Adam Penenberg explores the techniques used by optimization companies to engineer top listings on Google result pages for their clients. Mainly, backlinking at any and all sites that will accept a link. Amusingly, the piece documents the source of some backlinks for two SEO companies that rank high in Google. One benefits from links from weather pages and an XML guide. The other enjoys Google visibility created by over 5,000 incoming links from such places as a Hungarian travel site and a flaxseed pillow e-tailer. These are white-hat companies, by the way; there's nothing illicit about building massive link networks. But it is manipulative. While Google's ranking algorithm takes into consideration the quality and relevancy of incoming links to some extent, sheer volume trumps both those values.
Wired: Search Engine Manipulation
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. a few speakers at the recent NYC SES conference stated some people develop a domain as a subdomain off of a well established domain and then 301 redirect that through to its final location to get by the sandbox.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by aaron wall
3. >These are white-hat companies, by the way; there’s nothing illicit about building massive link networks. But it is manipulative.
How do you define "white hat?"
What is particularly illegal or morally unacceptable with aggressive promotion?
How is link spam not aggressive?
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by aaron wall
1. I've noticed the exact same thing - I am in the gambling industry online - probably one of the most competitive for keywords.
I still see some site at the top of their ranking simply because they focus on lots of real linkexchange with any web sites. Others are just buying text ad - as many as they can to build up their backlinks. This is costly but seems to work.
Does the google sandbox - still have an affect here - or can you get past it with a certain # of backlinks.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Patrick