Competitor seo
-
This might be a really obvious question but... If building bad links (spam links) negatively impacts and even sometimes draws penalties, what is there to prevent others from building links like to my site to try and strip me of my rankings (like from my competitors)? I ran a quick link analysis and noticed a bunch of spam links pointing to my site the other day. I haven't been affected yet but it was only like two days ago that I saw those. Just curious. Is hostile seo going to be an emerging trend? If so it will be a really easy job. Just go to fiverr and buy 20 bucks worth of links...
-
Based on the industry or competition and the value of top rankings, I would be worried that a site could implement bad link building for competitor sites along with their normal good link building practice for their website. The goal is to get to the top spot.
-
I think the reason that it doesn't happen more often isn't so much that it can't work, but that:
(1) Doing it right takes a lot of time, money, and skill. If you don't want to leave a trail, it takes even more. Usually, the money is better spent elsewhere.
(2) It usually doesn't work. So, you're betting a lot on a small chance.
(3) Whether or not it works long-term, building links to your competitor will almost always give them a short-term ranking boost. So, it's not just time and money - it's likely to backfire.
Here's an analogy I just made up - let's say I don't like you, and I want to get you into trouble (for example - I don't actually dislike you ). I craft a plan to stuff your pockets full of counterfeit bills at the airport. IF TSA checks your pockets and IF they notice the money is counterfeit (two big ifs), you could go to jail. In the 99% likely chance they don't notice, though, I just gave my sworn enemy a few-hundred bucks. That's basically (3).
-
Very helpful info thanks! Not to delve into the dark side of the force, but if it was possible to knock somebody off for even a few days or weeks there are some companies that could really suffer. It sounds, however, like you are talking about reason #356473 for why building "good" links are so important. (not that we needed any more) Thanks, Mike
-
If I had more than just a few datapoints, I'd offer them up. To really prove something like this though you'd almost need to do a controlled study. And because there'd be some seriously qualitative judgments made, data alone couldn't prove the point.
-
Very interesting. This would be a very interesting post to read if someone was able to get some decent data. Only thing is, who is gonna give up rankings for some data?
-
It's really tough to prove, but I've seen 2 cases in the past few months where I'm pretty sure this tactic did work for a while. As other commenters have said, it's rare and Google generally won't penalize you for a few spammy links or an obvious attack, but it's not impossible.
I think it depends a lot on your base profile and authority, too. If you've got a solid set of links and decent trust, it's very tough for a competitor to just hit you with a few bad links and cause problems. If you're borderline and have been pushing the limits, a big influx of spammy links could push you over the edge. I've had SEOs actually suggest this tactic to me.
Typically, these efforts are half-assed, for lack of a better word. It's good to monitor and be aware of the problem, but you'll often find these are low-quality links that just get devalued, and the competitor stops building them after a couple of days. In that case, you're 98%+ likely to be fine. If you see a concerted effort, though, over a period of time, you may want to dig deeper.
-
I've noticed that practice with one of my clients however although their was a very brief glitch in their rankings it soon returned to normal. I'd have to agree with Brent that they would need to create a huge number of links that swamp your links to really make any long term difference, and if they are prepared to do that they would be better off spending the time focusing on building quality links for their own site / client.
-
It would have to be a significant amount of bad links coming in. And this would have to be an ongoing practice from the competition to do something like this.
-
Well... if you build more junk links than quality links to your competitor they will eventually lose rank and there is not much they can do about that. It's really not that hard to game Google after all.
-
Hello Michael,
Once I watched Rand talking about this, that maybe spam is not the worst thing that happens.
People sending bad links to you doesn't get your site in bad sheets!
Why? Because Google threats them giving a low value, like a nofollow link.
Exactly for this kind of anti-ethical things.
In fact, the competitor could be making for you a low value link building!
So you should concern about building good links, to make it right.
Check this really good Whiteboard Friday!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/im-being-outranked-by-a-spammer-whiteboard-friday
Hope it helped!
=]
-
I believe the practice of pointing negative backlinks to a site has been in use for quite some time now. The prevalence has remained somewhat low, however, due to the relative difficulty of obtaining the quantity of links required to sufficiently negatively impact rank of a competitor. I've seen this practice used as a form of ORM to decrease rank of negative press.
