Brand Search Results- how do you make sure spammy links don't hurt your brand
-
We are seeing a spammer start ranking #4 for our branded search result on google. This could potentially be hurting our brand. Any suggestions that have worked for you recently? For more context we already have:
- Create Social profiles (Linkedin, G+, FB etc) which are engaged and frequently updated
- Analyzed Domain Authority, Links and recency of the spammy article. The domain and the page authority seems weak, and the spammy article is dated Dec of last year
- Looked at various posts on http://moz.com/community/q/reputation-management.
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks, the spammy link has been ranking for about 2 months now. We have tried reporting to Google- but haven't seen them take down or demote the link..
-
How long has that site been ranking for your brand and how long have you been at the reputation management? If your brand's site has some authority and it is linking out to 10 of your brand's well established social profiles and you have at least a couple of content pieces focused on your brand name published somewhere online, you should be able to push a weak resource down off of page 1 in a relatively short amount of time.
-
Yes, Just wanted to clear that part...:)
-
Notice my first sentence "Depending on how they are using the brand name..." my whole post hangs on that.
-
Lesley, I believe DMCA file is good when the website that ranking for their brand name is directly hurting their brand name but this is not really a good idea if the website is just ranking against their key phrase and they think that it will hurt their brand in any way!
What I really believe is that use your social profiles more powerfully and better build some links that points to those social profiles. Also, it is a good idea to get the authorship of some good blog within your niche and that Author link can easily acquire good ranking against your brand name.
I personally advice people to have these social profiles up and running in order to hack the 1<sup>st</sup> page of Google against your brand name! http://www.setalks.com/control-1st-page-of-google/
Hope this helps!
-
Depending on how they are using the brand name, it might be a legal matter. It could be something easy enough as filing a DMCA notice with their hosting company or sending them a cease and desist notice. They aren't immediate solutions, but they will solve the problem.
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
-
Organic Brand Clicks/Traffic Drop - Why?
Hi Moz Community, I've been reviewing Search Console and have been noticing that there has been a consistent drop in brand clicks. The overall number of keywords (especially for the top 2 pages) have been increasing, according to SEMRUSH, however, traffic and sales are still in decline. There are no algorithmic and manual penalties, in addition, paid search activity has been increasing in the leadup to Christmas. Has anyone experienced this and potentially advise how to diagnose and resolve this issue?
Branding | | rec1230 -
How to handle knock-off product leveraging your brand keywords?
Hello all, I fear this may be a bit of newcomer question but maybe you can help me out. My business is in a highly competitive market, and when you search for our branded name many of our competitors show up in search results well before us (who don't contain, or even reference, our brand name on their site). We're trying to take a proactive approach to content development and site enhancement, but I am wondering if there's anything on the defense-front that we can do to better own our brand ranking in SERPs. Thoughts? Suggestions? Should I be reading SEO 101? Thanks
Branding | | J-Me0 -
Is there any downside to have a product name (branded keyword) that has a top keyword in it?
The company I work for recently purchased another company. We are currently re-branding their product into our solution offering and are working on coming up with a new product name, while keeping SEO in mind. The product names that we are thinking of also includes a non-branded keyword that we actively look to rank for. We currently rank relatively high for this keyword. Is there any negative to having a product name that has a non-branded keyword in it. My first thought is that it is great because that non-branded keyword will be used repeatedly on our site when we mention the product. Things that I don't know though are: will it appear we are keyword stuffing does Google recognize that its a branded keyword and doesn't rank us for the non-branded aspect Any feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Vince
Branding | | IFSNA0 -
Add Google + button link to google page and not link
Hello SEOOOOOOOOO moz people ! I was wondering if you know how can I add Google + button to my page I tried to set it up in google page http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d1a9hmef https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/posts But i would like to link the button to my google + fan page https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/about and not the url of the page. As our website is indeed 12 websites if you go to http://www.ibremarketing.com you don't have the same +1 than http://www.ibremarketing.com/me or http://www.ibremarketing.com/ma Any idea of how to do it ? It would be amazing 😛
Branding | | AymanH0 -
Competitors' dummy websites --- What SEO (or other?) strategy is this?
