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Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

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Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#151

Post by Matt_Cutts »

dbarlett wrote: post #125
arbuge wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody posted a link to a detailed expose' on HN a few weeks ago detailing a successful negative SEO campaign to destroy a competing car dealer's rankings. I'll see if I can dig it up, but this kind of stuff is definitely going on - and people are specifically being paid to do it.

I think it was http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2372-successful-negative-seo-... (Comment by trevin https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701104 )

Since I've got some free time between meetings, I'll go ahead and debunk this one. http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2372-successful-negative-seo-... is a claim from April 18, 2012 that claimed that negative SEO worked on justgoodcars.com.

Here's the problem with that: the site they selected was spamming, and Google had already taken action on that site. The site had been spamming for years; see e.g. http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/2007/10/fiat-126.ht... for a spam comment pointing to justgoodcars.com from January of 2008. Here's another spam link from April 2008: http://www.punny.org/money/ditch-your-ancient-car-and-get-30... . Or check out this low-quality directory link from years ago: http://www.easyweblistonline.com/News___Media/Automotive/ Or this low-quality directory: http://www.whatclicks.com/shopping/automotive.html

Google found a bunch of spammy links like this dating back years and years, and we took manual webspam action regarding this site before this so-called "detailed expose" of negative SEO ever came out.

Like many of the reports of "successful negative SEO" that we've investigated, the claims didn't hold up. In this case, we had already caught the site in question for spammy links going back years and years--long before the negative SEO campaign started.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#152

Post by Matt_Cutts »

TomAnthony wrote: post #150
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've looked into most of the blog posts about negative SEO, and in most cases we've found major flaws or bad assumptions. Kind of like this guy was convinced that authorship caused his traffic to go down by 90%: http://www.jitbit.com/news/183-how-google-authorship-decreas... except that wasn't the case: http://aberrant.me/no-google-authorship-didnt-decrease-your-... The disavow tool is not "incontrovertible proof" t…

Matt - thanks for jumping in the comments. Can you confirm that the disavow tool is automatic? Or do people need to file a reconsideration request? Is the answer different depending on whether there is a manual penalty or an algorithmic decrease in rank/trust? I ask because you recommended it for people who are concerned about potential negative SEO, and I'm want to be clear on how that works. I think there is certai…

The disavow tool is automatic for any algorithmic rankings (such as Penguin and Panda).

If you have a manual webspam action, then you should get a notice after you verify your site at google.com/webmasters . In the case of a manual webspam action, our advice is try to get any spammy links that you put on the web taken down. If there are some spammy links that you can't get taken down off the web, you can use the disavow tool for those remaining links and then do a reconsideration request.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#153

Post by pgrote »

TomAnthony wrote: post #149
pgrote wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment really resonates with me. Where you rank, why you rank, etc. with Google is never explained. This used to be effective in the old days, but they have lost the edge. Instead of focusing on providing excellent search results, Google has focused on trying to draw in all parts of the internet to personalize search. This is where I think Google has lost the focus on quality.

I would disagree. We have to remember that the size of the web has changed by an order of magnitude since Google first launched. Doing a good job of web search has become proportionally as difficult. Furthermore, we all interact with search engines far more than we used to, and I think we have a tendency not to notice the searches we do that are immediate and effective and focus on those that are imperfect. I work fu…

Your comment on tendency to notice imperfection is correct.

Do you think that working in SEO keeps an arms race going with Google? SEOs find something to exploit, Google does something to counteract. This process leads to unintended consequences throughout the "order of magnitude" system.

My point is more directed to Google trying to include "quality" indicators that having nothing really to do with finding things on the internet.

Yet, I cannot quantify those indicators since Google never spells them out. lol

Folks who work in SEO have to ferret those indicators out and develop plans to take advantage of them.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#154

Post by mattezell »

jacquesm wrote: post #146
mattezell wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon me, Jacques, but why is that you are now resorting to baseless and unfounded personal attacks against me (aside from the obvious: "When your argument is shown to be invalid: 1)resort to name calling in order to confuse the topic 2) _____ 3)PROFIT!!!")? "Spammers like me"? I've never used this tactic nor ANY other 'blackhat' SEO tactic - please check your facts (I know, I know... I've gathered thus far that thi…

Anecdotes about spammers abound, nobody actually spams, go figure. But lots of people talk about their spammer friends and accidents and defend spamming practices but of course they'd never think of spamming themselves. Let me know which company would let a junior team member spend any money at all, let alone on buying link spam in the name of the company without some higher up ok'ing it. " I, along with countless ot…

Wow... Just wow... Clearly you, my friend, are a very special individual...

