No, Your Competition CAN'T Harm Your Ranking!

[dadamson]

Well, I have seen a LOT of posts here about penalization through building too many links etc. So I want to clear it up.

Building too many links to your pages will NOT harm your ranking in any way.

If it could, everyone would be signing up for those mass spammy link services for their competitions sites in an attempt to "sandbox" them.

The fact is there is nothing your competition can do to harm your rankings.

If you need a reference from Google to prove this, please see: Can competitors harm ranking? - Webmaster Tools Help

From Google:

"There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages."

This would suggest that buying mass links can never hurt your rankings, but then again, it won't help a whole lot either. Google often discounts the values of your backlinks if it notices an unnatural pattern (ie; 20K profile links in 24hrs probably won't move you to number one spot )

Always create links ethically and focus on quality. There is nothing bad about using automated tools to speed the process up, just use them properly and don't overuse.

-Dave

[InitialEffort]

LOL. Read This. You can certainly temporarily sandbox a website.

Case Study: Coralife Super Skimmer

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

LOL. Read This. You certainly temporarily sandbox a website.

Case Study: Coralife Super Skimmer

InitialE, for real? They successfully tanked a website with scrapebox alone? That's horrid information <insert evil laugh>. Has anyone tried to replicate and quantify these results? Cuz that is very jacked up and it has reaching implications to any webmaster.

Man if I had a way of crashing my competition that easy I'd ... well.. oh crap, nope I wouldn't. I'm too nice a frikin guy. Damn!

[beavboyz]

I always figured this anyways, it should not be possible to sabotage another sites rankings, and I do not think it is otherwise this would be a whole new game!

[dadamson]

Exactly.

If this was the case there would be a whole new market for competition destroyers.

Which, like all loopholes, would close up once Google catches wind of it. ..Or has this already happened before..

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by dadamson

Exactly.

If this was the case there would be a whole new market for competition destroyers.

Which, like all loopholes, would close up once Google catches wind of it. ..Or has this already happened before..

...more than once.

[InitialEffort]

Originally Posted by peter gibson

InitialE, for real? They successfully tanked a website with scrapebox alone? That's horrid information <insert evil laugh>. Has anyone tried to replicate and quantify these results? Cuz that is very jacked up and it has reaching implications to any webmaster.

Man if I had a way of crashing my competition that easy I'd ... well.. oh crap, nope I wouldn't. I'm too nice a frikin guy. Damn!

I should be clear BF did not do this. But this task was accomplished in under 15 minutes.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

Not, they, but me. And I did in under 15 minutes.

Now test again same setup, only boost the backlinks to about 2k with an anchor-text that reads something like "cheap viagra".

[samwilson]

I think the best they could do is to harm your reputation. But ranking-wise, it's hard to say...

[Alexander CPA]

Originally Posted by dadamson

Well, I have seen a LOT of posts here about penalization through building too many links etc. So I want to clear it up.

Building too many links to your pages will NOT harm your ranking in any way.

If it could, everyone would be signing up for those mass spammy link services for their competitions sites in an attempt to "sandbox" them.

The fact is there is nothing your competition can do to harm your rankings.

If you need a reference from Google to prove this, please see: Can competitors harm ranking? - Webmaster Tools Help

From Google:

"There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages."

This would suggest that buying mass links can never hurt your rankings, but then again, it won't help a whole lot either. Google often discounts the values of your backlinks if it notices an unnatural pattern (ie; 20K profile links in 24hrs probably won't move you to number one spot )

Always create links ethically and focus on quality. There is nothing bad about using automated tools to speed the process up, just use them properly and don't overuse.

-Dave

Somebody had to clear this up, I mean building spammy backlinks will get you sandboxed, if your building good links then you've got nothing to worry about!

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Alex Brooks

Somebody had to clear this up, I mean building spammy backlinks will get you sandboxed, if your building good links then you've got nothing to worry about!

It's something that's been said and quoted many times. But as you see, the people
just cargo on nonsense.

The fairy tales today are better than Shrek Ever After!

