Black Hat? Is it really possible my new client paid someone to SEO the word "here"?
-
I just took on a client and first thing I saw in Webmaster Tools was the dreaded "Unnatural Link Patterns" message dated Apr 7th, 2012. MajesticSEO is reporting 212 backlinks, OSE is reporting 251. Nothing out of the ordinary, in fact they only anchor text is their brand.
However, we then ran an SEO PowerSuite Crawl and found 429 backlinks with 78.1% of links use the anchor text "here" and 77.9% of all links point to the same URL. If this is indeed true I can see why they got the message from Google.
The company has admitted they hired a service to do SEO for $299/mo for several months but when they saw no results they quit. Could this company really have gone after "here".
It not, I can't find anything that would give them the message they got from Google Webmaster Tools.
-
Right on. I'll take the additional wait for increased accuracy any day.
-
It can literally take 8-10 hours for SEO PS to crawl 1site, for that reason it does appear more thorough. That being said, SEOPS identified the word "here" as did Google WMT, but G WMT points to a completely different aritcle (different URL) than SEOPS.
As I said I was confused b/c the G WMT links are from a "here" post June 28th and the WMT message was 4/7/2012. So I think...maybe...just perhaps....SEO PS was pulling the "Here" for the actual URL that got the letter where for some reason the links in G WMT are from a later date.
Bottom line. SEO PS was the only tool that found this information. SEOMoz and MajesticSEO failed.
-
Domenic,
Sounds like you've figured out the issue. I recently had to request removal from several blogs because of undifferentiated, site-wide links in their blogroll to our site. Very tiresome and required lots of followup emails. Good luck!
On a side note, how do you like SEO PowerSuite? Lately I've been frustrated by the disparity between MajesticSEO and OSE for backlink analysis. I'm looking for another tool and would like to hear what you have to say about PowerSuite.
Thanks
-
EGOL, there are 163 links in Google webmaster tools. Looking back I see over 8 instances of the link "here" on the blog roll, each pointing to 8 different blog posts (specific URLs) multiplied by the 163 pages...give us 1304 links with "Here" when OSE is showing 251 links from 50+ domains.
So I can see where this is a direct +60% Penguin violation, the issue is why is Google counting obvious duplicate content for every single one.
-
We have sites that have never received linkbuilding and "here" is one of the top anchors for each of the sites.
-
Thank Kyle, we figured that, we just weren't sure why/how, but we're getting there.
-
Stephen, thank you,
The message is the less I think, never seen worse: Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links...[fix it and resubmit.]
I looked over the links in WMT and 163 pointing from one site, using "here" linking to one particular blog article.
The issue is a technical one. The site in question is their Web 2.0 Community Site, powered by Ning Software, where they answer all sorts of questions on the topic. They have a blog roll and every single member automatically displays the currently blog roll in their profile.
Google is counting every single member profile and every single page with the blog roll as a link with the word "here". Full sentence is "Great article on blah blah, find it here." B/c it's appearing on 163 pages, they have 163 "here"s linking to one page.
This get's slightly more confusing. There are a lot more than one "here" because the guy who says "check it out here" has multiple posts saying that however linked to URL in question is the same for all 163 and that post was made on June 28th while the WMT message was on Apr 7th.
So I'm still a bit stumped
I'm going to get them to remove the blog roll or maybe we can put a nofollow tag on the blog roll link. I've never seen blog roll links count for full link value.
-
I highly doubt they intentionally tried to target the word "here". More likely is the links they produced was something like (to see blah blah blah, click here) and “here” was the link to the site. Probably a bunch of spam.
-
Hi Domenic
How many are sitewides? What is the ratio of single domain to domain links vs sitewide to domain
Which of the two letters did you get? the crap links links discounted message or the you are penalised message for crap links message?
What links are Google Webmaster Tools reporting? That should be your best indicator of what Google thinks
S
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 that trailing slashes necessity for an SEO doing blogs
Hi, I have a website, https://australiatimenow.com.au/ I would like to remove the trailing slash and move to .HTML formal. I have never done SEO on my articles. Is that, any issue causes if I move to .HTML format?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | joshnajenny0 -
It's possible a bounce-rate attack manipulate SEO?
My site has been visited by unusual users with one second session times. This leaves my analytics data confused.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CompraBit0 -
Dfferent domains on same ip address ranking for the same keywords, is it possible?
Hello, I want to ask if two domains which r hosted on the same server and have the same ip ( usually happens with shared hosts ) tries to rank for the same keywords in google, does the same ip affects them or not.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RizwanAkbar0 -
Are All Paid Links and Submissions Bad?
