Our main competitor is/was doing some Black Hat tactics....
-
Our main competitor Royal Cases, a custom case manufacturer and designer, has some really shady links and some dummy domains with duplicate content, yet they are ranking #1 organically for some of the industry's top search terms. Let me give you some examples.
First off, they have multiple dummy domains with the same exact same content as their main website. One of these is casescasescases.net. They have a couple more that are just as bad.
Secondly, their link profile is so shockingly black hat, I can't figure out why/how they haven't been deindexed or hit with a filter. I'll give you some examples. I ran a link analysis through Moz, and found multiple links from many websites that have absolutely NOTHING to do with custom cases. Here are a few of the linking domains: http://moneysourceonline.com/ ; www.lemons2lemonade.com/ ; http://jenaesboutique.com/ ; These are just a few. Now here is what I don't understand, when I go to explore the individual inbound links, I can't find the links to Royal anywhere on the pages. They have dozens from different pages on these obviously completely unrelated websites, but when you go to those pages, the links themselves are nowhere to be found. Yet, they are showing up as inbound links....I am lost.
Does anyone have any idea what in the world is going on here? Is there a way to report this to Google? Normally I wouldn't resort to this sort of "tattle-tailing" but this company has a history of scheming and just horrendous business practices, and they recently had to pay a large settlement for pirating software for their company.
-
Karma will Kome
-
We don't necessarily know what Google is "rewarding" them for. Organic rankings are sometimes not fair, but we just need to work at what believe will benefit us in the long-term. It's frustrating, labor-intensive and difficult. However, that is why it is also rewarding.
I see where Chris is coming from though, in the respect that (I believe) in focusing attention on creating sites with value as opposed to spending efforts elsewhere (he knows his stuff).
Good luck!
-
Now is there anything that can be done to report webmasters engaging in black hat seo? Would you guys even report it? Has anyone had any success reporting webspam to Google?
-
um–hum
-
??? I am confused by your response. I am not building links to my competitor, I am simply trying to figure out why Google has all of these golden rules of what not to do, but yet rewards the websites that use those black hat tactics with high organic rankings. I assure you, I take my job very seriously and I work very hard to make sure I am doing things the right way to get my business ahead of the competition. I reached out to the community of Moz for some insights, you don't need to be so condescending.
-
Further proof that black hat tactics work and work well. And they always will work. Google still can't really determine the quality of a link, whether it's natural, negative SEO, spam, etc.
-
So scheming and poor business practices makes your resorting to "tattle tailing" OK? I don't follow that logic. You're probably better off working on building new relationships for your own site than building links to your competitor.
-
"First off, they have multiple dummy domains with the same exact same content as their main website".
One of my competitors has been doing this exact thing and have been rewarded by ranking well in Google. I don't even think reporting web spam to Google even works. I can't understand how they haven't been deindexed or penalized for this.
-
Hahah I found that amusing as well. I guess they are just ranking because of their age...I just dont see why they are so high up with such a crappy website, bogus links, and so much duplicate content.
-
Am I the only one here that finds it hilarious that bsa.org gives companies that pirate software a followed link? Oh man, that is rich. The giggles keep coming.
It's an expensive link, but maybe your company should turn itself in for piracy?
They're only shooting themselves in the foot with the duplicate content.
The site's link profile doesn't look 'shockingly' black hat, though there are some shady spots. It looks like a lot of the newer links were made because the site was scraped. I've found quite a few, at random, that redirect to some Chinese ccTLD. That might be one of the reasons you can't find the link.
Besides, even crap links can possibly prop up a domain for a little while. (Not recommended) But a site may eventually get hit, or it will drop a bit after new low quality links ebb.
Maybe you just don't have the domain age... there's a bunch of things.
-
The links may have just been removed. Also, there rankings may/may not been influence by these tactics (they been around since 1998). As you know, many factors matter in organic ranking. You can make a report of webspam at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport.
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
-
How to set up Goals/Conversions in Google Analytics with Moz
With my new Moz account, how would I go about setting up a useful Goal/Conversion on Google Analytics?