Paul

[Wesley Atkins]

I hate to be the controversial one... That usually get's me in trouble...

But after I went to an SEO conference in 2007 with some big industry names, I realized how easy it would be to drop your competitors from the SERPS... (temporarily mind you) with what they shared after the event

I've also personally witnessed a site take 2 years to recover from a penalty...

The site was making over $62,000 per month ranking No1 in Google for a very competitive keyword and the company purchased a bunch of High PR backlinks from known brokers and outsourced the creation of 250,000 backlinks to the website in 3 months to take it to the next level by ranking for multiple keywords in that niche..

The site was hit with a penalty and they hired me to get rid of it...

It was impossible, even after *operation cleanup your act* and 3 reinclusion requests in 12 months, the site came back after 2 years to the exact day... which is strange...

So, im guessing there is a maximum 2 year penalty that can be slapped on a domain as I've never heard of one that lasts this long...

Anyway, cut a long story short...

If your competition has the budget and is willing to spend it, they could certainly inflict a filter / penalty on your site..

Albeit Temporary... in my opinion, it can be done!

[BinBinWu]

Wow, Another WF massive debate is about to start, im sitting and watching

[jazbo]

A website being influenced by nofollow links? But, but......

Where's Mike Anthony when you need him.

[mithil]

I don't understand why people are talking about SANDBOX when there is no evidence of its existence.
As far as Google is concerned, it is pretty honest with the webmasters and helps and guide them through its webmaster central blog and forum. Now I have not seen Google using this term a single time. So from where does it come?

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by dadamson

From Google:

"There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages."

-Dave

Maybe I use a different dictionary than everyone else here. Clearly the meaning of "almost" has escaped some of you.

The site was making over $62,000 per month ranking No1 in Google for a very competitive keyword and the company purchased a bunch of High PR backlinks from known brokers and outsourced the creation of 250,000 backlinks to the website in 3 months to take it to the next level...

The next level? What is that, super super number one instead of just plain ol' number one?

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

Maybe I use a different dictionary than everyone else here. Clearly the meaning of "almost" has escaped some of you.

Good point!

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

The next level? What is that, super super number one instead of just plain ol' number one?

Sorry dude, yeah that does read a bit strange...

They wanted to rank for multiple one word keywords in this niche...

Although it was not finance related, here's an example:

loans
credit cards
mortgages

The money they were making was from a single one word keyword -- for me I would have left that thing churning $62k month and happily just created good content on the domain...

...They were greedy and completely clueless!

I mean to hire some unknown company that they had never worked with before to create this many backlinks on a domain that profitable, is just crazy!

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

Maybe I use a different dictionary than everyone else here. Clearly the meaning of "almost" has escaped some of you.



The next level? What is that, super super number one instead of just plain ol' number one?

What, you didn't know about Super Duper Serious #1?

[Fernando Veloso]

Ok, let me get it for you:

From Google:

"There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages."

That bold word WAS NOT there a couple years ago. But now Google put it there.

Go figure why.

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Ok, let me get it for you:



That bold word WAS NOT there a couple years ago. But now Google put it there.

Go figure why.

Things that make you go "hmmm..."

[ry278]

Originally Posted by Wesley Atkins

I hate to be the controversial one... That usually get's me in trouble...

But after I went to an SEO conference in 2007 with some big industry names, I realized how easy it would be to drop your competitors from the SERPS... (temporarily mind you) with what they shared after the event

I've also personally witnessed a site take 2 years to recover from a penalty...

The site was making over $62,000 per month ranking No1 in Google for a very competitive keyword and the company purchased a bunch of High PR backlinks from known brokers and outsourced the creation of 250,000 backlinks to the website in 3 months to take it to the next level by ranking for multiple keywords in that niche..

The site was hit with a penalty and they hired me to get rid of it...

It was impossible, even after *operation cleanup your act* and 3 reinclusion requests in 12 months, the site came back after 2 years to the exact day... which is strange...

