Negative SEO on steroids or...?

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

OK, so I am mind-boggled by what's been happening to my Amazon Associates website. I am still not sure whether I even understand some of the things that have been going on.

1. I have the only website in the niche that's built on white hat SEO, and I am seeing links to my website being sent from a PBN, and a very well-constructed one, too (don't know if the website are somehow penalized or sm. but they are all very good for a PBN with very good metrics and indexed).

That's a pretty bold statement. That means google only shows one result....yours?

The rest of the stuff is just opinions....like this crapola:
well-structured with very little of the known PBN footprints
the article are neither copied nor spun, very well-written native level English articles
they link to authority websites apart from my website (which is counter-intuitive for a negative SEO link)

None of those things makes any sense in the real world. You just heard a guy
who knew a guy who saw a guy...

Paul

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Eoon

9 years ago

Oh Paul man, that was so smart and so helpful...thanks so much

First of all, when I say that "I have the only white hat website in the niche" I mean that I have the only website with first page rankings for the few main money keywords. If I have to explain that, I don't know what to tell you.

Second of all, are you Matt Cutts? You think that only white hat websites rank? You think that PBN and other black hat stuff stopped working. If that's what you think, again, I don't know what to tell you.

Third, I'm no Rand Fishkin, I did a lot of stuff over the years, PBN being one of them, and I know what works or worked and what doesn't. If you think that sending one link from a page insteaf of two or five is the same in terms of power, I don't know what to tell you.

So, no, I didn't know a guy who knew a guy. I did it all over the years.

If you think that knowing a difference between a real and a copied or spun article is opinion, I don't know what to tell you.

Lastly, I'll never understand why do people bother to comment if the comment is utterly useless whichever way you look at it.

Why...

P.S. Crapola? Really? If you are nervous go punch a tree...

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

First of all, when I say that "I have the only white hat website in the niche" I mean that I have the only website with first page rankings for the few main money keywords.

That doesn't have anything to do with white hat or black hat, you just don't have competition targeting the keyword/s. So, If the other 9 ranked pages on Google SERPs aren't targeting the keyword/s that tells me odds are it's a longtail keyword which usually doesn't take much effort to rank. Assumes you researched the competition (internal + external link profiles) & you're not up against ebay, walmart, etc... (example authority sites).

I was going to post yesterday... my first impression after reading OP was you were in a cut throat competition niche. Today it's looking like no real competition which is confusing considering OP is paranoid competition is doing something shady.

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

That doesn't have anything to do with white hat or black hat, you just don't have competition targeting the keyword/s.

What I said there was a response to being ironically asked if my website was the ONLY ONE showing in Google...

Let me try and be clearer:

all of the 9 websites are precisely targeting the few keywords that are the buying keywords like "best ...." or "... reviews". So, the keywords are in the range of 5-12k volume and are 2-3 word keywords. The fact that I'm ranking for these and a few dozen other buying keywords is what allows me to have conversion percentages of 10-12% in season and 7-8% off season, which anyone monetizing with Amazon will tell you is good at the very least.
all the 9 other websites currently ranking for those are using mainly PB to rank (some of the PBNs 100+ blogs strong). So, no, I'm currently not competing with eBay or Walmart but the competition is no joke. There was a time when Amazon and one of the manufacturers of the product were ranking but the PBN guys pushed them out.

I'd really like if we could talk about what I actually asked, instead of getting caught up in semantics.

What I described is happening. Right now. The guy going against my website is basing his work on PBNs and other black-hat stuff, so I really don't feel like analyzing terms.

I was hoping to pick brains of people that might understand what's going on better than I do.

Thanks

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

What I said there was a response to being ironically asked if my website was the ONLY ONE showing in Google...

Let me try and be clearer:

all of the 9 websites are precisely targeting the few keywords that are the buying keywords like "best ...." or "... reviews". So, the keywords are in the range of 5-12k volume and are 2-3 word keywords. The fact that I'm ranking for these and a few dozen other buying keywords is what allows me to have conversion percentages of 10-12% in season and 7-8% off season, which anyone monetizing with Amazon will tell you is good at the very least.
all the 9 other websites currently ranking for those are using mainly PB to rank (some of the PBNs 100+ blogs strong). So, no, I'm currently not competing with eBay or Walmart but the competition is no joke. There was a time when Amazon and one of the manufacturers of the product were ranking but the PBN guys pushed them out.

I'd really like if we could talk about what I actually asked, instead of getting caught up in semantics.

What I described is happening. Right now. The guy going against my website is basing his work on PBNs and other black-hat stuff, so I really don't feel like analyzing terms.

