Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors
-
I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for. One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like...
"I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer. I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance. I really like pork."
I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k.
Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US! I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords.
What can I do to compete with this junk?
-
Don't have much more to add to what David said here (and Egol's excellent replies below).
I would check out http://raventools.com/blog/mozcon-2011-how-to-earn-the-links-the-lazy-link-builders-buy/ and Wil's blog on http://www.seerinteractive.com - he gives more great advice around how to beat black hats with white hat tactics.
-
I just thought of something else that I should start posting every time someone starts a thread complaining about spammy links on competitor sites.
If I look at my own backlinks there are a lot... I mean a freeking ton... of links from scraper sites. Tens of thousands of them.
I did nothing to build those links. Not one.
This type of stuff happens when a site has been up for a long time and gets decent traffic.
So, some of the people who post here could really be saying.... Wah! EGOL is beating me with spammy links!
Spammy links appear on their own... they are gifts from the blackhats. I am going to dig into your link profile and if I see scraper links I am going to rat you out to MC. lol
-
What can I do to compete with this junk?
You will compete best if you pay no attention to it.
You will not beat them by duplicating their methods.
So draw up your SEO plan to kick their butts and every other butt in your SERPs with quality work and get busy on it.
The effort that beats your real competitors will also beat these people.
Honestly.... if these guys are beating you with trash then they should not be that hard to beat. My bet is that there is some gold in their methods that give them their current rankings. It is common practice to hide your gold in crap so people can't find it and will stop looking as soon as they get a little on their shoes.
Good luck.
-
Welcome to the world of SEO!
I deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis. It's frustrating to say the least.
I think the most important thing for you to do, is stay white hat and don't be tempted to play them at their own game.
Go for quality every time. It may take longer, but that usually means you'll maintain your positions longer than the the sites using the short-term SPAM tactics.
Good Luck!
-
I remeber Matt Cutts saying that Articles posting , comment spamming are worthless, but relevant or local directories when mixed with a few quality links still hold value
-
Awesome white board friday about this.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/im-being-outranked-by-a-spammer-whiteboard-friday
My key takeaway was that those 1000s of spam links may not be what google is using to rank them. They may have a handfull of high-quality links that are better than yours and are providing 98% of their rank. That is what you should focus on, not the 1000s of spammy links.
Also, I think that a few low quality links (directories, recips, etc.) are helpful. I'm sure I'll catch flak from the purists on here, but, IMO, google is looking for diversity. I think they expect to see a few spammy links on any well established site. On the other hand, spam is certainly not as helpful as a few high quality links. I think pure white hatters exagerate the dangers of black hat. Spam doesn't hurt or we could use it to sabotage our competitors. While it's benefits may be temporary given future algo changes, I believe a small amount of tasteful spam (relevent articles, niches directories, recip from similar companies) is the only short term way to compete. All the while you should still be busting it on the high-quality stuff hoping for the day that google finally figures out what spam tastes like.
Good luck. We all fight this same battle.
-
Report the spam, chances are that eventualy the links with get discounted, but we must do our part and reoprt the spam.
-
I feel your pain as well... There's nothing more frustrating than finding competitors with such obvious spammy tactics, wondering how Google could not recognize it and penalize the living hell out of these sites...
However, I can offer no advice but the obvious: build better links and create helpful content. I know, that's even more frustrating if you don't see any effects but in the long run it's the only choice. Sometimes I had to wait up to one year (!) until sites with obviously bought Russian footer links finally disappeared from top SERPs, so patience seems the only way to go.
At least you don't have to be the only frustrated SEO here and your example made my day. I hope when I grow old and sick, my children will also advice me to buy a car and eat pork. Must be some medicine...
Oh, and I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest here, but there's always Google's Spam Report for those competitors who overdo it... (though some SEOs find this unethical to do)
-
LOL probably the same firm (if you can call them that) I am competing with for exact same link building tactic.
But mine was something like...
Refinancing corporate credit cards? When you refinance with LINK (KEYWORD) LINK blah blah blah.... Irrelevant content blah blah blah...
and they HAD THOUSANDS!!! And were obviously fooling the algorithm cause they bumped me to #2
I just combated it with High Quality relevant content both on site and guest blogging and Real relevant Social Signals within 5 days.... I had retaken it and seems to be holding, (but they are still #2)
High Quality beats quantity any day with this type of thing as the links fall off quickly cause mostly these are content farms that post many blogs per day. Also it is a hodgepodge of content so there are no relevancy signals.
Just focus on a high quality campaign that gets good relevant info out about your niche and supplement that by integrating social brand building.
Shane
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
-
Can Foreign Language Backlinks Be Valuable?
I've done a lot of searching on this subject, but I keep seeing conflicting answers. Are backlinks from foreign language websites valuable? For example, a travel website in English picks up a couple backlinks in Indonesian language (and other languages) from foreign sites that have a DA of 60-70 or higher. The topic is partially related, but the language is totally different. Would those links still be valuable for the English website's DA? Has this ever been answered conclusively? Thanks
Link Building | | David56751 -
Why moz is fetching my backlinks so slow?