Moz Pro | | Brandon320 -
Before Migration/after(www/non-www/http/https) - Good concentration needed :p
Hi all, Im confusing between those www's and http's. If i go to searchbar (chrome) and ENTER: www.mywebsite.nl, It changes to https://www.mywebsite.nl
Moz Pro | | Dreamgame2016
( with www, and https:// not used) / Its OK next: typing in searchbar and enter: mywebsite.nl, It changes to https://mywebsite.nl (without www and https:// ) / OK Next: www.mywebsite.nl, it stay the same, just https:// added: https://mywebsite.nl (used with https://) / OK Now its comes: If I do it again without http**(s)://mywebsite.nl, **It changes to https://www.mywebsite.nl/?SID=bccbuhvi1cf53r188bpvskn597 / NOT OK 😛 In google search console (webmastertool) I gave property for the https://mywebsite.nl and https://www.mywebsite.nl Each of the website, Im seeying data clicks/ volume keywords etc, so both of them functionating By search console: https://www.mywebsite.nl (With www) I see crawlfaults/errors: 1633 (the url has not linked existing page) I see again: "?SID=..." after urls, example: mywebsite.nl/blabla/?SID=m07ev6lliefbf0tfhe4kf0ih54 By search console - other website: https://mywebsite.nl **(none-www) **you see two crawlfaults/errors! Bad influance for my SEO, because of no existed pages, bad urls and dubble content. Bye bye keywords! Lets analyze/crawl with Moz tool ofcourse ^^: Pages with High Priority Issues: | 2646 | Duplicate Page Content |
| 14 | 4XX Client Error |
| 3 | Crawl Attempt Error |
| 1 | Title Missing or Empty | Medium priority: | 9618 | Temporary Redirect |
| 2688 | Duplicate Page Title |
| 13 | Title Element is Too Long |
| 1 | Missing Meta Description Tag | After seeying this results what is the best option (no losing link-juice)? redirect 301? www to none-www (https://) ? Shortly I am going to change my domain provider and the website template in magento. After that I am going to focus on the SEO implementation. First, I have to solve this problem. Who can give me an advice for this situation? Regarding, Newbee0 -
Social pages not lining up with my website/listing
Hi! Newbie here... 🙂 On my Moz report and I have been told that my social sites are not lining up with my webpage. Any tips on getting this done? Also on my Moz Analytic report, I've added my social sites but only facebook is coming up... Any tips would be appreciated!!! Thanks!
Moz Pro | | fullerton0 -
How can you measure competitor visitor volumes?
I am trying to understand how I can use SEOMOZ to ascertain the volume of visitors a competitor will achieve either daily, weekly or monthly.
Moz Pro | | edwardlewis0 -
Domain Authoriy/Link Authority - Link Building
At what point do you think that an inbound link becomes a bad or low quality link when it comes to the inbound links page domain Authority and page Authority. SO as they are scored 1-100 in each case. At what score would you attempt to get rid of such links.
Moz Pro | | askshopper0 -
Need to find all pages that link to list of pages/pdf's
I know I can do this in OSE page by page, but is there a way I can do this in a large batch? There are 200+ PDF's that I need to figure out what pages (if any) link to the PDF. I'd rather not do this page by page, but rather copy-paste the entire list of pages I'm looking for. Any tools you know of that can do this?
Moz Pro | | ryanwats0 -
I have corrected the Problems in Crawl Diagnostics. When would it refresh/ re-crawl my site ?
I have corrected most of the problems shown in crawl diagnostics and changed the meta desc. , titles etc. When will SEOMOZ recrawl those pages and show that Its correct now ?
Moz Pro | | VarunBansal0 -
Would someone be willing to site audit us and give us some tips/advice?
Hi, Would someone or a whoever is willing to, help me get me head around what the OSE is telling me? I had a few quotes from firms who used this and they basically tried to sell me the world for £500 a month. So I have done my own SEO over the past 5 months and I think the figures are slowly going up, as are visits and sales (albeit slower than the visits). The site is www.designerboutique-online.com, if anyone is willing to take a look around, throw me some constructive criticism, some praise and some tips/hints etc... that would be great. Our budget is very small, hence the reason for doing it myself, so maybe if I could take some advice and put it into action, I could start making some big changes. Some competitors to compare us with are: www.odsdesignerclothing.com www.tessuti.co.uk www.uniquemenswear.co.uk www.endclothing.co.uk www.psyche.co.uk Thanks Will
Moz Pro | | YNWA0