Let us just go ahead and reiterate this for the readers: Jacques incorrectly attempted to correct the usage of a commonly used phase and when confronted with this reality, he/she/it has derailed the discussion in an effort to assert it is about something that it was never intended to be about... Bad form and not constructive, mate.

So, now on to your dribble...

1) "People always say they didn't do something when they did - so clearly you're a spammer"... Man, your logic is so watertight you should patent it as "The Holey Bucket"(I'll give you that gem for free!) - with idiots clearly abound, you'll be rich in no time!!! Or perhaps you should go into business as a legal prosecutor - surely, every judge and legal expert will agree with your line of reasoning... (facepalm)

2) "would let a junior team..." - I've already indicated that this was a 'team lead', though I am not terribly surprised by your inability to read and comprehend...

3) A google link to the results page showing widespread usage of the term that you've been arguing doesn't exist ("organic link building") and a summary of the concept, derived from the common sense interpretation of the words that were strung together, somehow shows that I am in reality an expert spammer??? (mind blown)... Wow... Just wow... Thanks for the tip, man - You're full of gems! I think I may quit dev and just start talking about being rich all the time as all one clearly needs to do, according to you, is provide commonly known, widely documented and highly accessible details in order to be an expert on something... EFFFFFF YEAHHHHHH!!!! http://goo.gl/6nKaZ - lemme go check my back account!!! WOOT!!!! IMMA BILLIONAIRE!!!!

As a backend banking software developer (who's previously dabbled in custom banking, medical and legal document web applications... who's SEO experience could be summarized with 'pretty urls', 'h1' and using page titles), I can definitively say with complete honesty and integrity that you are about as far off the reservation as one can get with your continued assertions - i.e again, and for the final time, you are wrong... completely, 100%, without a grain of correctness, flat out wrong... and I stand by my original hypothesis that you are a blowhard who really cares less about being correct and more about 'winning'... Which, in my opinion, is a worse person than most spammers (WHO DO SUCK) - someone hell bent on ignoring simple truths and reality to just try and 'win'... Lame..

Again, best of luck with your bug...

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#155

Post by Silhouette »

TomAnthony wrote: post #149
pgrote wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment really resonates with me. Where you rank, why you rank, etc. with Google is never explained. This used to be effective in the old days, but they have lost the edge. Instead of focusing on providing excellent search results, Google has focused on trying to draw in all parts of the internet to personalize search. This is where I think Google has lost the focus on quality.

I would disagree. We have to remember that the size of the web has changed by an order of magnitude since Google first launched. Doing a good job of web search has become proportionally as difficult. Furthermore, we all interact with search engines far more than we used to, and I think we have a tendency not to notice the searches we do that are immediate and effective and focus on those that are imperfect. I work fu…

Furthermore, we all interact with search engines far more than we used to

Interesting claim. Is it based on hard data, or just a personal view? I ask because my impression is the opposite.

As a surfer, I find myself doing less searching with Google and more either going to likely reference sites like Wikipedia and searching there directly or finding new material via trusted blogs and forums like HN.

For sites I help to run, we actively try to prevent any single traffic source becoming dominant, whether that is Google or Facebook or anyone else. Visits from search engines (or at least those we can diagnose as such) are now only a minority for most sites I know about personally. This is definitely just anecdotal, though: all of those sites are relatively small/niche, and it could be that for example social referrals have a disproportionate effect at our scale that might not be seen with big sites getting orders of magnitude more traffic than we do.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#156

Post by Silhouette »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #93
apalmer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely get you from a human level. From a business level google's job is to sell ads, it sell ads by providing valuable search results 'for free', and one part of the intrinsic quality of the search results is that they are 'good' in the sense that you describe. Aside from that google really doesnt owe anyone anything, if tomorrow google found that showing small businesses search results negatively affected the…

Isn't it a bit scary that the entire internet (and by association a huge chunk of the overall economy) is effectively beholden to a company that "doesn't owe anybody anything"? I mean we wouldn't tolerate an energy supplier disconnected arbitrary supplies because they didn't feel like selling there any more.

It is scary, in that you have a near-monopoly, operating in a market that affects almost everyone who goes on-line to some degree, without much regulation.

