Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power I've been buckling down on research and teaching of SEO again and thought I would share a couple of very relevant SEO factors over the next few weeks that can really affect ranking of pages. One question that still comes up is whether massive backlinking works and whether it gets sites penalized. Theres been enough debates on if that happens directly as a result of massive spam linking but there is another angle that hasn't been discussed often that pretty much guarantees that massive backlinking will eventually lose power across many sites. Here's how that works Its a known fact that Google DOES penalize sites that link to spam and that the power of links from those sites deteriorates as a result. You may not be responsible for who links to you but you ARE responsible for who you link to . Sites that don't keep out tools like Xrummer (link spam bot but there are others) eventually get hammered by a good amount of clearly spam links. Google then identifies these links and if the number of spam links reaches an undisclosed level begins to lower the value of the links FOR EVERYONE using that site and the page in the search engine falls. So the reality is that the more people use these tools the more likely the kind of sites that allow them will have less and less power for everyone else linking from that site . Thats why you may not see any big changes in the algorithm from Google. Eventually the links get less and less power the more over run a site is with spam links. This degrading power is already built into the algorithm. This is one of the reasons why people who advocate using mass backlinks have to tell you to always keep building links. They don't realize that the more they build (as a group) the less effective the links become. What can you do? Don't spend your entire SEO link building campaign focusing on the kind of links that are targeted by these mass spam links (forums are the most targeted). For one a lot of the links are removed by the forum masters and then those admins that allow their site to be slammed by spam over and over again will have less and less link authority to give. Funny thing about it is the spammers are destroying the power of the links they live by and its all designed into the algorithm. Some will object. third party source needed? Fine Here's a quick cases study from a third party source but its nothing that every real SEO professional doesn't know Google Page Level Penalty for Comment Spam – Rankings and Traffic Drop Build your links with balance not just for ease. Avoid alleged SEOs/backlink gurus that don't create balance in links and who are always pushing mass spam links no matter how popular they may be. Long term the strategy is on a deepening downward trend - by design. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Its a good article for power decline with massive backlinks. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power The goal of all search engines is to provide us all with unique and relevant content. They will continue to pursue this until all B.H. tactics are rendered irrelevant. |
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Take a look at the top 4 listings for the keyword "before", and then look at the top 4 listings for the keyword "after". What do you notice? NONE of the top 4 results are the same. Not one single listing. Zero. Nada. Zilch. It seems to me that perhaps Google underwent one of its infamous short-term Google ranking shuffles. I'm sure you've seen it, where all of the listings get shuffled around for a bit, and then come back to the way they were? You would think the #1 listing (which even had 2 listings on page 1 and appears to be the main virtualbox site) could manage to be in the top 4 a couple of weeks later. Again, one possible reason is simply a short-term shakeup by Google of ALL the listings. Now, of course, we both know that outgoing links can potentially hurt the power of a domain, although (1) I don't think it is as easy as saying when a site gets X % or X number of outgoing bad links or whatever from a domain then it will get penalized or devalued (at least when we are talking about authority domains, and (2) i'm not sure if this really is a good example of this case. Quote:
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power You completely missed my point Mike. I was replying to thebitdotcom's's post. That is why I quoted him:rolleyes: I disagreed with his point (about a long-term algo shift), and still do. Your point was different (perhaps overlooked by thebitdotcom..I don't know). Tom Quote:
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power I agree with the premise that sites that are essentially "free for alls" when it comes to linking will suffer in some way over time. I've seen several FFA .edu sites have their outgoing links totally devalued while the domain PR and ranking remains intact. This doesn't mean that all comment and profile links are bad. With proper use they can still be quite potent. On the flip side, mass automated backlinks from known unmoderated sites probably won't be counted or at least not counted long. I think Google grabs the low lying fruit here. All they have to do is buy those popular "link packets" and such incognito to get a list of FFA sites and devalue their link juice and put them in the visual inspection queue. They don't even have to search them out via special algorithms, they just follow the money, so to speak. