Seo black hat tricks
-
I have a competitor in the local area. He registered a new domain name. www.orangecountypatentlawfirm.com. It was created back in 11/10 and updated a few months ago on 11/13.
My domain is ocpatentlawyer.com. I put my domain and his domain in the open site explorer. The peculiar thing is that my competitors website mirrors identically to my domain. (see attached image)
my competitors website rose through the SERP very fast. I never saw it coming. Anyways, I wanted to know if he was using some type of black hat seo trick to hi jack my domain authority to get his own website to rank higher?
Plus, if so, does it hurt my ranking?
-
Hello,
Let's try to compare you with your competitor
- Hundreds of indexed pages. Have a blog. That's a good sign
- Meta Tags are not optimized at all i.e Title Tags, Meta Description. That is absolutely essential
- Content quality is good but not optimized with keywords
- Around 1000 Back-links with Non Money Anchors. This is really encouraging
- Social Sharing is on but need to boast to significant level
http://www.jafaripatentlaw.com/
- Optimized Meta Tags. Really Nice!
- More Than 300 Indexed Pages. A blog as well. Very Nice!
- Content Optimized with keywords
- Around 1600 Back-links
Remarks
- I am really happy with current position of your website. With proper On Page and few more quality back-links (In Compliance with Best Practices) could turn things significantly in few months
- Social Sharing need a push
- Keep on blogging. You are doing really a nice job.
I hope, this will help!
Regards
-
I'm sorry James, but I don't provide SEO services for the moment.
There a list of recommended SEO companies suggested by Moz: http://moz.com/article/recommended
As for the Metrics, if you go to opensiteexplorer and type the URL of your competitor, you won't get any data, as it is actually a new site and with almost no authority.
I did check the backlinks using ahrefs and they have near 75. My quick guess is, that if they are climbing out of nowhere, received 75 backlinks in a few days, then they are most likely using some king of black hat seo technique. But you shouldn't care, they WILL be removed in a few days (it could take a couple month too. You can report them to Google as a spam report).
Anyway, leaving that site aside, there are issues in your site that you should fix ASAP, or you will never get a decent amount of Search traffic. As I mentioned before, you can't name your pages "HOME". You need to name them properly. Check other Websites for reference... Your title, in the homepage, should read something like: "OC PAtent Lawyer - Entrepreneur and Mid-Size Business Patent Attorney". Plus your description should state what you do, while now, it also says "home".
Send me PM if you need more info. I can probably help you out for free. It is a Wordpress theme, so it shouldn't be so hard to fix.
-
Yes you have two of the same domains listed here, but I assumed you noticed this James.
Gary
-
A highly debated topic. Domains with many key words, plus location key word stuffing have seen many sites penalised. Much comes down to the keywords used within a domain to see if you have been penalised or not by Google. You would really need to look assess all algorithms to eliminate any doubt.
All specialists will tell you it's best to build a Brand site on a keyword domain so you get both brand mentions and generic intent keywords.
Moz is just one very good tool to use to assess the health of a website. A good marketing company will use various tools to check out any problems. Never stick to one. My advice - have an expert assess everything before coming to with a strategy to improve you website performance.
Hope this helps James.
Good luck
Gary
-
If you make a list and the impact it makes then I will pay you to do it. Please provide quote.
-
I did it twice and same result. I didn't type it in. I cut and paste. it isn't a data entry error.
-
James,
There's no such thing as "hijacking your authority".
You mistakenly typed twice your own domain, so you are seeing the same results in both columns
PS: There are a few things in your SEO that you have overlooked. Just by accessing your site I noticed the first: Title = "Home". You should really consider hiring an SEO expert to help you with your site.
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
-
Gallery maintenance and the effect on SEO
Basically we get a lot of users uploading photos as part of their review, but many photos aren't moderated into our pages and therefore are never displayed. Things like selfies rather than photos of the product or just random google images that are completely unrelated to our products or services. Is there any benefit in cleaning up the gallery since some images we don't use are just sat there in admin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra
when a page loads, would it be quicker if we had less content in the gallery? With our SEO hat on.