My company was recently approached by a website dedicated to delivering information and insights about our industry. They asked us if we wanted to pay for a "company profile" where they would summarize our company, add a followed link to our site, and promote a giveaway for us. This website is very authoritative and definitely provides helpful use to its audience. How can this website get away with paid submissions like this? Doesn't that go against everything Google preaches? If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper1 -
Cloaking for better user experience and deeper indexing - grey or black?
I'm working on a directory that has around 800 results (image rich results) in the top level view. This will likely grow over time so needs support thousands. The main issue is that it is built in ajax so paginated pages are dynamically generated and look like duplicate content to search engines. If we limit the results, then not all of the individual directory listing pages can be found. I have an idea that serves users and search engines what they want but uses cloaking. Is it grey or black? I've read http://moz.com/blog/white-hat-cloaking-it-exists-its-permitted-its-useful and none of the examples quite apply. To allow users to browse through the results (without having a single page that has a slow load time) we include pagination links but which are not shown to search engines. This is a positive user experience. For search engines we display all results (since there is no limit the number of links so long as they are not spammy) on a single page. This requires cloaking, but is ultimately serving the same content in slightly different ways. 1. Where on the scale of white to black is this? 2. Would you do this for a client's site? 3. Would you do it for your own site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ServiceCrowd_AU0 -
SEO from INDIA Smarter then Google?
Exploring this url: filterscanada.ca In Open Site Explorer, it is clear those guys bought one of those package available on site like eLance.com a low price over seas!!! Where freelancer around the word can be hired for a fews bucks. For example, I post a job on eLance for SEO and most of the freelancer submitting where from INDIA. For just a few hundreds dollars, you can get a complet SEO package. At first, the price was attractive, but when posting on seoMoz and doing research, I came to the conclusion, the techniques they use might hurt more the produce positive result... How can you get a D.A. of 45 using backlinks they get? I read all those things about Google algorithm, and Panda and Penguin and this and that... Being impossible to crack! Do you have a explanation? I work really hard ans spends lots of $$$ to have a clean site selling furnace filters
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BigBlaze205
I follow all the SEO guide lines, practice only white hat trying to built somethings, but with a P.A. of 19 and a competitors ranking like this, I ask myself: "Maybe INDIA is smarter then Google and I should do like this site, spend a couple of hundreds dollars and buy myself a high D.A."0 -
Are the Majority of SEO Companies 'Spammers, Evildoers, & Opportunists'?
This may not be the most productive Q&A discussion, but I've had some really interesting experiences this last month that have made me even more distrusting of "SEO" companies. I can't help but think of this post (not much has changed since '09). Even though it takes a pretty extreme stance, I agree with the core of it - _"The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web." _ I didn't start doing this type of work wanting to have such a negative opinion of SEO companies, but I just keep having the same experience: I'll get referred to someone who isnt' happy with their SEO company. They send me their web address, I check out the site, and seriously can't believe what I find. MISSING PAGE TITLES, EVERY CANONICAL URL ISSUE IMAGINABLE, AND 10'S OF THOUSANDS OF BOT SPAM EMAT LINKS FROM PAGES LIKE THIS...AND THIS and just recently a company a called one of my clients and conned him into paying for this piece of spam garbage, obviously scraped from the site that I made for him. and what's worse, sometimes for whatever reason these companies will have all the client's FTP and CMS logins and it can be hell trying to get them to hand them over. There's no webmaster tools set up, no analytics, nothing.... These businesses are paying a good chunk of change every month, I just can't believe stuff like this is so common...well acutally, it's what i've come to expect this point. But I used to think most SEO companies actually had their clients best interest at heart. Does every honest consultant out there run into this same type of stuff constantly? How common is this type of stuff really? Now, on to the positive. This community rocks, and I feel like it represents real, ethical, solution-oriented, boundary-less SEO. So thank you Mozzers for all you do. and I love using the tools here to help businesses understand why they need an honest person helping them. If anyone has thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear 'em...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SVmedia3 -
Why does my competitor rank so well with so many paid/traded links?
Greetings everyone! I've really been enjoying my Moz membership these past few weeks after studying my data and comparing it with my competitors I think it's high time I started asking some questions. The website I manage has a very good ranking history but over the past year we've seen a slight decline in our SERP positions. I don't think this has anything to do with on-page optimization but rather with our link profile. We have only about 10k links total while they have 175k - our mozranks are nearly identical, but his moztrust is 4.46 and our's is 3.51. I am guessing, on our end, I need to remove some of these low-quality nofollow links (though I'll be honest I have no idea how we obtained them to begin with) but what I don't understand is how our competitor is ranking so well because when I browse their link profile, it is filled with paid link and traded link directories that don't appear to be penalized for what they are. I was under the impression that this was bad SEO, but now I am thinking I should just play his own game and submit to these sites too. Looking for any advice or ideas on a better way to compete... ❤ Jennifer
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Virage0