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Not helping does not mean hurting. I'd like to see the google algorithm that declares a blog reply as spam, and rates another one as not spam. Not liking blog comments overall is one thing. That I do think they are going to. They tried the nofollow. People abused that and used it in very inappropriate places. Too many people look at backlinks, spam or not, and come to some perception that google raises or lowers a site's SERPS on those links. I don't think you can ever make that assumption. There are so many other intangibles that go into the mix of why a site is #1 or #500. As I said, I "kinda" agree with the premise that blog comments, as far as helping rankings, are going the way of the 8-track. Do I do them? You betcha! Paul |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Back to the first, initial topic for a minute :) I read an article on Google's Webmasters Blog...I'll come back and post a link in a minute...just have to find it. They say, almost to a T, "There is almost nothing any webmaster can do, to harm another Webmaster's ranking in Google's search engine." Key word there, 'almost'. An incoming link to your site, will not devalue your site in any way. Worst case scenario, it just doesn't count for anything. Google did this because at one point, 1 webmaster could just build a bunch of spam links to their competitors and wipe them off the first page. Now, as mentioned on their official blog, EXTERNAL LINKS from your site, to a 'spam' site or site that violates Google's content guidelines, will devalue your site. So, notice before, how they said 'almost'... When you end up with a 'spammy' link pointing from your site, that can in fact devalue your site and rankings. So, when a site gets consistently bombarded with spammish, irrelevant backlinks, that site becomes devalued. Since that website becomes devalued, the outgoing links are also devalued. Therefore, following massive spam patterns using bots and otherwise, will decrease in value now, and the backlinking you've done in the past will also become devalued thus lowering your rankings. I have to go find those blog posts on the Google Webmasters Blogspot blog. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power There has been a lot of debate on the use of the word "almost" in that referenced blog post. A lot of people, including myself, feel that in fact they were the word "almost" as a means of being an agnostic on the issue, as a competitor could, for instance, hack into your site, and install malware for instance. In such a circumstance, a competitor could actually hurt your site. Of course, such a circumstance is so far off the radar for most people and website owners that they need not be concerned with it. But, by using the word "almost" Google is in essence issuing a CYA for these freaky instances. Quote:
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power HIGH QUALITY CONTENT BEATS ANYTHING IN THE LONG RUN!!!!!!!! |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Google Page Level Penalty for Comment Spam – Rankings and Traffic Drop Prove it. replicate those results similarly more than once in a controlled environ - else this guys blog post is just an anecdotal coincidence... similar to the "sandbox" penalty and duplicate content theory. Silly... Serious SEO's pffft .... |
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And the fact that this is in fact a method in which competition 'can' in a sense, hurt the competition. Thankfully, according to that post you shared, the problem can be fixed in such a situation! That's really cool, the proof is in the pudding on that one. Thanks for the share. Hey guys!!!! Attention....The link he just posted is ''''''LINKBAIT!!!''''''' Haha, just figured I'd throw that out there. 'natural link building':) |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power know this is funny:D lets go spam twitter weeee |
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You dispute something so well established then go ahead. go to your site (make sure its one of your money sites) and fill your site with links to Porn, Viagra and gambling . EVERYONE knows that although you aren't responsible for who links to you you are responsible for what you link to. Trailblaze the way to a new understanding of SEO and put up your counter evidence to the massive evidence thats against your treasured practice. LOL. So far the only ones taking issue with the reality that spam links on a page en masse can hurt a site is those who are known to push massive link spam. Who woulda thunk?:rolleyes: They come out to any thread that suggests that Google has ANY penalty for ANY kind of spam. is it really that hard to accept that a little moderation might help everyone? Th evidence is clear and overwhelming. Asking for more and more when you don't have any to offer in rebuttal is just hand waving and distraction. |
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the blog post referenced - Page Level rankings dropping and increased overnite for comment spam and removal of it - on a single page, that then rose the very next 24 hr period because he removed it. ... I walked by a black cat on friday and a certain page on my site went from slot #7 on page 5 to #4 on page one for 24 hrs. So now part of my seo strategy is to find asmany black cats as i can on Firdays - and pass on by. Whether your MAIN PREMISES is accurate or NOT [ remains to be seen ] The blog post used is poor example of proof ... how could the author have controlled : A. what google may have been doing for that slice of 24 hrs B. what competitors may have been doing to rank for that term Yes ... throwing around basic seo 101 principals as if they are advanced techniques and knowledge around here where no one else knows the difference - and then positing it all in such a way - with snyde remarks like "even the most sophmporic seo's know ..." is an interesting approach. I know youre not one to even try and win any friends or build relationships here or anywhere - but must you always be such a freakin know it all douche bag? Sorry you're not always going to be the smartest guy in the room/thread ... For example ... its pretty well accepted that if your site is purely a grotesque SPAM farm - with boatloads of "do follow" [ that is NOT rel=nofollow"] outbound juice - your site wont likely RANK well, and could become de-indexed. As such - its pretty well known as well - Google's hammer hits the whole site - they just come in and de-index the whole domain, not a single page - as the blog post example posted focus' on. You actually believe google "penalized" a single page on a large site like that for 24 hrs from comment spam? |
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is not backlinks. So yes, we should spam, ....er....tweet.:D Quote:
Paul |
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Want more evidence here - Google "linking to spam". Scroll through. Now its your turn to come with some proof to the contrary. I pointed to more than just one example and now you can sift through and find lots more. Quote:
