The other day I wrote about the hilarity still showing up for buy Cialis still in Google even after all these “quality” updates. While I can see how Google’s toned down the power of having a lot of specific anchor text links, there are clearly problems still. So right now for the search term bad credit personal loans is showing one silly result. This is a very competitive term and this type of crap shouldn’t still be showing up, right?
So the super duper spam attack Google algo update hit this week and continues to roll out, so what do the search results for some of the most spammed keywords look like? Well let’s take a look at buy Cialis and see what we can find ranking in the top 10 for one very competitive keyword.
All those businesses out there who’ve gone and looked for a link building company have most likely ended up at the Google search box to start their quest. With so many people having problems due to links these days, I thought we’d take a quick look at what an unsuspecting consumer might end up being provided by both organic and paid search results from Google. I feel bad for a lot of small businesses who don’t know any better and end up getting a boat load of spammy links done in their name. While they’ll most likely enjoy the benefits for a while, they’ll one day get the stinger of Google in their arse and that can be disastrous. While I don’t condone you heavily rely on organic Google traffic, it does make or break a lot of businesses.
So I’ll pick a few random search queries a company might search for and see what results we get in the organic and paid (Adwords) results. I’ve looked at a couple and have been disgusted with what I’ve seen, which is what inspired me to get this post going. It’s also quite obviously a sly tactic to make people aware of our link “attraction” process and why we promote awesome content for links more than any other tactic out there.
So here in red we have the companies that offer services that are against Google’s TOS and good ol’ Vertical Measures holding it down in green at number one. They do a lot of amazing work and even as a competitor, I have no problem promoting them or kissing a little ass. Problem here? Most will go with the others because a link attraction campaign costs quite a bit of money and those cheaper services are just too easy to go with.
So, BuildMyRank, a very very blackhat link building network that has recently been kicked in the rear from Google is still ranking no1 for this term… strange? You can imagine how this will end up getting a lot of people and their businesses in trouble without them knowing any better. This is another great example of why this post is going up here and why Google may even need to specifically check in on these SERPs.
These are looking a lot better as I can see our site in the company of Eric Ward‘s (which should be no1 in my opinion). You can quickly see that a lot of the other results for the “whitehat/white hat” queries bring in a number of services that are in no way approved under Google’s TOS.
As you can see there is a lot of room for people getting stuck with a company that has no idea what’s going to keep you out of trouble while getting them ranked. You’d be shocked at how many firms are using blog networks to pump up client results and they’re not even telling them. I can imagine this will also lead to a lot of lawsuits or threats from companies who wake up one day with their business on the verge of extinction.
We don’t claim to be all super whitehat either, don’t get me wrong. Ranking in some niches sometimes requires sneakyness and we know that techniques that are not squeaky clean often work. We do, however, have ninja skills when it comes to acquiring links that can only be obtained via some monetary exchange. When it comes to stuff like that, the clients are always made fully aware of the potential risks at hand. I’d just like to drill it into companies’ heads that they need to be aware of what might be a problem for them in the future and not be in the dark. Flying in the face of Google’s TOS is like investing: you have to be willing to lose everything you put in. One day, it might not be worth anything.
For some reason the topic of Marijuana is so demonized so most brands will stay far from it. Being from British Columbia, the plant is engrained in our culture and is no different from having a couple beers with your friends…except less harmful. Yesterday was 4/20 (April 20th) and of course is famous for being international weed day all over the world. My hat always goes off to the brands ready and willing to be daring with their marketing and one simple tweet has done just that for Taco Bell. Whoever is behind the social marketing at Taco Bell needs a raise because they’re doing a spot on job. The rest of you should take note and see how it’s done right.
While this is most likely just a quick way to make a few bucks while jumping on a trend, we will however see an influx of these services. I’ve been enjoying the debating on whether or not you can penalize a site with boat loads of links. If you can buy yourself a bunch of junk links and end up in all sorts of trouble, why couldn’t someone else. There’s no way to tell who paid for those links so we have an interesting year ahead of us still.
Not really much I can write about this other than take notes as this title has turned boring auto news into a hilarious and a little distasteful topic. So many companies don’t have the balls to attempt this form of humor but if you’re not ready to let your hair down in marketing, you’re not going to get very far. My hat goes off to the writers over at Jalopnik and the whole Gawker crew in general….stay classy!
I thought this would make for an excellent topic because there is a lot of talk and debating on what is link spamming these days. Press releases have long been a great way to get legit and worthy news out to the right people and of course links are a bonus of that. I don’t think that using a service like PRweb or any of the top wire services is spam unless you’re releasing useless/fake news just to get an anchor text link…then we’re getting into link scheme territory.
So onto my Google Webmaster Central Help section this morning which is a morning ritual of mine while drinking my coffee. It’s a place webmasters go to inquire with non-Google employees as to why they’re having a problem or issue with the big G. Keep in mind the regular “help” aka bionic posters are NOT Google employees and this sometimes is a frustrating thing because they, like most SEO’s including me from time to time, think they know all. They however do know a lot and are helpful for the most part although the tone coming from a lot of them usually entails a negative touch and or a whole lot of sarcasm in their responses. If this were happening with just about any other company those people who have been fired long ago as it’s a disgusting way to handle customer service. I don’t claim to be a saint either as I have been sassy from time to time within my posts.
So this morning I was reading a thread about a company claiming that competitors built spammy links to their site and they ended up getting penalized. So we’ve all heard this before but the bit that stuck out was when their bionic posters claimed that submitting a PR with PRweb is nothing but link spam.
seo101Level 15 Post reply
Apr 14 (11 hours ago)
Why do you submit via PRWeb for? It is to get links isn’t it? That is what PRWeb offer (they have “SEO” on their home page!). That self promotional link building … that the very definition of a link scheme!
Besides, I see nothing newsworthy about your site that you even need to do press releases!!!!
You can continue to delude yourself about your link building. Until you get over that, your site will continue to languish in mediocrity.
You are also making a fool of yourself re the class action law suit. Google has no contractual obligation to you or your site (written or implied) to give you any organic ranking, so has they have broken no contractual obligation, so you have no case!
Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal did talk about press releases briefly in a 2011 Pubcon interview and it’s one of the few references I can find on the web about the topic. They pretty much lay it out like I’ve mentioned on how you should go about utilizing a service like PRweb.
Question: Are PRWeb and press releases considered black hat due to duplicate content?
Matt Cutts: Press releases are going to other people and asking them to write about you. Instead, work hard to produce high quality content on your site and people will want to write about you. It is harder to fake natural than be natural.
Amit Singhal: The content must be high-quality and useful from a reader’s perspective. If the content is high quality and you work hard for the users, it is OK.
So this is kind of a touchy subject and I would love to hear what the wire service and inbound marketing community thinks of this. Google is really cracking down on manually built link building processes but I don’t think you’ll ever run into a problem if you steer clear of putting keyword specific anchor text in your press releases. Those who have been paying attention will know that site/brand links are killing it in the SERPs lately and you best be just letting those natural links coming in.
The time has come for another Linklove conference here in 2012 and it looks like the lineup of speakers is nothing short of the best ever. The conference was today and I wish I could have attended but I cannot be everyone at once so I hope it was a blast! The folks at Koozai(who you should go follow all over the social world) were kind enough to put up this video to let us know who’s talking about what this year. I will without a doubt be making my way over for the next event so hopefully I’ll see you there.