So, im guessing there is a maximum 2 year penalty that can be slapped on a domain as I've never heard of one that lasts this long...

Anyway, cut a long story short...

If your competition has the budget and is willing to spend it, they could certainly inflict a filter / penalty on your site..

Albeit Temporary... in my opinion, it can be done!

What's the keyword that makes $62,000 a month?

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by ry278

What's the keyword that makes $62,000 a month?

How much are you willing to pay for that information?

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Ok, let me get it for you:
That bold word WAS NOT there a couple years ago. But now Google put it there.

Go figure why.

The way I've read it, is that it's all about percentages and links that actually count.

How many links count? Everyone here knows you can't just toss a link up on an
site and have it count. Many factors go into whether a link counts. You can't have it
both ways. You can't have a link not count, then have that same link count against you.
It would have to be a link factored in.

What kinds of links may get counted? Sites with PR and pages that are indexed.

The question is, if a link is never counted by google, can it do harm?

For fun, I did a PR check on liv e jasm in (No, I have never visited, just know
by rankings it is one of the most visited p orn sites on the net)

The site is indexed. Would a link on that site hurt you, help you, or neither?

That $62,000 site story does not make sense. Appears the site was de-indexed.
You get de-indexed for stuff you do on and with your pages. The rest is probably
just coincidence. If bad links got you de-indexed, then the bad sites that do
the linking would also get de-indexed. If not, then why one and not the other?
But then, the site linking would not be indexed and any links not counted.

Getting back to almost. Google tells you to keep mounting up the good stuff to
offset any (maybe) bad links.

If you have 1,000 great links, then spam 10,000. How many of those 10,000 are
counted? Those 10,000 pages would be mostly junk, low level, PR n/a, etc. They
would not even be seen to hurt you. Now suppose you did get 10,000 bad links,
all showing, with PR, counted. That 10,000 would offset the 1,000 by a wide
margin. Then it may hurt. What are the chances of 10,000 spammed links
counting? Almost zero. Ahhhh. There's the almost!

Even if you got 100 of those 10K links to show. That's 100 vs. 1,000 good ones.
Still not enough. And getting 100 to count out of 10,000 spammed would be a good
percentage.

Paul

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by paulgl

That $62,000 site story does not make sense. Appears the site was de-indexed.
You get de-indexed for stuff you do on and with your pages. The rest is probably
just coincidence. If bad links got you de-indexed, then the bad sites that do
the linking would also get de-indexed. If not, then why one and not the other?
But then, the site linking would not be indexed and any links not counted.

Paul, the site was never de-indexed...

After ranking No:1 for several years they took the crazy decision on mass linking and buying HIGH PR links...

They were hit with a serious penalty!

The Pagerank went from 6 to 0 and they were ranking around 750 - 800 for 2 years straight, then after exactly 2 years the site came back into Number 1 again...

...then the next PR update they were given their Pagerank back again!

To add even more stangeness to the mix, another site that they owned was also given a penalty ON THE SAME DAY!

Which also came back in the rankings the same day exactly 2 years later, which goes to show that Google manually checked all their sites (and the have quite a few being a PLC media company in the UK)... for any wrong doing....

Strange, but categorically 100% true story...

[paulgl]

If was never de-indexed, then why this statement:

It was impossible, even after *operation cleanup your act* and 3 reinclusion requests in 12 months, the site came back after 2 years to the exact day... which is strange..."

Reinclusion into what? The main index? Exactly. Semantics. Okay, taken out of google's
main index. To me, they are one and the same, just a different place of pergatory.

I don't believe a site moves to the supplemental index by bad links. It has to do with
fatal flaws with the site as far as webmaster guidelines. Which makes the conclusion
logical. Would a top site want to do "bad" things if they were already not walking the
line? I'd say there is a good chance. You don't get to number one using good techniques,
then wake up one morning and hear, "Luke, I am your father..." and be coerced to the dark
side on whim.

Paul

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by paulgl

If was never de-indexed, then why this statement:



Reinclusion into what? The main index? Exactly. Semantics. Okay, taken out of google's
main index. To me, they are one and the same, just a different place of pergatory.