As it gets easier to game this system, I'd anticipate Google making an algorithmic change to consider the sudden building of low-quality or spam-identified links. I'd expect that they'd be ignored rather than used to determine rank or quality. How this would effect IP neighborhood metrics, however, I don't know.
While I can't substantiate anything meaningful with the data I've seen thusfar, I will go as far as to say I'm pretty sure Google already takes this into account on some level, negating any negative passed. Almost like automatically assigning a nofollow. It's just gut though.
-
Generally speaking if you have some sapm links it will not hurt you, google may just discount them. The only time it will hurt you in my opinion is if that is the main tactic you are using and its in alot of links and your not doing quality work as well.
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
-
Backlink from foreign language websites good for SEO
I was wondering if backlinks from foreign language webistes can help me in ranking? For example: I ve got website in slovak language and I would place article with backlink on the foreign language website. In which language should be the text surrounding the keyword?
Link Building | | joeko1 -
"New" Digg - SEO benefits?
Quick question for the group - I've not used the new Digg. Does it have SEO benefits? I wasn't sure if Google counted these or not. thanks
Link Building | | yandl0 -
SEO Link building from zero in a practical world
Hi, I'm a web developer with good knowledge of SEO friendly web development etc. When it comes to link building Im not quite sure where to start. I have read heaps of articles about building links, but can you guys please tell me how to start building links from 'zero' in a practice world? Im not even sure whether I have anyone who can link to my website or my client's website either 🙂 Thanks heaps.
Link Building | | Uds0 -
Using an SEO Agency to build one-way links for you via link exchange
There are a number of SEO agencies which offer link building as part of their SEO offerings. I believe they build one-way links to the client site, by offering another link in exchange to the liking site. So, if the client site is "C", and link is being requested from site "A", the site "A" owner is offered a link from site "B" in return. Is this a good and/or recommended practice?
Link Building | | thinkvidya0 -
Should we fire our SEO Vendor?
Dear SeoMozers, We are working on ranking towards some hyper competitive keywords (each query has millions of searches a month) and working with an external SEO Vendor. We were not satisfied with the progress, therefore we asked them to send a revised SEO Plan. Here's what they proposed: 1. On Page Optimization (standard techniques) Off Page Optimization 1. Directory Submissions (100) 2. Article Marketing (Two unique 300 word articles to be submitted to 300 directories) 3. Press Release (Two Press Releases to 100 PR Sites) 4. Classified Ads Submissions 5. Business Listings 6. Link Reinforcement (Create wheel to circulate traffic) 7. Blog Submissions, Commenting, Forum Posting 8. Web 2.0 Link Building (Squidoo Lens, Hub Page, Link Wheel etc) 9. One Way Links (Not Specified how many) Our concern is that this sounds like low quality link building. We've given them 19 top keywords to achieve rankings for and will be paying $20-25K to achieve Top 3-5 rankings for the targeted terms. Do you think this strategy would work or should we change the SEO Vendor?
Link Building | | globaleyeglasses1 -
Forex SEO resources
Hi, We are currently in the process of launching a value-added service website for Forex traders. We have done on-page optimizations and are climbing up the rankings for both Google and Bing. We have first page and top three rankings for most of the easier keywords we optimized for. Thus I think we have stretched our on-page SEO to it's limits and are now considering our off-page strategy. Does anyone here have experience with the Forex space? Can anyone point me to important SEO resources specific to this space? Thank you!
Link Building | | Eladla0 -
How to do SEO for famous fortune 500 companies
Hello SEOmoz, I have a question to you guys. How typically SEO should be done to fortune 500 comnpanies who are very much famous offline. The problem I see is any links built gets attention and media can make a big deal out of it. For eg: The recent JCPenney SEO issue. Though their paid links got them penalized, other traditional methods can also not fit their stratgy. Here are the traditional methods and how it can not be applied to them. Commenting on blogs - Well, it is reputation here. If some one sees a link on blog comments, it might be fishy and can be named as blog spammers. Forum marketing - Same here. The reputation of clients can go down. Paid post / Paid links - Again risky Please suggest how to build link for type of famous clients. Please do not give stratgic level of advice, but be more specific in your answer. For eg: Do this kind of link building and don't do y. etc., Looking forward for ur answers. Thanks
Link Building | | SamuelDarwin0