Hey, it's been 3 months almost I have launched my website and I have seen that moz is not fetching my backlinks as it should fetch them, after almost 3 month moz has fetched backlink but they are just 2 backlink although my website has more backlinks. Can someone guide me that this is the problem with my website or this is moz own algorithm which takes time? In case you need my website, it is ScanMyKitchen. Kindly some expert review and guide me it is kind of worrying that why my DA and Pa is not increasing and all Thanks yGRBCUL
Link Building | | knownboyu0 -
Backlinks and SPAM
I was doing some back link review of competitors and I have noticed that many of our competition have 300+ do follow back links from Justia.com and an additional 300+ do follow links from law.cornell.edu (they share the same database). The links on Justia are from different pages and they are all going to the root of our competitors site. So the questions are as follows; 1: For the purpose of SEO is this considered SPAM 2: If not SPAM, then does it have a positive effect on the competitions website and should I attempt to emulate for my client. Thanks in advance. -Jeff
Link Building | | FriedmanSimon10000 -
Adding Quality Backlinks
Without sounding like an idiot, what are the best ways in adding good quality back links. There are websites out there such as Click Submit but from experience they just link from weird URL's and the links are in comments. In an ideal world starting up my own Blogs and building up a good domain authority would work best but the customer would like some back links adding by next week. Using local directories wouldn't really work for their business so if anyone has any idea's I would love to hear them.
Link Building | | chrissmithps0 -
SEO companies, Backlinks and Trade Secrets
I have spent so much time investigating what it takes to move my domain up the ladder. I have so far determined good quality optimized website and I am almost done with that. MOZ Rules! If I look at Open Site Explorer at my competitors it gives me some of their backlinks... Some people say backlinks are not as important anymore. But If I am in a Vacation Rental business and I can get other websites/blogs with high PA to post some good content that I write to link back to my website this should raise my SEO? Correct. I am fortunate that online media assets always seem to have articles such as "The best destinations this Fall", "Getting away for a long weekend", etc...... In the past I have been contacted by writers/bloggers that wanted to trade free stays at my homes for an article.... back then I had no idea what a PA was, but now I can at least point MOZ at their website to see if it is worth it. I was also thinking about hiring somebody to do this.....My question is two part... Am I on the right track about building good quality backlinks from high PA with truly good content. I have been writing articles now for 30 days along with this other stuff and have probably 10 unique pieces plus another 20 in our recent blog... When SEO companies call me weekly they all say "we can get you to the top 3 placements in 60 days or other say 3 to 5 months or others say 6 to 7 months." Being a business person I ask, "How do you do it? and what tools do you use?" I never get a straight answer, because they say it is trade secrets..... or they say they use internal tools.... This kills me! I do not want to do this myself, be an SEO company I just want to know the process a vendor will use to raise my SEO. If they were to say I have contacts at these 5 major websites and I am going to get your content listed on these websites... I would say great. 4 years ago I paid a company monthly for a year who moved my domain name from 70 to 35 but that happened in the first 3 months and then nothing. And he would never tell me what they were doing... plus now I realize my site optimization was crap. Out of 10 keyword phrases, the highest I got right now is 32 and a new guy on the block is less than 10 and has less content and backlinks... I wonder once my site optimization is done will that really really help me. Is it too much for a SEO to tell me specifics! I have purchased MOZ, Authority Labs, Buzz Stream, SEO tracker, I am committed to this... I have 15,000 facebook page likes and 80 you tube videos, pinterest and twitter too... M
Link Building | | nickcargill0 -
Looking for Resources for Broken backlink Building With My Team
I've been doing some reading on broken backlink building but have not had much success with implementing a fine tuned process with my team. I've already read the moz post about broken backlink building. I've also used the www.<a>brokenlinkbuilding</a><a>.com</a> tool by citation labs but found it to be kind of clunky. Could have just been me though : ). Any helpful resources would be appreciated to automate the process better?
Link Building | | Keith-Eneix0 -
Backlinks on Facebook
Has anyone seen the benefits of adding backlinks back to their main site on their facebook page? Also, what about uploading a bunch of pictures of your products onto facebook, and on each picture putting the link directly to that specific product? Anyone know if there is any benefit in doing this? Thanks...
Link Building | | Prime850 -
Quotations about importance of social media and backlinks
Hi all, I'm looking to put together a presentation on SEO and I'm wondering if anyone knows any good quotes that relate to the importance of having content on your site that people want to use and share. I'm looking for something like this: “Today’s marketing success comes from self-publishing Web content that people want to share. It’s not about gimmicks. It’s not about paying an agency to interrupt others.” David Meerman Scott “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” but ideally something that illustrates in terms of numbers how much more traffic and seo benefits a site can expect from having good guides, pdfs and news stories that people want to share. Thanks so much for any helo you can offer. thanks, David
Link Building | | AnthOrange0