I have many friends here and elsewhere - just not many mass spamming friends I give you that. You don't like what I have to say is all. In this thread I am probably not even the smartest. There have been only two posters in it that have objected to the BASIC SEO principle that outbound links to spam from your site can affect ranking. If I am smarter than the two then so are a lot of other people in this thread. Keep on the subject and stop trying to derail into personal attacks like you have so many times before. Last time I checked this wasn't the board to be defending massive link spam anyway. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Why there are still using massive spam links, Is there anything that will benefits on this. Search Engine like google doesn't like this its more likely to deliver unique and quality content. |
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Instead, get these money, protection and good luck charms to really solve your SEO problems! :D |
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But you are never going to get links naturally without ______________. And even semi-decent content can get them. In fact, downright bad content can get them. Case in point: ezinearticles Paul |
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It is a relentless task cleaning up their rubbish, / can i ask you write those who allow this / how or what ways are there to prevent these and new spammers coming back ? it is not that we allow them / they just seem to breed like rabbits. That with also looking to start my own forum shortly what recommendations do people have to curb these clowns or is it a daily struggle and from reading what you said is it correct even if you keep cleaning these clowns / posts out your still penalized ? Appreciate any advice you may be able to share on the topic / one way i thought was paid membership before allowing a Sig link to cut the crap but i am unsure if vb allows that function ? Pete |
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Another thing you can do to prevent a lot of it is to make forum members profile pages not publicly viewable. As an example, our Warriorforum profile found here is publicly viewable, meaning everyone including search engine spiders can see it. If you make member profiles private then spiders won't be able to see it, making it useless for people to put links in. If you're having trouble with people making posts for their backlinks, you can institute the idea above. Make users have at least 50 posts before they are able to include links in their sig. It won't stop everyone, but I'd say at least 99% of people won't even bother if they have to make 50 posts to get links in their sigs. Also, if you've got a really healthy forum, like this one, people will do a lot of your job for you by using the report function on spam posts. |
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The real hardcore spammers aren't going to let a law (that probably wouldn't be enforced very thoroughly or efficiently) stop them. |
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But seriously, I do think more regulation is coming to the Internet although I think in the US it will have more to do with limiting and controlling political speech and protecting old mainstream media outlets than it does dumping 10000 links to your knitting needle site on unsuspecting forum and blog owners. |
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power has something changed in the warrior rules again? I haven't seen this kind of argument since people had stuff to sell. co-ink-e-dink? doubt it, like watching infomercials at this stage. |
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Now there are some people who don't give a rip about other people's property so they will just run it over as long as its legal but those are the people that can and should be reported to Google (the law on their own search engine). when your "values" or lack thereof don't stop you from doing that to sites then theres nothing to complain about when and if you get reported and Google acts on it. Which is why for most mainline business terms where established businesses are operating you rarely see sites propped up by nothing but spam links taking top spot. So the reporting factor is yet another reason why links placed by mass bots are eventually weakened. Besides face it any site you see ranking on that kind of link building is basically screaming - "look you can beat us. Just run xrumer as well". |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power That's fine but you were posting here every day when you had something to sell as soon as that was against the rules the posts stopped which i think says it all really. Anyway I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say I just think your timing is suspicious. Quote:
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power Google Bowling has never happened in the past. Sites have never been removed from the Google index before, either. |
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Whenever Mike Anthony starts a thread, he REALLY starts a thread! Paul |
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First almost everyone who sold link related products here reduced their level of posting. In a discussion with tom the other day he said as much. I could reel off the sellers and I rarely see them start a thread or participate as much anymore. Frankly the only ones that continued much were obviously doing signature link selling redirecting viewers to their own site so they coudl sell their stuff - which is perfectly in order and nada is wrong with that. I had other things doing. Second Go look at my stats. I've been posting here. You don't know what you are talking about and the evidence is there that I have been posting. I did not stop. thats just plain lying to make a point you can't make. The stats show me with ton loads of pages upon pages of posts since The rules were changed. I think when someone makes up things to make a point - that says it all. But you know what really says it all. With my pages and pages of posts over the last few months you can't even fill one page but you are chiding me for participating less. ROFL. Almost like you were sent to this thread. |
