Spam Link Building Discovered - What would you do?
-
Hi Mozers,
After investigating our no 1 competitor we have discovered their 87k back links comparing to ours 1k. After dipper investigations we discovered that all the back links are gained by the websites created by themselves.
So what they did is - they had purchased 10+ domains and created 10+ new websites that are identical as their original .com version. EVERY SINGLE LINK on these 'new' websites link to their .com version. The 'New' websites are not indexed.
Literally each of us can do the same and gain thousands of back links, but isn't it violating google's policy?
What are your thought on it?
(What is the best practice to report the violation of google's policy to Google?)
Best regards,
Lana
-
Thank you for your time Egol. According to Moz our website is outranking my competitor's website in all other metrics other than total external links. Hope we will outrank them on google as well
And thank you Josh and Highland for sharing your thoughts, it was really helpful.
-
I always remind people that Black Hat techniques like this can succeed in the short term but seldom produce the desired result in the long term. Google has a small army of highly paid smart people who want to catch things like this (see Panda, Penguin, etc). When Google does catch this (assuming they haven't already) they will almost certainly face some sort of penalty.
My bet is they're spending the newness of their sites on this technique (a new site has no rank but no penalties either). It probably gives some initial boost until Google catches on with their slower systems (Panda and Penguin are both slow in refreshing). A spam report to Google might draw a manual penalty to the main site but, as Egol said, this is a lot of wasted time and effort on their part.
-
I am more amused than bothered by competitors who do this. Those "manufactured websites" do not have any links into them from other legitimate sites, so they have no link power to pass to the competitor's main site. This activity has zero benefit in my opinion. If these competitors have good rankings, I believe that it must come from other things that they are doing.
I hope that all of my competitors spend at least 50% of their development budgets on this activity. I have no fear of it. In addition to being a waste of their time, I think that doing this can damage their main website's ability to rank.
-
Thank you for the respond Egol,
Right, but original .com version is not deindexed (!?) and that is the issue at the first place. They are manufacturing links and it works for a long time now. Their .com website still ranks high.
As you have said 'Google has been killing one of those pages or the entire site for a long time' - killing ONE of those pages or sites is not sufficient enough. What about the original page/site which still ranks? Nobody cares for their duplicate websites being deindexed.
Than you have said 'In the long run you still only have one site, sometimes it will be damaged by these efforts.' - well, the one website which ranks is all they need :). If 'sometimes' will be damaged, than it still means that it is OK to manufacture links by duplicating website, and take the risk to 'maybe' become deindexed.
Theoretically every website owner can create duplicate websites and manufacture tons of back links. It makes the white hat link building pointless. If you ask me this is very much violating google's policy and they should be reported. Otherwise, why don't all of us do the same!?
It is irritating to see someone acting spammy getting better rankings...
-
"Manufactured links" on "duplicate websites" have been discounted by Google for at least 15 years. If you build an identical website and link from Identical Page A to Identical Page B, Google has been killing one of those pages or the entire site for a long time. In the long run you still only have one site, sometimes it will be damaged by these efforts.
If these people were competing against me, I would enjoy seeing them buy a few more domains and put time into tossing up identical sites. No need to report them. Google has deindexed these "New" websites.
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
-
I am getting automatic spam links to my site, how can I remove them?
Hello, I need assistance, recently I noticed a huge traffic drop from my blog, lost all the rankings in SERP. I got to know that it's Google OCT Spam Update mainly it's about spamming and black hat techniques. But I haven't done any spammy practices or Black HAT SEO. I pay good amount of $ a month to freelancing content writers and don't make any spam backlinks. My site is : tcmguide.com Checked my site in search console and noticed that I had out of no where got 13000+ links from different dirty sites, as I have never tried to building those links in my life. 13 382 links.jpg I tried to export and Disavow this but via Export I got access to 1000 only and can't find these links in MOZ. Moz is showing other links, can any one help me out to recover my traffic and If my site is hit with Spam Update, how can I recover from it. Please help me felling pretty demotivated and stressed
Link Building | | dsdfsdfdfdfvg330 -
When conducting a link building strategy does it matter the country the link is from?
We are a UK business and if we have links mostly from US based blogs and websites does this penalise us. The links are from relevant websites and topics. Should we be focusing on .co.uk sites
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing1 -
Link building - am I too cautious?
The only backlink building I am doing is guest blogging as it seems most other methods have potential to harm rankings in the post panda/penguin era. As mentioned in another post I'm trying to get a strategy for social media that works as I believe social likes/shares are important. What other link building methods can I use that are totally safe? Is it okay to 'buy' a link on botw r examleas theyre editorally reviewed? I'm asking myself 2 questions when acquiring limks. 1. Would I want this link if google didn't exist and 2. Will it bring me relevant traffic. I'm almost scared of link building in case google punishes me. Are there any legitimate methods I'm missing?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Article submissions for link building- what sites do you still use?
Hey Everyone, Long-time SEO'er first time poster here. I've been doing SEO for around 5 years but since starting my company The Search Ninjas last year I've been so bogged down with client work that I feel like I'm starting to fall behind on what's still effective from a link building perspective since all of my clients are local businesses and since we've been focusing so much attention on Google Places. My question is- are there any general article sites that you still use for SEO since the Panda update last year (that you firmly believe still offer "juice"), or do you mainly focus on niche sites and guest-blogging? I'm looking for ideas regarding how to find content submission opportunities for clients for link building purposes. I'm familiar with Ontolo and the Whitespark Link Prospecting Tool in terms of ways to find opportunities (and of course cherrypicking competitors' links using OSE and SEOSpyglass), any other recommendations? Best, George ps clients are in legal niche for the most part if that helps you out, but this is mainly me looking for everyone's general opinion.
Link Building | | georgetsn1 -
Link Building Through Blogs
A client of mine wants to look into new areas of link building after convincing them that their current link building strategies (purchasing multiple links from god knows where) was not working well for them. Essentially I felt they were spinning their wheels. Now, we are looking into content related blogs to get some honest links for their site. They sell sports equipment and we are looking at sports blogs to get links/partnerships. Most of these blogs want sponsorship fees or advertising fees. From an ethical standpoint I understand buying links is not the best idea. But because these are blogs that earn traffic, have relevant content, and can be helpful for the advertisement aspect to link to people who might be interested in their products as well. There shouldn't be a problem in acquiring a few of these links if the budget allows for it, correct? Also are blogs a good source to acquire links from?
Link Building | | USHoleInOne0 -
Link Building Management Tool That Syncs Sweetly With Google Analytics
Hi, I would like a link building management tool that syncs with Google Analytics, so that I can Easily see traffic referrals from link acquired sites Easily see traffic from keywords that were anchored in the link acquisition Browny points for the tool to be a CRM as well. Raven Tools cant do this. Does anyone know of a tool? Or do I keep building custom reports in Google Analytics! Thanks.
Link Building | | DigitalLeaf0 -
SEO MOZ LINK BUILDING TOOLS
So I learnt that in link building you need to send an email to someone from where you want the inbound link coming in from. In this case, are there any tools withing SEO moz that allow you toactually search for links and also provide you the contact email? Thank you, Vijay
Link Building | | vijayvasu0