I don't believe a site moves to the supplemental index by bad links. It has to do with
fatal flaws with the site as far as webmaster guidelines. Which makes the conclusion
logical. Would a top site want to do "bad" things if they were already not walking the
line? I'd say there is a good chance.

Paul,

Sorry for the confusion. Google used to call this a reinclusion request so that's what I reffered to...

It's actually now called a "Reconsideration Request".

And it's standard practice to clean up what you did wrong (remove paid links) and file a "Reconsideration Request" if your site has been hit with an identifiable penalty...

...you seem to be confused about the difference between the supplemental index and a Google penalty - they are completely seperate things...

Originally Posted by paulgl

You don't get to number one using good techniques,
then wake up one morning and hear, "Luke, I am your father..." and be coerced to the dark
side on whim.

Like I said. Strange, but categorically 100% true story...

Sure, it's extremely rare. But, I'm surprised you've never read cases of sites being penalized for buying links...

GoCompare, a massive car insurance site here was hit with one in 2008...

Update: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/2178...google-penalty

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by Wesley Atkins

I've also personally witnessed a site take 2 years to recover from a penalty...

The site was making over $62,000 per month ranking No1 in Google for a very competitive keyword and the company purchased a bunch of High PR backlinks from known brokers

and outsourced the creation of 250,000 backlinks to the website in 3 months to take it to the next level by ranking for multiple keywords in that niche..

The site was hit with a penalty and they hired me to get rid of it...

So the thing that google absolutely abhors the most - buying paid links on high pr sites - seems to be being brushed under the rug, and its the fault of those dastardly 250k spammy backlinks ...?

Am I the only one who noticed this lil text snippet?

Perhaps the link building brought about a review of their link profile and it was the Paid Links that got them in the sh!t house?

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

So the thing that google absolutely abhors the most - buying paid links on high pr sites - seems to be being brushed under the rug, and its the fault of those dastardly 250k spammy backlinks ...?

Am I the only one who noticed this lil text snippet?

Perhaps the link building brought about a review of their link profile and it was the Paid Links that got them in the sh!t house?

Exactly... I believe the flag was raised by the mass links and the site was canned to page 7 for the high PR purchases...

Then Google reviewed other sites they own and canned another one..

[paulgl]

"Reconsideration Request" ??? For what are they reconsidering? Do re-index?
Re-include? If that's not being dropped form google, I don't know what is.

How does one go about getting 250,000 spammy links, then making them
magically disappear? No way could you ever get that toothpaste back in
the tube. There is no way you could every erase those spammy links. Then
when you ask some "reconsideration," you are asking google to ignore them as
well. But then, that would mean they don't actually hurt in the end.

If someone can explain how to erase 250,000 links, I'm all ears.

If they disappear over time due to lack of any substance, that's exactly what
google tells you. They won't matter in the end.

Paul

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by paulgl

"Reconsideration Request" ??? For what are they reconsidering? Do re-index?
Re-include? If that's not being dropped form google, I don't know what is.

I don't know how I can explain it any better.

You can read more here:
Filing a reinclusion request

Originally Posted by paulgl

How does one go about getting 250,000 spammy links, then making them
magically disappear? No way could you ever get that toothpaste back in
the tube. There is no way you could every erase those spammy links. Then
when you ask some "reconsideration," you are asking google to ignore them as
well. But then, that would mean they don't actually hurt in the end.

If someone can explain how to erase 250,000 links, I'm all ears.

If they disappear over time due to lack of any substance, that's exactly what
google tells you. They won't matter in the end.

Paul

Well that depends entirely how they are built..

if they are from a network of sites that you own, then you can dynamically turn the links off...

Case in point...



Anyway, that was not the case with this particular site..

All we did was remove the High PR links, as the 250k ones were built from other sources and was impossible to remove...

[jhonsean]

Originally Posted by paulgl

"Reconsideration Request" ??? For what are they reconsidering? Do re-index?
Re-include? If that's not being dropped form google, I don't know what is.

