do" larger brand example that made poor SEO choices to try and game Google with black hat tactics. Any examples you can point me to?
-
An article we wrote a while ago with a few examples. It's my site but answers your question:
http://buildforsearch.com/googles-worst-penalties-and-what-happened/
-
Overstock offering discounts for edu links: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067445/The-Difference-Between-Black-Hat-SEO-and-Bad-SEO.
**From Article: "**Just this week, Overstock was penalized for extending discounts of up to 10 percent to universities/students/faculty who wrote posts that "happen to contain keywords in the anchor text of links." Not only is this against Google's guidelines, but it's also against the Federal Trade Commission's Guidelines; this link will take you to an article regarding a company which is helping with FTC disclosure issues."
-
You might like to take a look at this: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/27/interflora-disappears-from-google / http://searchengineland.com/interflora-gets-google-rankings-back-150366
-
It is not one company, but there is always the payday loan update where google targeted a whole industries. http://searchengineland.com/google-pay-day-loan-algorithm-google-search-algorithm-update-to-target-spammy-queries-162941
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
-
Value / Risk of links in comments (nofollow)
Recently I noticed a couple of comments on our blog that seemed nice and relevant so I approved them. The site is wordpress and comments are configured nofollow. We don't get many comments so I thought "why not?". Today I got one and noticed they are all coming from the same IP. They all include urls to sites in the same industry as us, relevant sites and all different. Looks like an SEO is doing it for various clients. My question is what is the value of these nofollow links for the poster? Are these seen as "mentions" and add value to Google? And am I better off trashing them so my site is not associated? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Chris6610 -
Can anyone explain some below SEO questions ?
Can we do link building like directory, article, press releases, classifieds, business listing, social bookmarking etc. We need to check DA, Alexa, Page Rank, cBlock IP before publishing any kind of Link but how much Max or Min. no. should be for consider any website like DA should be min 20-30-40 etc.. How can consider a natural links? Which type anchor text should be in any kind of links may be directory etc. In website interlinking we should put Exact Links or no need to put any links For.ex.my website is abc.com.au then we can put link for Website Design keywords or Should be long tail keyword. How can we do content marketing means we should post blog in internal website or need to create External Blog like BlogSpot, WordPress. In blog we should put any keyword link OR should be post without links. We can put link on no follow website. Why more website coming on Google first page but they are doing Spammy links like exact keywords links, unnatural links etc.. Thanks, Akhilesh
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dotlineseo0 -
Are CDN's good or bad for SEO? - Edmonton Web
Hello Moz folks, We just launched a new website: www.edmontonweb.ca It is now ranking on page 2 in our city. The website is built on Wordpress and we have made every effort to make it load faster. We have enabled the right caching and we have reduced the file size. Still, some of our local competitors have lower load times and more importantly lower ttfb's. Is a CDN the right answer? I've read articles demonstrating that Clowd Flare decreased a websites rankings. Is there a better CDN to use, or a propper way to implement Clowd Flare? Thank you very much for your help! Anton,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Web3Marketing87
LAUNCH Edmonton0 -
Using Yext - Opinions? Thoughts? Harmful effects on SEO?
Hi All, Does anyone have any experience using Yext? We have 36 locations across the US and I think it would be great to get our local listings knocked out efficiently. Can anyone provide information on the directories they list you in (perhaps Google places listings, for example)? Also, can anyone provide feedback as to whether or not there is any harm with blasting so many directories at once? I don't want to do anything that might harm our SEO rankings or provide low quality links. Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CSawatzky0 -
Copied Content/ Copied Website/
Hello guys, I was checking my product descriptions and I found out that there is a website that is using my descriptions word by word, also they use company name, product images, they have a link that sends you to my site, contact form.. I tried to purchase something and the order came through our email, but i made an inquire and it didn't come through. Also they have a sub-folder with my company name. Also they have url's with my company name, and this isn't right is it? I am confused and honestly I don't know what to do, we don't take part to any affiliation program or anything like that and we don't ship out of Europe. This is a Chinese website. Just for curiosity, I noticed that one of our competitors is there as well, and it does seem weird. Here is the links: www.everychina . com/company/repsole_limited-hz1405d06.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
Tools to check Google Local SEO with suggestions.
Is there any tool for to check website position on Google maps ?? and also what is the way to check that a website is listed on which local directories and on which not listed and to get suggestions for improvements ?? so need Tools to check Google Local SEO with suggestions.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mnkpso0 -
Are paid reviews gray/black hat?
Are sites like ReviewMe or PayPerPost white hat? Are follow links allowed within the post? Should I use those aforementioned services, or cold contact high authority sites within my niche?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 10JQKAs0 -
Herbal Viagra page same DA/PA as UC Berkeley??
Either there is some amazingly good SEO work going on here, or Google has an amazingly large hole in their metrics. http://nottowait.com/ http://www.ucdavis.edu/index.html The "nottowait" page has a PA of 85?! and a DA of 82?! The page is HORRIBLE. The page itself is an image of another page. The nav bar does not function, nor does any of the "click here" links. At the bottom there is a paragraph of keywords and broken english. This page is pure junk and should simply not have any value at all with respect to DA nor PA. It has a ton of incoming links from various sources which seem to be the source of all this value, which it passes on to other pages. This page really is an affront to the "content is king" concept. I suppose I should ask a question but all I can think of is, what is Matt Cutts' phone number? I want to ask him how this page has gotten away with being ranked so well for so long.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RyanKent0