or does it not matter since it's not loading that content (photos) anyway?0 -
Meta refresh bad for SEO
Hi there, Some external developers have created a wishlist for a website that allows visitors to add products to a wishlist and then send an enquiry. Very similar set-up to a shopping basket really (without the payment option). However, this wishlist lives in a separate iframe and refreshes every 30 seconds to reflect any items visitors add to their wishlist. This refreshing is done with a meta refresh. I'm aware of the obvious usability issue that the visitor's product only appears after 30 seconds in their wishlist. However, are there also any SEO issues due to the refreshing of the iframe every 30 seconds? Please let me know, whether small or large issues.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Robbern0 -
How to find a skilled SEO sparing partner
We are in need of a skilled SEO sparring partner to work with. We have already done a lot of SEO optimization but the results has not been as good as we hoped. I believe that might be some issues regarding structure or backlinks holding us back from getting results as I can see many competitors with almost no on page optimization or quality backlinks ranking better than us. I want to find someone who can audit our page find the problems. Also set some guidelines on what we should fix and work on to improve the overall rankings fast. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nm19770 -
Geotargeting SEO
Hi, We are and SEO company based in Scotland and have taken on a project where the client works in the UK but has distribution in mainland Europe and the US. He currently is working off 3 websites targeted at each area Uk, US and Mainland Europe We are going to rebuild one site and have each area on the site, however we are unsure if sub folders or sub domains would work better. My personal opinion is that sub domains would be better, but I dont have information to back this Can anyone advise? Any advice on geotargeting SEO also would be appreciated! Many Thanks Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trickcreative0 -
Yoast Seo Plugin
When I view html code of our website, I see this from yoast plugin this. I guess there is really something wrong, especially the page 2? Why so many meta? When ask the support team of the plugin, the developer said me that it is caused by the theme. <html xmlns="<a class="attribute-value">http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml</a>" lang="<a class="attribute-value">en-US</a>"><head><meta http-equiv="<a class="attribute-value">Content-Type</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">text/html; charset=UTF-8</a>" /><meta name="<a class="attribute-value">google-site-verification</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">hRZ9ZRlCURkbiJA5Ewf6VJlSfGZipdXnumAKlHcrHaQ</a>" /><title>Villas Diani | Kenya Luxury Beach Holidaystitle><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">stylesheet</a>" href="[http://villasdiani.com/wp-content/themes/decorum/style.css](view-source:http://villasdiani.com/wp-content/themes/decorum/style.css)" type="<a class="attribute-value">text/css</a>" media="<a class="attribute-value">screen</a>" /><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">alternate</a>" type="<a class="attribute-value">application/rss+xml</a>" title="<a class="attribute-value">RSS Feed</a>" href="[http://villasdiani.com/feed/](view-source:http://villasdiani.com/feed/)" /><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">pingback</a>" href="[http://villasdiani.com/xmlrpc.php](view-source:http://villasdiani.com/xmlrpc.php)" /><meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">Indian Ocean Villas in Kenya, Diani Beach Resort. Find Diani beach Accommodation and Information for Luxury Beach Holidays in Kenya</a>"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[http://villasdiani.com/](view-source:http://villasdiani.com/)" /><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">next</a>" href="[http://villasdiani.com/page/2/](view-source:http://villasdiani.com/page/2/)" /><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">author</a>" href="[https://plus.google.com/u/0/108558298587711226912/posts](view-source:https://plus.google.com/u/0/108558298587711226912/posts)"/><link rel="<a class="attribute-value">publisher</a>" href="[https://plus.google.com/u/0/108558298587711226912/posts](view-source:https://plus.google.com/u/0/108558298587711226912/posts)"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:locale</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">en_US</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:type</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">website</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:title</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">Villas Diani | Kenya Luxury Beach Holidays</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:description</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">Kenya Diani Beach Villas, Luxury Villa Rentals</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:url</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">http://villasdiani.com/</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:site_name</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">Villas Diani | Kenya Luxury Beach Holidays</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">article:publisher</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">https://www.facebook.com/VillasDianiBeach</a>"/><meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:image</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">http://villasdiani.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/alfajiri-cliff-villa-diani-kenya.jpg</a>"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rebeca10 -
Read More & SEO
I have just had my site redesigned. The site was designed with only important facts bullets at the top of the page and all other information is below in the read more section that expands when clicked. I am wondering if I need to have this information in the read more section visible to the customer or if having the majority of the text in the read more is OK? and how it will effect rankings having it this way? I have had spots #1 &2 on Google for my keywords- until the site was redesigned...wondering if this was part of the reason. I have moved some of the text up to be visible on some of the pages - but it makes the site look cramped - and competes with the ease of use the site design Any insight on this is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cheri110 -
Move blog and keep the seo competence
I have my blog at www.blog.practo.com and wish to shift it to practo.com/blog since from an SEO point of view I dont think having good content on blog.practo.com is going to help. Without having to move the WP instance to /blog can I have all my urls directing as www.practo.com/blog/articles and still work to update the blog from www.blog.practo.com Is this possible and advisible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shanky10 -
E-Commerce SEO
Dear SeoMoz fans, I'm really glad to be a part of the community. Just have a quick question. I run a marketplace similar to eBay where users sell the products. I would like some suggestions on how to effectively proceed with SEO for an ecommerce marketplace of this type. Should I be proceed developing product review or product comparison landing pages and build links towards them as often suggested or should I consider alternative marketing methods? Looking forward to your replies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buzzmartseo0