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The reasons for my comment was two fold. First, a large number of active posters have migrated over to backlinksforum where they are regular contributors. Obviously Terry, but also people Like Kok Choon, Pat Jackson, etc. are to be included. Second, the level of discourse here, IMHO, has degraded in the past year or so (which no doubt is compounded by the fact that many regular contributors either left, or just spend less time here). I can only handle so many "Oh my god...i'm banned from Google" threads before I need to close down the forum in my browser. Call me crazy, but I would rather discuss the ins and outs of domain buying for SEO purposes than explain to 100 people each day that checking backlinks in Google using the "link:" command is useless. I was here because my "friends" were here, so to speak. No, almost all of them have left the ship, so to speak...so... Not to mention there are only so many hours in the day. Tom |
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I have no qualms with you marketing for yourself and Terry as you always have. Its just not honest though to claim that because the product was never in your name you were not involved in selling it. I have seen it. Plus you have always had a signature link Tom. never seen you without one WHICH I want to make clear again is fine except for the pretending that you have never been deeply involved in selling on Warriors even as you are right now. Sheesh a little honesty goes a long way. At any rate this thread is about the subject of the opening post. Not whether someone who questions link spam is suspicious, what happens elsewhere or who or what goes on there when and if I build relationships online or offline or any other derailing strategy. |
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Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power It is a hard thing to get an accurate idea of - whether a spammed powerful site becomes less powerful due to it becoming a bad link neighbourhood. The problem is that people who spam the links are constantly spamming so as one site slowly fades away, the dozens or even hundreds of fresh links are still giving the target an upwards push. You can really only tell after leaving a page sit for a while without the fresh links and see if it falls down the SERPs. Link directories don't work like they use to and guest books are almost a waste of time. These both use to work really well for getting links but their power has faded. They were abused but is that the reason they are no longer that great? 3 steps foward, and 2 steps back still keeps you heading in the right direction - it just isn't neccessarily the most efficient way to 'move'. |
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So Tom if its BS all you have to do is present evidence to the contrary. I have laid out the case, given muliple examples and quoted FAR more respected SEOs than you , myself or anyone in this thread. I'd quote google as well but you would probably go to your claims that google always lies or some other conspiracy theory. So simple question - If a site links to a lot of spam will it not hurt the sites ranking? simple question should be easy to answer since what I posted is "BS". Time to answer it and stop dodging because I suspect you know the answer and you've been weaving in and out of having to admit I am right or proving to other SEOs that you are way off and have no clue about SEO outside of mass spam techniques. |
Re: Why the Value of Massive Spam links is constantly declining in power SPAM, it's not just for breakfast anymore. |
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Again, believe what you want, I don't really care. |
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Well it is true - and you will soon see it. Stay tuned. |
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Cant we all see Matt cutts and the boys at google sitting around the lab ... "Whooaaa thats some heavy moderation there over at Warrior Forum .... No affiliate links - and all to their own products. WF = Quality Links O'Plenty - Green Light Em boys! to the top with their content... Arc up the PR for WF while your at it!" Good thing nobody has any "spammy" links on their profiles here. I can see how the thousands of sig file links are traumatizing the rankings of the threads here too. Killing the rankings over on backlinksforum too ... Ohhh wait!!! All those sig links and profile page links are to "quality content filled" - authority pages - not spammy MFA and salespages for products google hates... LMFAO ... |
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Relax Tom. I was just stating that if only one person said they got it then that wouldn't be enough to say everyone could. I have no opinion one way or the other and it would definitely not surprise me if it was changed. I don't see the rule applying to TOS of other sites in the WSO section anymore . I think I did see it there before. |
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Try again. Eventually you must by the sheer odds come up with a good point to counter the evidence that is overwhelming against you. Still waiting how your Goldmine (lol) of SEO is so much better than all the SEOs in the world who recognize that linking to spam can hurt a site. Warriors is such a funny place. I think Warriors had a drop in PR this year as well but I maybe wrong about that. NO one said the sites would vanish just that the links would have less juice. Next I guess I will hear from you that the more out going links on a site doesn't decrease the link juice going out on the individual links (all things being equal). Do you even know how PR works? Thats pretty laughable. No wonder you think I push advanced SEO. You are in the stone age. |
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Incidentally where in the world do you guys learn your SEO? Forget me. Seriously anyone that follows you guys because you can run a bot over respected research sources like SEOmoz needs their heads examined. |
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