What the hell that iframe is doing?

[max.favilli]

I have a competitor using a technique I don't understand. But which seems to work.

Basically in the homepage has a

<noscript>area with a bunch of internal links to pages like:</p> <ul> <li><a href="foo.com/keyword1">keyword1</a></li> <li><a href="foo.com/keyword2">keyword2</a></li> <li><a href="foo.com/keyword3">keyword3</a></li> </ul> <p>Inside these pages there's an iframe with the site homepage url as source, within the iframe tag there's some text (less than 100 words) with some emphasis on the keyword and a link back to the home using keyword as anchor text.</p> <p>All the pages are in the sitemap and indexed, and when you open one you are shown that page (no 301 redirect).</p> <p>Technically those are not doorway pages, because there's no 301.</p> <p>The website has a much weaker backlink profile than others, but does rank pretty well with better positions for those keywords, for many is the TOP 1 (with the url of the homepage, not the iframed pages).</p> <p>And I don't understand why. I understand the usage of the iframe to have the same content as the home page, but without being detect as duplicate content.</p> <p>And I can guess google crawler does crawl the <noscript> links follow them and.... And since the page is basically empty should not do much. The url of the page with the iframe includes the keyword, but doesn't sounds like such a powerful signal to be sent back the homepage thanks to that link contained within the iframe tags.</p> <p><strong>Does anyone have any idea why it works?</strong></p></noscript>

[Travis_Bailey]

I was thinking about the iframe passing juice. Apparently that was 'confirmed' a few years ago, but I never messed with it. It seemed kind of silly to rely on it, since it could be so easily detected. I don't know if the tactic has been 'disproved' and they're spinning their wheels.

I wonder what would happen if they fixed the non-www DNS failure?

Other than that, I think I see 'slow drip' link building.

But given that the home page seems to do better than any of the other pages I've seen, it may be safe to say the iframe tactic might work a little. The site's overall visibility appears to have steadily increased over the last four or five years.

Another possibility, and I wouldn't doubt they've tried it, is CTR bots.

I guess we should look into other domains that refer to |-| /\ppy flow eye tea.

[max.favilli]

As far as I understood from reading in google product forum for GWT, the content of the <iframe>is supposed to pass juice like link title and image alt but it's more powerful. Yet I have no idea how authoritative the guy saying that is.</p></iframe>

[Travis_Bailey]

I got distracted from this thread. I see the iframe pages. I have a hunch, but I'm not ready to render an opinion.

It's hilarious that they actually styled one of the tables as 'linkfarm'. SMH

[max.favilli]

No idea?

[max.favilli]

Hi Travis, maybe my original description was not clear enough.

Open the homepage of their website, look at the source html, hunt for the

<noscript>section, take the first link:</p> <p><a href="http://www.italgommepneumatici.com/vendita-gomme-online/vendita_gomme_online.html">vendita gomme online</a></p> <p>"vendita gomme online" is a good keyword with a good conversion rate if you sell tires, open that page: http://www.italgommepneumatici.com/vendita-gomme-online/vendita_gomme_online.html</p> <p>and again look at the source code, <strong>you will find the iframe</strong>, and between the opening and closing tag a bunch of links, some linking back to the homepage with the same keyword "vendita gomme online"</p></noscript>

[Travis_Bailey]

I've learned one thing especially and that is: Don't try to learn Italian from a tire website. XD

I didn't find an instance of an iframe. There is a reference to iframe in the CSS, but no style is in place for an iframe. Though they do use a lot of JQuery, however.

Fun thing I learned today: noscript can be crawled and rendered.  Just check the cache. The only thing that's actually cached in the corpo are the contents of the noscript tag. Weird, but apparently possible.

But if there's one thing I do know, at least at this moment, it's that a lot of vendita gomme aren't held to the highest standard. Also, this site's conversion rate will continue sucking eggs - as long as they require someone to create an account to purchase.

Otherwise the site just loads fast as hell, even in the US, and it's keyword stuffed to the Nth from the src up. In sum, I need to learn Italian and sell tires.

[max.favilli]

Hi Travis, don't worry I am not that paranoid, competitor: http://www.italgommepneumatici.com/

I have no evidence/knowledge of domains redirect to that domain.

Just ask if any other question comes to your mind.

[Travis_Bailey]

Would you be comfortable with PMing the competitor URL via Moz? I'm not interested in taking a client. I'm interested in what's happening. Moz is my witness.

Have you found evidence/considered the possibility that they're redirecting domains to the target domain? It's basically like running on quicksand, but it can be successful for a while. Just like any light switch tactic.