Who's still being outranked by spam?
-
Over the past few months, through Google Alerts, I've been watching one of our competitors kick out crap press releases, and links to their site have been popping up all over blog networks with exact match anchor text.
They now outrank us for that anchor text. Why is this still happening? Three Penguin updates later and this still happens. I'm trying so hard to do #RCS and acquire links that will ensure our site's long-term health in the SERPs.
Is anyone else still struggling with this crap?
-
This is nothing new .. this is like playing Russian roulette .. they are taking the risk and they are enjoying the benefits while the sun shines. I do not think we can do anything to change this situation.. hope Google is listening and will come up with something and believe me this tool will not make any difference -
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en
I have tried this many times and of course no result so far.
-
Ah. Well, at least you got a reply!
-
I 100% agree with this, and I am working on long term strategies in the hopes that our competitors will face consequences soon enough--two of our biggest competitors were completely destroyed by the first Penguin. It's a little hard when you have higher ups demanding answers as to why we went from number #1 to #4 over the past three months.
-
Yes, I did that yesterday, but unfortunately, a few weeks ago I got an email from Google saying they received a spam report I sent them for a different site over eight months ago, so I'm not expecting any kind of expedient action on Google's part.
-
I'm seeing it less and less in the travel space. But when it does happen I agree that it's hugely frustrating. You simply have to keep on doing the right thing in the firm belief that Google will reward you in the end. Don't be tempted to copy spammy techniques because (a) you'll probably suffer in the long run, and (b) it might not actually be those that are causing your competitors to outrank you.
-
Have you tried a webspam report?
-
The recent algo updates to catch this sort of stuff seem to be a bit hit and miss at the moment. But it does give us reason to believe that Googs are actively working on removing the trash, but it is still just an algo, it's not perfect. Hopefully they'll continue getting even better at identifying and removing spam.
-
Everyday I keep seeing spam website ranking at the top, frustrating to see that they are up there.
Example 1, we are trying to #1 for a educational course name for a client that is a training school. They are currently being outranked by a website that has about 90% exact match Japanese blog comments, simply because those blog have a high DA.
Example 2, we have a regional client trying to rank for [keyword] + [city name], they are being outranked by an EMD who has 1 link, which is a directory. Whereas we keep pushing new content on the client's site and building their social networks. Sure, the number 1 website isn't doing any shading spam techniques, but they are simply ranking because of their domain names which I thought Google's latest update would of fixed that..
-
Yes - I am struggling with exactly the same issues. I actually sent a private question to SEOMoz last month asking for advice because I was so frustrated. One of our competitors has set up hundreds of fake blog networks with exact match anchor text all over the place linking back to their ecommerce site (to the tune of 300,000+ links)....I know their tactics, because I used to work for them (and it's obvious when looking at their inbound links in ahrefs.com). I disagreed with their SEO approach and frequently voiced my opinions. Fortunately, I was hired away by one of their competitors
Now I work for a great, honest, hard-working company that does great #RCS every day. Still my former company, even after Penguin and Panda and more Penguin and Panda, consistently makes Page 1 while my current company is lucky to make Page 2 for some really important keywords. It is very very frustrating!
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
-
We've just completed a company video. Should we post it everywhere at once, or stagger on various channels (YouTube, website, LinkedIn, Facebook...)
Hopefully we'll get a lot of traffic from our new corporate video. If we post it everywhere at once, will we get a spike in our analytics, and if so, will it be seen by Google as an anomaly, or even suspicious. If we spread out the distribution over several channels over a little time, should we get a longer bump. In either instance, we may consider a sharing schedule to promote it over time.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SteveMauldin0 -
How Do You Know or Find Out if You've been hit by a Google Penalty?
Hi Moz Community, How do you find out if you have been hit with a Google Penalty? Thanks, Gary
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gdavey0 -
How/Why do I have so many Spam backlinks?
I was looking in GWT yesterday and found we have several thousand "spam" backlinks...I am curious why this happens and how this happens? There are some links from websites/domains that are not mine that appear to be spam. However, we own a large group of domains and have noticed some of the links are coming from 2 of those sites/domains we own to my main site. The sites/domains are not active, we just own them. I am wondering how someone could access these domains that are not active and create spammy backlinks to my main website? (They created about 20,000 links). Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | carlystemmer0 -
Why isn't a 301 redirect removing old style URLs from Google's index?
I have two questions:1 - We changed the URL structure of our site. Old URLs were in the format of kiwiforsale.com/used_fruit/yummy_kiwi. These URLs are 301 redirected to kiwiforsale.com/used-fruit/yummy-kiwi. We are getting duplicate content errors in Google Webmaster Tools. Why isn't the 301 redirect removing the old style URL out of Google's index?2 - I tried to remove the old style URL at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals, however I got the message that "We think the image or web page you're trying to remove hasn't been removed by the site owner. Before Google can remove it from our search results, the site owner needs to take down or update the content."Why are we getting this message? Doesn't the 301 redirect alert Google that the old style URL is toast and it's gone?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Competitor Bad Practice SEO Still Ranking Well But Why ?
Moz Friends, A very close competitor have always been challenging for similar competitive keywords. We seem to have the advantage for alot of long tail keywords but on one of the higher traffic relevant keywords they seem to do well. I really struggle to understand why, particularly with the back links they use Just my thoughts and notes on the two: Our Page Better written text content (Maybe slightly written to for experienced target audience but we are working on simplifying things) Good Clear site URL structure and navigation for usability Fresh content updates Mobile optimized Reasonable page speeds Good on-page optimization Good back links from industry influences Competitor Page Negatives Site structure and URL's are inconsistent and messy Lower quality content site wide They use tried and tested on page optimization methods like Keyword spamming, Bold Keywords,Underlining Keywords (Sarcasm) Terrible back links, all directories and free article submission sites (Seriously take a look) Less focused on page optimization Not mobile optimized Most of the rest of the sites carry on the same sort of differences, Engine: www.google.co.uk Keyword: Sound level meters **Our Page: **www.cirrusresearch.co.uk/products/sound-level-meters/ **Competitor Page: **www.pulsarinstruments.com/product-information/Sound-Level-Meter.html Any feedback would be greatly appreciated please, i am really struggling to get my head around this Thanks James
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Antony_Towle1 -
Google's Related Searches - Optimizing Possible?
Does anyone know how Google determines what suggestions show up at the bottom of SERPs? I've been working with a client to boost his local ranking, but every time we do a branded search for his business his competitors keep popping up in the "Searches related to ______" section.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mtwelves0 -
Beaten in SERP's by a site going 'all in' on 2 keywords in their anchor text profile.
I would like to get peoples thoughts on putting 80% of your anchor text links in just 2 keywords vs a nice spread of branded and longtail keywords.. like I am. recently fell off the first page for a key SERP.. and the site in P10 has gone nuts on just that two keyword's.. I know we have a good site onpage/ conversion / low bounce rate page views etc.. Pretty sure we get more traffic than them. Seems that this obvious bloated anchor text profiling has worked for them though.. What do you guys think/know?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0