Spammy Links, SERPs, and Low Competition Keywords
-
While I've seen a lot of news about Google cleaning up content farms, link farms, and similar spam, I've also seen some companies start ranking very well for niche terms using these same practices.
Question:
Does Google completely discount links from content farms and similar sites or simply give them low value?
Observation:
I've seen a company start ranking well (top 3) for several terms when they used be on page 2.
When I looked at their links, they are from article farms, directories, do-follow blogs and similar low-vale sources. Relative to others, they have about 10x the volume of links with the precise anchor text they are targeting.
I wonder in absence of other information that these spammy links still count for something. Given the low competition for the term, this is enough to boost their rank.
Just thoughts some thoughts as we are working on long-tail strategies for some key terms.
-
Yes, Keywords with low Competion can be pushed to the top Ranks of Google via Forum(Spamlinks) with no related content whatsoever. Exact Keyword Targeting is quite powerful, even though Google wants everyone to believe it is not
The other Thing to take in account is if you will be punished from Google for it. In My Option.... if you dont use Scripts to post your spam links :>, buy 10k Links, and dont get all your Links in 1 week, Google wont punish .... if you have like 100 Links a week.
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
-
High Rank and Traffic of low DA and Backlinks
Hi guys, is a pleasure being a part of this community, hope in learning a lot with you guys, i just started a year learning about SEO and it been a big journey. I was looking at some competition of some websites that i been optmizing, and i found a website that called my attention and i cant figure out whats going on, it haves huge traffic but in terms of technicall SEO is really week, and not just this but also in terms of DA and backlinks (most of them spammy - 20 backlinks), the domain in question is bhnews.com.br I notice that doesnt have any social media, not analytics, etc. The only thing that i notice is that there is a website or a company called "BH news" (televesion), but its not related with it, since the type of information that bhnews.com.br presents is "lottery" results. So this kind of situation confuses me a lot, because is a lot of hard work in optmizing a website to rank in google, and than i come a across with this type of website with 20 backlinks (most of anchor or name of domain), and than haves like 2M visits per month and ranks for keywords related with the this type of sites of lottery. Can someone tell me if there is some kind of black seo, or something that is making this rank so high? regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jogobicho0 -
Clean-up Question after a wordpress site Hack added pages with external links from a massive link wheel?
Hey All, Thought I would throw this out to ensure I am dotting my "i's" and crossing my "t's"..... Client WordPress site was hacked injected 3-4 pages that cross linked to hundreds (affiliate junk spam link wheel). Pages were removed, 3rd party cleared all malware/viruses. Heavy duty firewall and security monitoring are in place. Hacked pages are now showing as 404. No penalties, ranking issues....If anything there was a temporary BOOST in rankings due to the large link-wheel type net that the pages were receiving....That has since leveled out rankings. I guess my question is, in your opinion is it best to let those pages 404, I am noticing a large amount of links going to them from all over the world from this large link net that was built. I find the temptation to 301 re-direct deleted pages to the homepage difficult...lol..{the temptation is REAL}. Is there anything I am missing? Any other steps that YOU would take? I am assuming letting those pages 404 would be the best bet, as in time they will roll off index.... Thank you in advance, I appreciate any feedback or opinions....
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Anthony_Howard0 -
Do you get penalized for Keyword Stuffing in different page URLs?
If i have a website that provides law services in varying towns and we have pages for each town with unique content on each page, can the page URLS look like the following: mysite.com/miami-family-law-attorney mysite.com/tampa-family-law-attorney mysite.com/orlando-family-law-attorney Does this get penalized when being indexed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Armen-SEO0 -
Link profile heavy with press release syndication links caused drop at Penguin 2.0
I'm wrestling with something that I'm hoping members of the community can provide input on.... I've working with an enterprise level client that is in the business of data capture and distribution. I've diagnosed a clear drop of traffic on May 22nd, i.e a loss of search visibility post Penguin 2.0. Their link profile is big! Discussions with internal stakeholders who have been with the company 10's of years confirm that no "link building" service providers have ever been hired and no over-zealous employee is ever likely to have tried to "do" link building internally. They are just one of those lucky companies that by their nature publish information that people want to link to and share. As a first port of call I've grouped links by anchor text and can see groups of hundreds of matching anchors based on their brand URL and specific page titles. The matching anchors have resulted from big take up of interesting data that they have marketed via press releases. NOT for link purposes. My question is this.... Does the community think or have evidence (or can point me toward any case studies) that show that Press release syndication alone could result in: a) a penguin penalty or...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | QubaSEO
b) a devaluing of press release type links during Penguin 2.0 that could have resulted in a loss of search visibility and give the impression of a penalty Your thoughts are much appreciated!0 -
Keyword Phrase vs. separate keywords - Title Tag best practices
Hello, What is your opinion about when to use a keyword phrase vs. 2 keywords, separated by a comma, in the title tag? For example, on this page, the title could be either: NLP Hypnosis, Language Patterns | Nlpca.com or NLP and Hypnosis Including Language Patterns | Nlpca.com Which do you guys think is best with respect to rankings, updates, and future updates?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Competition Link Metrics Analysis - Do you have any suggestions ?
My sub-pages are ranking well, but Homepage isn't ranking well for the keywords I'd like it to. It used to in the past. My site - njhypnotherapy.com used to rank (#2-5) 1st page in google for many keywords. In Sep/Oct I noticed my homepage ranking drop dramatically for the main keywords. Well, I made some foolish decisions and I'm trying to clean up the mess. Low quality links, duplicate content...etc I rewrote most of the content, removed unnecessary pages, removed as many low quality links, and used disavow for the rest. It's been a 2 Weeks now. I noticed a lot of improvements in my sub-pages. From #50 to #20. Not Bad. My homepage still isn't ranking. Any suggestions to improve? Btw, I've included my link metrics below if it helps 🙂 Thank You metricks.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | njhypnotherapy0 -
Should i buy this domain because it has a keyword that im trying to rank for?
Im trying to rank for a keyword and i saw that this domain is available the top listing under this search team is a domain authority 14 and according to seo site explorer has 1 page linking to it and its a no follow link. Would it make since to buy this domain optimize it and forward it back to my main site or is this bad to do.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gslc0 -
Google Penguin w/ Meta Keywords
It's getting really hard filtering through the Penguin articles flying around right now so excuse me if this has been addressed: I know that Google no longer uses the meta keywords as indicators (VERY old news). But I'm just wondering if they are starting to look at them as a bigger spam indicator since Penguin is looking at over-optimization. If yes, has anyone read good article indicating so? The reason I ask is because I have two websites, one is authoritative and the other… not so much. Recently my authoritative website has taken a dip in rankings, a significant dip. The non-authoritative one has increased in rankings… by a lot. Now, the authoritative website pages that use meta-keywords seem to be the ones that are having issues… so it really has me wondering. Both websites compete with each other and are fairly similar in their offerings. I should also mention that the meta-keywords were implemented a long time ago… before I took over the account. Also important to note, I never purchase links and never practice any spammy techniques. I am as white hat as it gets which has me really puzzled as to why one site dropped drastically.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BeTheBoss0