How do I find out if a competitor is using black hat methods and what can I do about it?
-
A competitor of mine has appeared out of nowhere with various different websites targetting slightly different keywords but all are in the same industry.
They don't have as many links as me, the site structure and code is truly awful (multiple H1's on same page, tables for non-tabular data etc...) yet they outperform mine and many of my other competitors.
It's a long story but I know someone who knows the people who run these sites and from what I can gather they are using black hat techniques. But that is all I know and I would like to find out more so I can report them.
-
Kevin, can you give us any type of update as to how this turned out? Did the rankings drop back after a bit, or are they still there? Did you figure out if they were using any shady tactics?
-
There are a lot of analysis you need to do to find out whether a person is doing BH on their site (just like NY Times hiring a SEO company to research on JC Penny) as there are a lot of plays you can play around with to try and trick Google.
Just some examples:
Onsite
- Are they stuffing keywords?
- Are they using doorway pages?
Offpage
- Are they buying links?(Most common)
- Are they spamming blog comments?
At the end of the day, if you find out that they are actually using BH method, you can report them from Google Webmaster Tools, make sure you put in all your evidence as they would not spend the time analyising each request.
-
Hi Kevin,
It is really hard to assume that a website is using BH unless I am able to check them myself, but for starters (which I believe you already did) you can always check the FF: PR, Links (inbound & outbound) use yahoo for this, use the tools in SEOmoz for this too to determine the quality of links.
You see it could also mean that those websites are of diff. IP's and each site is linking to authority domains, needless to say but you also have to check your website if it is really optimized and the duration thereof for its caching.
Now this is a handful but I am excited as to the outcome of this.
Cheers!
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
-
Is RSS feed syndication an effective link building strategy? Has anyone used it and had success?
This process was recommended to us and I am having trouble understanding exactly how it works. Does this type of link building directly benefit your site or is it an indirect process? Also, can you be penalized for republishing someone's content on your feed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | marketingdepartment.ch0 -
Is there any SEO impact to using "www" vs. non-"www" preferred domain name?
My client has been using "www" with his domain and before I took over, has used it in marketing etc. I typically don't use "www" in my wordpress setup, and set non-www as the preferred domain in google analytics and google search console. Does it make any difference? Especially when www resolves to non-www? I appreciate some guidance with this.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | chill9860 -
Can I Use Meta NoIndex to Block Unwanted Links?
I have a forum thread on my site that is completely user generated, not spammy at all, but it is attracting about 45 backlinks from really spammy sites. Usually when this happens, the thread is created by a spammer and I just 404 it. But in this instance, the thread is completely legit, and I wouldn't want to 404 it because users could find it useful. If I add a meta noindex, nofollow tag to the header, will the spammy pagerank still be passed? How best can I protect myself from these low quality backlinks? I don't want to get slapped by Penguin! **Note: I cannot find contact information from the spam sites and it's in a foreign language.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TMI.com0 -
I've purchased a PR 6 domain what will be best use of it ?
I've purchased a PR 6 domain what will be best use of it ? Should make a new site or redirect it to my low pr sites? Or I wasted my $100 ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IndiaFPS0 -
Is horizontal hashtag linking between 4 different information text pages with a canonical tag to the URL with no hashtag, a White Hat SEO practice?
Hey guys, I need help. hope it is a simple question : if I have horizontal 4 text pages which you move between through hashtag links, while staying on the same page in user experience, can I canonical tag the URL free of hashtags as the canonical page URL ? is this white hat acceptable practice? and will this help "Adding the Value", search queries, and therefore rank power to the canonical URL in this case? hoping for your answers. Best Regards, and thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Can I get updated opinions on PR Web?
I saw Moz has discussed PR web in earlier posts, but they are mostly months to years old. I'm wondering if PR Web is a good service? A lot of my competitors use it, but it seems just like a paid link to me. If for whatever reason, PR Web is an approved loophole, does anyone have any suggestions on which plan to purchase? Thanks, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Can I Point Multiple Exact Match Domains to a Primary Domain? (Avoiding Duplicate Content)
For example, lets say I have these 3 domains: product1.com product2.com product.com The first 2 domains will have very similar text content, with different products. The product.com domain will be similar content, with all of the products in one place. Transactions would be handled through the Primary domain (product.com) The purpose of this would be to capitalize on the Exact match domain opportunities. I found this seemingly old article: http://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/point-multiple-domains-one-website.shtml The article states that you can avoid duplicate content issues, and have all links attributed to the Primary domain. What do you guys think about this? Is it possible? Is there a better way of approaching this while still taking advantage of the EMD?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ClearVisionDesign0 -
Problems with link spam from spam blogs to competitor sites
A competitor of ours is having a great deal of success with links from spam blogs (such as: publicexperience.com or sexylizard.org) it is proving to be a nightmare. Google does not detect these (the competitor has been doing well now for over a year) and my boss is starting to think if you can’t beat them, join them. Frankly, he is right – we have built some great links but it is nigh on impossible to beat 400+ highly targeted spam links in a niche market. My question is, has anyone had success in getting this sort of stuff brought to the attention of Google and banned (I actually listed them all in a message in webmaster tools and sent them over to Google over a year ago!). This is frustrating, I do not want to join in this kind of rubbish but it is hard to put a convincing argument against it when our competitor has used the technique successfully for over a year without any penalty. Ideas? Thoughts? All help appreciated
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RodneyRiley0