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Help with SEO question

by CheapClothingGal
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi there, I could really use some assistance. Recently one of our competitors decided to spin out like 30 different websites that all sell the exact same product of theirs. They just name the site and the products differently and now they are growing in the rankings for all of them. Here are a few of their websites: rosegal.com, rosewholesale.com, sammydress.com, nastydress.com, rotita.com, twinkledeals.com and I can go on and on and on. If you look at rosegal for example, they have landed on page 1 for almost all top terms and all of their other sites are ranking for it as well (just look at Cheap Dresses and you will see what I mean). This is literally destroying our industry because they are clearly all the same company (their WhoIs, IP and everything are all the same). How is Google/Bing not catching this and doing something about it? They are even double/triple serving in PPC for the same products and Google does nothing despite multiple attempts to show them this black hat technique. Any idea how to counteract this legally/fairly? I don't want to do anything black hat but if Google is letting them game their system than I feel like everyone else should as well. Our SEO traffic has basically gone down 60% since they started doing this (about 6 months ago). Any ideas/help would be VERY appreciated.
#question #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
    If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

    The only way to counteract it is to report the sites as spam.

    There's no real way to stop them, though. They're onto something that works like gangbusters and will just keep rebuilding as long as it's profitable for them.

    Google will catch up eventually. Sorry to hear about your situation.
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  • Profile picture of the author FreedomBlogger
    The truth is, there is not really a way to stop them. I mean, Google seems to rank them well, and for their own reasons!

    Google cares more about THEIR user experience. If these sites are making the users happy, then Google will be happy to rank them up!

    They don't care if the same people are ranking multiple sites. They only care about, once again, THEIR user experience!

    That is what ranking up in search engines is all about!

    You take good care of the user experience, and the rest if history.

    Google checks how long someone is staying on the site, and how many pages they visit. If they see the user is staying long and it is actually engaging on the site, then that tells them the user is really happy with what they found. And that makes Google happy as well!

    Remember; Google's main priority is THEIR users! .... not really your business. That is just the real truth.

    If you want to beat these sites, what I would do is hire a SEO expert to help you. And then, work a LOT MORE on the user experience on your sites.

    It is all about the user experience, if you want the search engine to favorite your site over the many thousands with the same service. I can't address this enough! ... because most seem to not care about this simple concept, but yet complain about rankings!

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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by FreedomBlogger View Post

      Google cares more about THEIR user experience. If these sites are making the users happy, then Google will be happy to rank them up!
      Providing relevant search results is Google's goal. Or actually that's their way to make a product that supports their ad sales which is the real motivation behind Google search.

      Saying that Google cares about user experience is bit of an oversimplification. Yes, they do try to track mobile versions, site speed, and probably user interactions around their search. No, that's not really the same as use experience of the website. Google's means to track UX are indirect and not too precise.

      There's way more to Google ranking than user experience. Maybe these sites have good backlink profiles for some reason.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
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  • Profile picture of the author KylieSweet
    Forget about SEO and Google, what you need to focus is on how to beat your competitors product and this will require studies as well as analysis to get on top of them. If your product and services are proven and well trusted from the users even their 30 different websites will not stand from your great provider website.
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    • Profile picture of the author pororo
      Google is not the only way to get traffic, find alternative ways to increase the traffic to your site.

      But if you want google still your best source of traffic, then do more than your competitors can do.
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  • Profile picture of the author David983
    You need to do some SEO work... or just copy them
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    • Profile picture of the author sparrow
      start tearing their sites apart for content and backlinks

      you need to find what is driving these websites higher in the rankings and then model what they have and do one better
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      • Profile picture of the author CheapClothingGal
        I appreciate all of the responses but that is what is frustrating here. I consider myself a bit of a consumer experience expert. I run anywhere from 8-10 conversion tests per month and make sure my site if well SEO optimized (by using all of the SEO tools out there). I would make a bet our conversion rate is better than most of our competition (due to testing) and I've followed up on every thing that we find is an error or problem in Webmaster Tools. For a company that is doing EXACTLY what they say we should do to rank, I feel like we are instead getting penalized for it. Why does Google even have double serving (unfair advantage policies) if they themselves are not going to follow their own policies. Very frustrating. Let me know if anyone else has any suggestions.

        Thanks.
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        • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
          Originally Posted by CheapClothingGal View Post

          I run anywhere from 8-10 conversion tests per month and make sure my site if well SEO optimized (by using all of the SEO tools out there).
          You probably didn't mean it that way, but the latter part of that sentence sounds fairly bad. No, you're not using all of the SEO tools. And what do you even mean by that phrase? There's a lot of tools that you can do great harm to your SEO if you're not good at this.

          It's pretty hard to say if your site is optimized. People make this kind of claim all the time, and too often it's the case that when you see their site you immediately notice that internal linking is messed up and HTML structures don't make any sense. This is why have the habit of not taking claims on face value.

          It doesn't help that you called PPC ads a black hat technique in the OP. No, it's not even SEO.

          It's great that you're doing conversion optimization, but that's got very little to do with SEO.

          Originally Posted by CheapClothingGal View Post

          and I've followed up on every thing that we find is an error or problem in Webmaster Tools. For a company that is doing EXACTLY what they say we should do to rank, I feel like we are instead getting penalized for it.
          Who says? Sorry if this sounds nitpicky, but there's so much lousy and false advice out there. Google usually only gives generic guidelines and comments from spam team's point of view, not actual SEO advice.

          Not having something in webmaster tools is a good start, but it only means that Google doesn't have any huge issues with the site. Not ranking is not the same as being penalized for something.


          If you want to compete in Google is link building an option for you?

          Google is not the only game in town. I know of companies that have just killed it with Facebook pages and ads.
          Signature
          Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
          Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

          What's your excuse?
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