Unacceptable Link Building Tactics

February 3rd, 2009

by Laura Thieme

It’s nearly midnight and I’m getting crankier by the minute. I’m investigating a true mess of a situation where a client has been apparently blacklisted for select keyword phrases in Google in the past year. Cleaning up this mess is amazing, as it all started out with a hack attack on their site where thousands of pages were posted containing the words “vicodin”, “cialis”, and other interesting terms you can only imagine in the HTML files. A new subdirectory folder was created under one of their many folders. The sad thing was that the SEO consultant that worked on the project initially did not fix the problem correctly. Here we are nearly a year later, and I’m still discovering more problems.

Tonight, I’m reviewing the latest external links as noted in Google Webmaster Tools for the site at risk. What I noticed is that on the client’s site some 300 pages, there are about four pages that show hundreds or thousands of incoming links to one page in particular. That seems a bit odd, right? I mean why would most pages have a few incoming links, but then one internal page have 920 some incoming links? You have to look at that and wonder why.

So, I began reviewing the sites of incoming links. Google Webmaster Tools makes it easy for you to download the table, which you can sort/filter easily in MS Excel. I noted five or six sites, one of which had 900 plus links to my client site. The one site that had 900 plus links - it was a hacker type forum - and my client is noted on every single page by an include file footer. 900 plus pages. Great link building strategy, yes?

The second type of sites where link building was apparently the desire? Pay per post. A media blogger has mentioned my client in one of their thousand pay per posts blog entries? Yes, let’s tell Google we’re getting paid to blog about a topic to ensure high authority, what do you think?

The other type of site that was in a link loop - was this one:
http://greatfurniturestores.com - and believe me, nothing on this site relates to the topic of which my client sells

So, if you are hired to do link building, please do us all a favor - don’t enroll us or your clients in a link farm (more on that later), and don’t blog about us and label it pay per post in blogspot, and lastly, don’t put links on non-related topic pages or sites (such as greatfurniturestores.com).

Let’s just say that my client is Playtex, and they sell (not what you’re thinking) BananaBoat suntan lotion. So, if I need to build links for suntan lotion, where do I go first?

Well, who uses suntan lotion? What kind of demographics? You can’t just say women, body builders, or teenagers going to the beach, or California or beach-centric places? But, you could begin with this - find women, body builder, teenager, college/Spring Break or beach enthusiast type websites. Find out where it makes sense to list your site.

Do not assume that reciprocal or pay for links is your first desired type of link. Reciprocal link requests typically get ignored or refused. The client would prefer not to have to pay out of pocket for more links, as that’s what they’re paying you for. So, try to find places where you can submit a site (your client’s site) to a site that is not competitive, isn’t reciprocal, and doesn’t require a fee.

The content on the site where you’re submitting a request for a link (through automated or moderated service) should be related to the products or services that your client sells. Now there are truly some blogs that talk about all kinds of topics. My blog is like that on www.laurathieme.com - it has numerous links to a variety of topics. But, while I’m signing up for affiliate marketing, as well as already have Adsense running, it’s clear that I’m not writing posts for the sheer purpose of showing up for a keyword phrase. Although I probably should show up for things related to pregnancy and breastfeeding with the number of posts I’ve done in the past year on the topics. So, blogs don’t always have content dedicated to one topic alone -and therefore, you need to use your best judgment as to whether or not the blog is appropriate content for posting a link to your client.

What’s the most frustrating type of link site - the type that’s been generated for the sheer purpose of link popularity - building hundreds, thousands of links for no other reason that to try to show great numbers of inbound links for ranking improvements. You know, Google, it’s all your fault. You and your damn page rank system that people mis interpret as “link popularity” not “link quality”. We know that you don’t reward this type of link program, right, or do you?

Why is it that my client can get penalized for select keyword phrases, but other sites that are clearly link farms can post links to my client after a hack attack - can’t you determine that the client website is a victim, not a player in the link farm scheme?

Okay, it’s late and I need some sleep - time to get back in the game on this problem tomorrow morning, in between diaper changes and taking care of little M.

Posted in Search Optimization (SEO). No Comments »

 

When SEO Competitors Play Unfair? Do We Do the Same, or Report Them, or What?

December 18th, 2008

by Laura M Thieme

It’s the fourth week of my maternity leave. For those of you who don’t know this already, I delivered Melina Francis Thieme on November 24, 2008 via c-section. If you want to read about this, you can but please proceed with caution, as the word “breast” is referenced in terms of “breast-feeding” so if you’re offended by such, please don’t follow this breastfeeding link). I’m checking emails as of this week late at night, but am off until January 2009. Life has changed - and it involves sleep deprivation - like attending an SES week of parties for a month now, with no break in between. The hangover morning after never ends - but the sweet reward of having a child in your life for the first time is amazing. Having waited 40 years for your first child brings an even sweeter change in your life.

At this point, I’m only handling high level issues for clients - and one is a project where a client’s website has slipped out of the top rankings for their two main keyword phrases in Google alone. Yahoo & MSN are in tact, and in fact have improved, but in Google - not so much - they’ve declined since we took on the project. They had been blacklisted in Google when we came on board, but these two terms were intact. Now - not so much. Slowly but surely, other terms have declined - and one has to wonder if the blacklisting from a site hijacking is the issue, or if something else is happening.

For example, their leading SEO competitor tactics include setting up a network of nearly 50 or so websites that are for little purpose other than that of SEO. Why does Google reward this type of action? My client and I play clean SEO, but this competitor does not. So what should we do? Do we do the same, as some of our former clients have asked us to, or do we report them publicly to cause enough pain that Matt Cutts will invariably weigh in on it (as done on www.seomoz.org), or do we beat them at their own game doing something else on the fringe? Preferably, I’d report the buggers publicly - and am considering doing so. The issue though - is why is that the competitor wins with a multitude of fake websites, and my client, who has one clean site does not. Their site was hijacked in March - but is that still the problem, and why can’t Webmaster Tools at Google tell me that I’m penalized?

I caught up with a friend of mine today and he was surprised to hear that we don’t work with SEO projects exclusively anymore. We provide three-in-one SEM services, which include paid search, SEO and website analytics. I told him it was because often our clients’ competitors resort to SEO tactics that we do not support, including setting up a network of websites that are fake, or created for one sole purpose - and that is to garner top five positions in Google for a particular keyword phrase or group of phrases. Clients who paid top dollar often indicated they did not care if we did anything illegal, and in other cases, wondered why their 40-page website did not show up for something really popular such as herbal supplements.

Lastly, after you’ve done all the right SEO things, there gets to be a point where you have no other choice than to build links - and what if building links is a waste of time in general? Can’t we just do paid search and get along? Shouldn’t tracking traffic and making your website better from a conversion perspective be the main focus?

So, let us know what you think? When you see your top competitors playing unfair, and it’s costing you SEO keywords, or possibly even an SEO client - what do you do? Do you report them, play unfair, or beat them at their own game another way?

Posted in Search Optimization (SEO). 1 Comment »