Competitor ranking through SPAM
-
We have a competitor called SwitchWise who has done a whole heap of social bookmarking and article marketing, using a deceptive link with anchor text reading "i select electricity" which has got them ranking #2 in Australia for the term iselect (a big comparison company here in Aus).
The articles are low value, the link is deceptive and it is generally bad for the consumer. I could copy their tactics for my client, but I'm concerned about the links eventually being devalued and the company placed in the sin bin.
What is the best course of action as I really don't want to let them get away with this, either we need to be up there, or alternative we need to dislodge them.
p.s I know this is not a great keyword, but it's more about stakeholder management in terms of what my client sees and how they interpret what we are doing relative to their competitors.
-
Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback.
-
Hi Joshua,
Overall the competition doesn't look terribly high for that keyword. I always opt to keep it clean insofar as inbound link quality. There is very little reason you couldn't move SelectWise out of position two for this keyword.
Try the comparison product approach in inbound links. It helps the links look more editorial as opposed to trying to rank a competitor / alternate website for a potential brand or trademarked term company.
-
Check to see if they are buying links 1st. If they are, then you may be able to report them though Google Webmasters and they an get hammered. I did this for one of my shady competitors and they got wacked in the SERPS by Google. f they are article spinning, then I don't think you can really do anything about it. Anybody can article spin.
-
My client is not iselect, they are a direct competitor to switchwise.
It is more a question of risk and reward v danger. I don't really want to copy their SPAMMY tactics for the risk of having our site penalized, but it is hurting my relationship with my client for every day they stay there.
-
If your client is iSelect? It is down to them to them to do brand reputation management on the term, using their own properties "brand owned" to out rank the specific Switch Wise domain.
Really it raised an argument: is Switch Wise an affiliate of iSelect? Should they be targeting the brand terms via the organic space, it is easy to switch the off button on paid but with organic you really need to do your own reputation management.
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
-
Domain authority of competitor went up drastically
Hello Moz community, I’m following one of my competitors on Moz, and I noticed a huge bump in his domain authority overnight, going from 8 to 53. I figured there must have been a reason for that, so I checked their links overview, and noticed they got tons of new external followed links, followed linking domains and total linking domains (see screenshot 1). I clicked on the external followed links to see what they are, and I saw tons of redirect notices (see screenshot 2). The links are from google: maps.google.co.fr cse.google.co.fr images.google.co.fr And .fr is just an example, they have tons of other cctlds like .it .ca .es… the list goes on (see screenshot 3) Do you know where these redirect notices are from? It may be worth noting that some of these redirect to the http version of his website, while others redirect to the https version. I’m guessing this must be a bug on Moz’s end or some sort of SEO trick, but did his DA really go up that much, and does it positively affect his website or will Google penalize this? Thank you in advance for your answers! f9pZoJ3.png M0Z0s9x.png BNQryzR.png
Link Building | | Gael_Regnault0 -
Why do bots spam my wordpress blog comments?
anyone with a wordpress blog knows what i am talking about. but why do they do this? my theory is that it is for backlinks, but aren't all wordpress comment links nofollow? i am just curious as to what these robots think they are gaining by flooding my blog comments section. Thanks, Ryan
Link Building | | RyanMeighan2 -
How much 'ranking power' would a link from a privacy policy page of a Big Brand have if the site content is totally unrelated?
Let's say that Site A is a large brand with high authority ( Moz shows it at 90 DA). Site A is about “Blue Shoes”. Site B is about “fishing”. If Site A links from their privacy policy page to Site B … would that inbound link carry enough weight in a way that could impact rankings for Site B given that the content is totally unrelated and it's a link from a privacy policy? I’m asking if the work to get clients/partners do this help. I have a hypothetical question for you all! Site A is a large brand with high authority ( Moz shows it at 90 DA). Site A is about “Blue Shoes”. Site B is about “fishing”. If site A links from their privacy policy to Site B … would that inbound link carry enough weight in a way that could impact rankings? I’m asking if the work to get clients/partners do this help.
Link Building | | RosemaryB0 -
Help I have spam backlinks on my site and I am trying to remove them. Can someone please help me.
The site is www.jans.com I have identified the offending site as http://newbieontheblock.blogspot.com/ IT is loading me with bad anchor text...
Link Building | | Snell0 -
Is there a ranking delay for highly competive Keywords?
Is there still a delay in ranking highly competitive keywords with commercial intent. If so how does it work exactly and how do you determine which keywords are highly competitive. Thanks
Link Building | | phoenix20120 -
Will placing links in articles on my site help my rankings?
I have a few page rank 2 articles on my site. Will placing links to other pages on my site with appropriate anchor text in the body of these articles help the other pages to rank higher for the anchor text i place in these links in the articles? Thanks in advance! Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Rankings unchanged
I have been working away on my site for almost a month now, following all the advice I have gotten here and things seem to be going great. I have built a pretty large 400+ number of backlinks from blog posts, press releases, forum posts etc. Everything is very nice and white hat, really almost nothing spammy at all, maybe a couple of blog comments that I shouldn't have made but nothing in the big scheme of things. The problem is that my position in SERP has not changed at all. Its strange my on page SEO got me to the first page of all my keywords but from there I have not moved a bit. I am local service site and I am still waiting for my pin from google places (third try) and I know that will have a huge effect on my main city. I also have landing pages in 3 other small local cities though and those haven't budged a bit either. I just wanted to see what people here had to say, possibly I am just not patient enough? it has been probably 1.5 weeks since my links really started to index and show up in webmaster tools.
Link Building | | ayetti1