Black Hat? Is it really possible my new client paid someone to SEO the word "here"?
-
I just took on a client and first thing I saw in Webmaster Tools was the dreaded "Unnatural Link Patterns" message dated Apr 7th, 2012. MajesticSEO is reporting 212 backlinks, OSE is reporting 251. Nothing out of the ordinary, in fact they only anchor text is their brand.
However, we then ran an SEO PowerSuite Crawl and found 429 backlinks with 78.1% of links use the anchor text "here" and 77.9% of all links point to the same URL. If this is indeed true I can see why they got the message from Google.
The company has admitted they hired a service to do SEO for $299/mo for several months but when they saw no results they quit. Could this company really have gone after "here".
It not, I can't find anything that would give them the message they got from Google Webmaster Tools.
-
Right on. I'll take the additional wait for increased accuracy any day.
-
It can literally take 8-10 hours for SEO PS to crawl 1site, for that reason it does appear more thorough. That being said, SEOPS identified the word "here" as did Google WMT, but G WMT points to a completely different aritcle (different URL) than SEOPS.
As I said I was confused b/c the G WMT links are from a "here" post June 28th and the WMT message was 4/7/2012. So I think...maybe...just perhaps....SEO PS was pulling the "Here" for the actual URL that got the letter where for some reason the links in G WMT are from a later date.
Bottom line. SEO PS was the only tool that found this information. SEOMoz and MajesticSEO failed.
-
Domenic,
Sounds like you've figured out the issue. I recently had to request removal from several blogs because of undifferentiated, site-wide links in their blogroll to our site. Very tiresome and required lots of followup emails. Good luck!
On a side note, how do you like SEO PowerSuite? Lately I've been frustrated by the disparity between MajesticSEO and OSE for backlink analysis. I'm looking for another tool and would like to hear what you have to say about PowerSuite.
Thanks
-
EGOL, there are 163 links in Google webmaster tools. Looking back I see over 8 instances of the link "here" on the blog roll, each pointing to 8 different blog posts (specific URLs) multiplied by the 163 pages...give us 1304 links with "Here" when OSE is showing 251 links from 50+ domains.
So I can see where this is a direct +60% Penguin violation, the issue is why is Google counting obvious duplicate content for every single one.
-
We have sites that have never received linkbuilding and "here" is one of the top anchors for each of the sites.
-
Thank Kyle, we figured that, we just weren't sure why/how, but we're getting there.
-
Stephen, thank you,
The message is the less I think, never seen worse: Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links...[fix it and resubmit.]
I looked over the links in WMT and 163 pointing from one site, using "here" linking to one particular blog article.
The issue is a technical one. The site in question is their Web 2.0 Community Site, powered by Ning Software, where they answer all sorts of questions on the topic. They have a blog roll and every single member automatically displays the currently blog roll in their profile.
Google is counting every single member profile and every single page with the blog roll as a link with the word "here". Full sentence is "Great article on blah blah, find it here." B/c it's appearing on 163 pages, they have 163 "here"s linking to one page.
This get's slightly more confusing. There are a lot more than one "here" because the guy who says "check it out here" has multiple posts saying that however linked to URL in question is the same for all 163 and that post was made on June 28th while the WMT message was on Apr 7th.
So I'm still a bit stumped
I'm going to get them to remove the blog roll or maybe we can put a nofollow tag on the blog roll link. I've never seen blog roll links count for full link value.
-
I highly doubt they intentionally tried to target the word "here". More likely is the links they produced was something like (to see blah blah blah, click here) and “here” was the link to the site. Probably a bunch of spam.
-
Hi Domenic
How many are sitewides? What is the ratio of single domain to domain links vs sitewide to domain
Which of the two letters did you get? the crap links links discounted message or the you are penalised message for crap links message?
What links are Google Webmaster Tools reporting? That should be your best indicator of what Google thinks
S
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
-
My Brand new website shows 79% spam Score, what is the reason and how should I deal with this?
Hi, I have just launched my website 1 month before and I have used all paid images, Uniquely written contents, Everything is genuine for better SEO experience in the future. The actual problem is its showing spam by 79% in MOZ bar, I don't have a single link on my website also my content is unique, Images are unique. Why its showing so much spam on this brand new website? Can you please help me? I am very stressed due to this problem.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rahat640 -
Recovering from Black Hat/Negative SEO with a twist
Hey everyone, This is a first for me, I'm wondering if anyone has experienced a similar situation and if so, what the best course of action was for you. Scenario In the process of designing a new site for a client, we discovered that his previous site, although having decent page rank and traffic had been hacked. The site was built on Wordpress so it's likely there was a vulnerability somewhere that allowed someone to create loads of dynamic pages; www.domain.com/?id=102, ?id=103, ?id=104 and so on. These dynamic pages ended up being malware with a trojan horse our servers recognized and subsequently blocked access to. We have since helped them remedy the vulnerability and remove the malware that was creating these crappy dynamic pages. Another automated program appears to have been recently blasting spam links (mostly comment spam and directory links) to these dynamically created pages at an incredibly rapid rate, and is still actively doing so. Right now we're looking at a small business website with a touch over 500k low-quality spammy links pointing to malware pages from the previously compromised site. Important: As of right now, there's been no manual penalty on the site, nor has a "This Site May Have Been Compromised" marker in the organic search results for the site. We were able to discover this before things got too bad for them. Next Steps? The concern is that when the Penguin refresh occurs, Google is going to notice all these garbage links pointing to those malware pages and then potentially slap a penalty on the site. The main questions I have are: Should we report this proactively to the web spam team using the guidelines here? (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&pli=1) Should we request a malware review as recommended within the same guidelines, keeping in mind the site hasn't been given a 'hacked' snippet in the search results? (https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/4598410?hl=en&ref_topic=4596795) Is submitting a massive disavow links file right now, including the 490k-something domains, the only way we can escape the wrath of Google when these links are discovered? Is it too hopeful to imagine their algorithm will detect the negative-SEO nature of these links and not give them any credit? Would love some input or examples from anyone who can help, thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Etna0 -
Google's Related Searches - Optimizing Possible?