Having said that, it's important to remember that without a site like Google, many of these small businesses wouldn't exist in the first place. For all the criticism, having a search engine that does a good if imperfect job is almost certainly a big net win for society. As long as that is the case, and as long as Google aren't actively/unreasonably harming anyone, I think we're a long way from saying they are dominant and dangerous enough to require statutory regulation, which would be the normal next step if an actual monopoly provider of an actually essential service was misbehaving.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#157

Post by tomjen3 »

ethnomusicolog wrote: post #78
tomjen3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the cure is pretty simple. You can apply pagerank in to calculate the reputation of each site and then multiply that number with the value of the outgoing link, using normal page rank. How do you get the reputation information? Well you need a network of creators, people, so that you can capture the social interactions between them.

are you suggesting that facebook could seize the search jewel from google? It is a genuine question.

No, I was more attempting to hint at a possible use for G+.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#158

Post by jacquesm »

mattezell wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotes about spammers abound, nobody actually spams, go figure. But lots of people talk about their spammer friends and accidents and defend spamming practices but of course they'd never think of spamming themselves. Let me know which company would let a junior team member spend any money at all, let alone on buying link spam in the name of the company without some higher up ok'ing it. " I, along with countless ot…

Wow... Just wow... Clearly you, my friend, are a very special individual... Let us just go ahead and reiterate this for the readers: Jacques incorrectly attempted to correct the usage of a commonly used phase and when confronted with this reality, he/she/it has derailed the discussion in an effort to assert it is about something that it was never intended to be about... Bad form and not constructive, mate. So, now on…

Interesting. Look, if you're not into spamming stop using terms like 'organic link building' as though they are somehow normal use of the words. To me organic link building is a thing only an SEO 'expert' would use as though those things have a normal meaning. People that are just focusing on the content of their website and that are being run into the ground by the SEO crowd with joe jobs and other nasties are definitely not busy with 'organic link building', but the SEO crowd is. There was a time when links were organic in the sense that the whole web was held together by those links because that's what the web was, a set of pages held together by links.

Then google came along, the SEOs spoiled it for the rest of us with their 'organic link building' campaigns and that was that. "Oganic" in this context means nothing more than 'unpaid', and even that is a quite a stretch judging by the number of requests I get to place such links (obviously, they're very organic and the payment is just a token compensation for my time, even if it is recurring and the amounts offered suggest there is more to it than that.).

The better meaning for that set of words - which you apparently don't subscribe to - is that 'organic' means 'natural', in other words, links that you, the site owner, have nothing to do with, and that therefore you can not be building.

If you're not into spamming and if your SEO experience is as limited as you say it is then get off your high horse, stop using typical spammer terminology that creatively redefines words that had a perfectly good usage before the SEO crowd came along and call it a day.

Lest you get into this territory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,...

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#159

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #158
mattezell wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... Just wow... Clearly you, my friend, are a very special individual... Let us just go ahead and reiterate this for the readers: Jacques incorrectly attempted to correct the usage of a commonly used phase and when confronted with this reality, he/she/it has derailed the discussion in an effort to assert it is about something that it was never intended to be about... Bad form and not constructive, mate. So, now on…

Interesting. Look, if you're not into spamming stop using terms like 'organic link building' as though they are somehow normal use of the words. To me organic link building is a thing only an SEO 'expert' would use as though those things have a normal meaning. People that are just focusing on the content of their website and that are being run into the ground by the SEO crowd with joe jobs and other nasties are defin…

> The better meaning for that set of words - which you apparently don't subscribe to - is that 'organic' means 'natural', in other words, links that you, the site owner, have nothing to do with, and that therefore you can not be building.

Not quite nothing to do with: crafting content with the intent that people encountering it would be prone to link to it, so that site owners (and SEO firms working on their behalf) wouldn't need to engage in out-of-band link promotion to get the links, would seem to be organic link building, in that it proceeds naturally from the content rather than via separate efforts.

Re: Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google

#160

Post by jacquesm »

dragonwriter wrote: post #159
jacquesm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Look, if you're not into spamming stop using terms like 'organic link building' as though they are somehow normal use of the words. To me organic link building is a thing only an SEO 'expert' would use as though those things have a normal meaning. People that are just focusing on the content of their website and that are being run into the ground by the SEO crowd with joe jobs and other nasties are defin…

> The better meaning for that set of words - which you apparently don't subscribe to - is that 'organic' means 'natural', in other words, links that you, the site owner, have nothing to do with, and that therefore you can not be building. Not quite nothing to do with: crafting content with the intent that people encountering it would be prone to link to it, so that site owners (and SEO firms working on their behalf)…

True, you could construe that as such. But I think that the real distinguishing factor should be that the links themselves are there to establish proximity between nodes in the graph of the web, not the secondary effects on page rank in a search engine.
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