How does one go about getting 250,000 spammy links, then making them
magically disappear? No way could you ever get that toothpaste back in
the tube. There is no way you could every erase those spammy links. Then
when you ask some "reconsideration," you are asking google to ignore them as
well. But then, that would mean they don't actually hurt in the end.

If someone can explain how to erase 250,000 links, I'm all ears.

If they disappear over time due to lack of any substance, that's exactly what
google tells you. They won't matter in the end.

Paul

Exactly that's the point I have been waiting to clear it up.
I hope some open ears absorb the well said of paul.
Thanks.

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by Wesley Atkins

Exactly... I believe the flag was raised by the mass links and the site was canned to page 7 for the high PR purchases...

Then Google reviewed other sites they own and canned another one..

So then ... if they hadnt been buying high pr links off brokers - then what would their sin have been?

Few people in the small time IM community are both spamming to the tune of 250k [ findable backlinks ] and massively buying traceable HIGH pr backlinks.

Not sure if much of this example is applicable to the real world marketers here frequenting this forum - with the budgets we're talking about here.

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

So then ... if they hadnt been buying high pr links off brokers - then what would their sin have been?

Who knows... My guess is that after being flagged and scrutinized, they would have simply discounted the link value and therefore had no positive or negative effect..

[Slin]

Just speaking from personal experience, but i've blasted my own site before, my site got removed from that keyword for a bit (sandboxed or danced or whatever)

Then it came back higher then ever.

If you guys want a case study i've got a newer site we should all spam it and see what happens.

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by Slin

Just speaking from personal experience, but i've blasted my own site before, my site got removed from that keyword for a bit (sandboxed or danced or whatever)

Then it came back higher then ever.

If you guys want a case study i've got a newer site we should all spam it and see what happens.

Just out of interest...

How old was the site?
How many links did you build?
How long before it came back?

[theseoguys]

I had a site last year get a 30 day penalty. It came back, but sluggish. After a reconsideration request, it came back stronger than ever. (top 5).
I have a friend who had a site recieve a 1 year penalty, literally, as described above, to the DAY. So, to all the people that say about mass rapid linkbuilding and link buying "well if that were true, everyone would be putting their competition out of business". Short story is, nobody knows what is true and what isn't true. One thing I know that probably is true, is those same people that say you can't get a penalty from mass linkbuilding or buying links, probably have never recieved a penalty before. If and when they do get a penalty, they will start singing a different tune.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Slin

Just speaking from personal experience, but i've blasted my own site before, my site got removed from that keyword for a bit (sandboxed or danced or whatever)

Then it came back higher then ever.

If you guys want a case study i've got a newer site we should all spam it and see what happens.

As long as we can pick our own anchor-text.

[Slin]

Originally Posted by Wesley Atkins

Just out of interest...

How old was the site?
How many links did you build?
How long before it came back?

Yeah no problem, great questions.

Age? Like a month or so.

Links? Not positive, it was around 20,000 successful, no wait, 40,000.

Note: Yahoo didn't show anywhere close to that amount but it never does.

And how long? It was over a month.

From what i've read around on different forums, it seems that people all have different amounts of time that google puts them out of the search results. No idea why this is.

The agreed time was usually "3 months" but I dunno about that.

I will say though that i'm not afraid to blast my money site at all.

[medi50cus]

Now, this post deserves a thumbs up. Some guys and gals are way too paranoid getting sandboxed and cobbled by their competitors. Heck, no!

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by Slin

If you guys want a case study i've got a newer site we should all spam it and see what happens.

Hey, lets build all the links to my sites

[yukon]

Originally Posted by dadamson

Hey, lets build all the links to my sites

First!





Viagra
Cialis
.

[Slin]

Originally Posted by dadamson

Hey, lets build all the links to my sites

Haha you caught me

But really, if you want proof that backlinks work, and don't want to use your own site :P i'm always free!

Originally Posted by yukon

As long as we can pick our own anchor-text.

Wait wait...let's not get carried away here.