Does anyone know how Google determines what suggestions show up at the bottom of SERPs? I've been working with a client to boost his local ranking, but every time we do a branded search for his business his competitors keep popping up in the "Searches related to ______" section.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mtwelves0 -
Black linking exploitation
Hi all After watching our ranking for some primary keywords drop on Google from page 1 to 20 and then totally off the charts in relatively short period I've recently discovered through moz tools that our website along with other competitor sites are victims to black linking (may have the terminology wrong). Two primary words are anchor linked to our domain (www.solargain.com.au) being sex & b$tch through over 4000 compromised sites - mostly Wordpress - many which are high profile sites. Searching through the source code through half a dozen compromised sites I noticed that competitors are also linked using other derogatory terms, but the patterns indicate batch or clustered processing. The hacker has left some evidence as to whom they are representing as I can see some credible discussion forums which contain negative feedback on one particular supplier also among the links. Although this is pretty good evidence to why our ranking has dropped there are some interesting questions: A) is there any way to rectify the 4000 or so black links, mass removal or other. (Doesn't sound feasible)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mannydog
B) some competitors who dominate organic ranking through better optimization don't seem to be affected or apparently affected as much as our site at least. Which questions how much we are affected as a direct result from this hack.
C) is there action or support for industrial espionage?
D) can you request from google to ignore the inbound links and would they not have a duty of care to do so? I'm fairly new to this ugly side of the Internet and would like to know how to approach recovery and moving forward. Thoughts ideas very welcome. Thanks in advance.0 -
SEO from INDIA Smarter then Google?
Exploring this url: filterscanada.ca In Open Site Explorer, it is clear those guys bought one of those package available on site like eLance.com a low price over seas!!! Where freelancer around the word can be hired for a fews bucks. For example, I post a job on eLance for SEO and most of the freelancer submitting where from INDIA. For just a few hundreds dollars, you can get a complet SEO package. At first, the price was attractive, but when posting on seoMoz and doing research, I came to the conclusion, the techniques they use might hurt more the produce positive result... How can you get a D.A. of 45 using backlinks they get? I read all those things about Google algorithm, and Panda and Penguin and this and that... Being impossible to crack! Do you have a explanation? I work really hard ans spends lots of $$$ to have a clean site selling furnace filters
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BigBlaze205
I follow all the SEO guide lines, practice only white hat trying to built somethings, but with a P.A. of 19 and a competitors ranking like this, I ask myself: "Maybe INDIA is smarter then Google and I should do like this site, spend a couple of hundreds dollars and buy myself a high D.A."0 -
Is there such thing as white hat cloaking?
We are near the end of a site redesign and come to find out its in javascript and not engine friendly. Our IT teams fix to this is show crawlable content to googlebot and others through the user agents. I told them this is cloaking and I'm not comfortable with this. They said after doing research, if the content is pretty much the same, it is an acceptable way to cloak. About 90% of the content will be the same between the "regular user" and content served to googlebot. Does anyone have any experience with this, are there any recent articles or any best practices on this? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CHECOM0 -
Recovering From Black Hat SEO Tactics
A client recently engaged my service to deliver foundational white hat SEO. Upon site audit, I discovered a tremendous amount of black hat SEO tactics employed by their former SEO company. I'm concerned that the efforts of the old company, including forum spamming, irrelevant backlink development, exploiting code vulnerabilities on BB's and other messy practices, could negatively influence the target site's campaigns for years to come. The site owner handed over hundreds of pages of paperwork from the old company detailing their black hat SEO efforts. The sheer amount of data is insurmountable. I took just one week of reports and tracked back the links to find that 10% of the accounts were banned, 20% tagged as abusive, some of the sites were shut down completely, WOT reports of abusive practices and mentions on BB control programs of blacklisting for the site. My question is simple. How does one mitigate the negative effects of old black hat SEO efforts and move forward with white hat solutions when faced with hundreds of hours of black gunk to clean up. Is there a clean way to eliminate the old efforts without contacting every site administrator and requesting removal of content/profiles? This seems daunting, but my client is a wonderful person who got in over her head, paying for a service that she did not understand. I'd really like to help her succeed. Craig Cook
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOptPro
http://seoptimization.pro
info@seoptimization.pro0 -
Is domain name or page title "safe" as anchor text?
I am aware of the dangers of excessively optimized anchor text I have seen some suggestions that as long as your anchor text is either the URL or the page title that this will be OK, no matter how many links come in with that anchor text. Does anyone have an opinion, or even any hard data on this? Thx Paul
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | diogenes0