I work for an e-retailer. I've noticed that at least one of our competitors (and, I think, a second as well) has set up a neutral "third party" website that attempts to provide unbiassed information about different manufacturer's products. Of course, their products always win out over the competitor in these comparisons. But this one site (and another whose corporate backer I can't seem to figure out) is keyworded so poorly, and not branded at all. There are very few (if any) links to the corporate sponsor, or links, period. It's definitely not serving to have "Little Brand x" appear next to "Big Brand Y" in search results, either (again, really poorly keyworded). Other SEO seems really minimal. What do you think their strategy is? Is it a dumb waste o' money or something really smart that I'm not picking up on? Your insights most appreciated!
Branding | | Novos_Jay1 -
Loop-hole to Google's Penguin update? Anyone else have some input?
So I have this theory and I’m wondering if anyone else has some input. I believe I have found a loop-hole to Google’s Penguin update. Let me explain. I work for a pretty competitive party planning company. Our biggest competitor for search is also our bread and butter to our company, our consultants. In addition to outside competitors trying to manipulate business from those consultants. Anyways, one of my top priorities is to not only rank for multiple pages on our site, but to also have our social sites rank on the first two pages. Recently I have watched a spamming MLM YouTube video review of our company crawl up the YouTube charts and out rank us for our Company name in YouTube search. And now, this week, the video has crawled up to rank 3<sup>rd</sup> behind our main site and Wikipedia for our brand keyword! So how does a YouTube video that is simply a review out rank us for our company name in our social platforms? Mind you he is also outranking our core social sites of which we have thousands of comments and interactions on per day? Looking at all of the metrics of the video, according to how I believe ranking to work in Youtube, there is no way this guy should be ranking as high as he is. The video has a decent amount of copy, it has fewer than 10,000 views, 76 thumbs up, 5 thumbs down, fewer than 2,000 subscribers and his channel only has 12 videos. It wasn’t until I was looking at our search results in Seomoz that I realized what this guy was doing to move up so quickly in rankings. He has 1,671 linking root domains to his video. He has been building excessive links to this video on Youtube. Well, since Google isn’t going to penalize its own website, the old technique of excessively building links to one page… seems to be working. Has anyone else come across something like this? Where building excessive links to a video or other social platform substantially has increased rankings?
Branding | | ScentsySEO0 -
Splitting our main website in Two... What is the fastest way for the new sites to become a brand in Googles eyes.
In a couple weeks our main website (which generates all of the revenue) will be split into two because of a long term branding / identity crisis. So my question is, how can i make sure (besides obvious 301 redirects) that these 2 new fresh urls become a brand as quick as possible in googles eyes? So far i am thinking of things like: press releases, blog posts with brand mentions. I am not ignorant and expect this to happen overnight, but we need a strong foundation to build on, which is why i am asking Anyone got a list / case study / advise so I can really blow it up on launch week? Thanks 🙂
Branding | | Hyrule0 -
Brand SERP Domination
Hi Mozfans, I've been asked by my management to try and "Dominate" our Branded SERP (I've also posted this question as a private question to the Moz staff but would love to know what the community thinks of this or if anyone has "Brand SERP" experience); For our brand name, the first page SERP currently looks like this; ================================ Current SERP 1 (Google UK): Our homepage (with the 6 pack of prominent pages beneath it) An advert that we control An advert that we control An advert that we control An advert that we control One of those random business directories - we don't control the listing Something not related to us at all Something not related to us at all One of those random business directories - we don't control the listing Something not related to us at all ================================ As you can see from the above list, we are already dominating the top 50% of our branded SERP page, however management would like 100% (of course). Now two obvious things that are missing from our Branded SERP page are our Facebook Page and our Twitter Profile, however, how do I get those to rank? I believe I read somewhere (it might have been on the SEOmoz/YOUmoz blog) that the answer is to build links to those profiles (with your brand name as the anchor text). Would that work? We currently use an external SEO company for our link building so could it help if we asked them to build links for us pointing at those two social profiles? Also, are there any other methods for dominating a branded SERP? What would you recommend? Thanks in advance everyone! Regards, Ash
Branding | | AshSEO20110