I was hoping to pick brains of people that might understand what's going on better than I do.

Thanks

No offense but you're hard to follow. It's like you're seesawing back & forth on competition strength every other comment on this forum thread.

Seriously, no semantics? I think that's the whole problem, we're trying to translate what you're talking about. Again, you're idea of white hat isn't white hat.

I get the feeling you don't have 100% organic backlinks yourself so talking down on PBN competition would be the pot calling the kettle black. Am I right?

I think If you really want help you'll need to show someone you trust the keyword & domains involved. That way there's no confusion trying to decipher the meaning of comments.

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Seriously, no semantics? I think that's the whole problem, we're trying to translate what you're talking about. Again, you're idea of white hat isn't white hat.

I get the feeling you don't have 100% organic backlinks yourself so talking down on PBN competition would be the pot calling the kettle black. Am I right?

I guess that's fair. If the idea of white hat is "build it and they will come" I guess I'm not white hat. If building links through getting involved and building relationships, sending people products to test and review, outreach, interviews with prominent people in the field, roundups, guest posts...then I guess I'm not white hat.

But my point is this - how does any of that relate to the puzzle I'm trying to solve?

Competition, white, black, green, purple hat, long tail, short tail...how is it relevant to my simple question - WHY IS THIS GUY SENDING ME THE KIND OF LINKS I DESCRIBED?

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

But my point is this - how does any of that relate to the puzzle I'm trying to solve?

Competition, white, black, green, purple hat, long tail, short tail...how is it relevant to my simple question - WHY IS THIS GUY SENDING ME THE KIND OF LINKS I DESCRIBED?

Lol, geez.

You made out like you didn't have any competition in OP. So... why would any build negative links? How does that make sense?

Email the PBN owner & ask him why he's building links for you.

We're not mind readers with translation skills.

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Lol, geez.
You made out like you didn't have any competition in OP. So... why would any build negative links? How does that make sense?

Email the PBN owner & ask him why he's building links for you.

We're not mind readers with translation skills.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about that in the OP, the competition are the PBN guys and I am pretty sure I know his website in the niche. We have a lot of common keywords we rank for (over 300).

The reason is most probably Negative SEO but the way he's doing it is a mystery to me.

Considered emailing him from his money websites and I might just do that but I am fairly certain that there would be either no response or "I don't know what you're talking about."

Again, I wanted to pick warrior minds before I do anything apart from disavowing. No matter how certain I am about which websites are his there's always risk of emailing the wrong person and who knows how things might unravel from there...

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about that in the OP, the competition are the PBN guys and I am pretty sure I know his website in the niche. We have a lot of common keywords we rank for (over 300).

The reason is most probably Negative SEO but the way he's doing it is a mystery to me.

Considered emailing him from his money websites and I might just do that but I am fairly certain that there would be either no response or "I don't know what you're talking about."

Again, I wanted to pick warrior minds before I do anything apart from disavowing. No matter how certain I am about which websites are his there's always risk of emailing the wrong person and who knows how things might unravel from there...

Is there even a problem, have you dropped in the SERPs?

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Eoon 9 years ago

Yes, about 20% in keywords volume.

Luckily, my main keywords are not affected and the 20% drop doesn't transfer to a 20% drop in earnings.

It's hard to assign this drop to these links with certainty because of some new competitor arriving to the niche.

But drop or no drop I have to understand it and react because, as it is with the PBNs, the drop can happen at any time, it's a ticking bomb.

However, this whole thing is a moot point if Amazon says "No" for some reason after the review (I mentioned that these links thing coincided with my website being reviewed by Amazon because "It has come to their attention....").

I'm optimistic about the Amazon thing because they were fairly precise about the things I need to change...

Overall, a GREAT week...and my girlfriend warned me about Mercury being retrograde. Why didn't I listen? Whyyy?!
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paulgl

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

Oh Paul man, that was so smart and so helpful...thanks so much

First of all, when I say that "I have the only white hat website in the niche" I mean that I have the only website with first page rankings for the few main money keywords. If I have to explain that, I don't know what to tell you.

Second of all, are you Matt Cutts? You think that only white hat websites rank? You think that PBN and other black hat stuff stopped working. If that's what you think, again, I don't know what to tell you.

Do you even know where Matt Cutts is in 2015? Probably not.

There is no white or black hat. There's stuff that works, stuff that does not.

Google does not rank sites, "just because," or
because you followed some lame list that you think matters.

If you are using a true PBN and trying to hide things...you must be already doing stuff
that is against google.

I have nothing to hide from google about my sites. I don't try. I don't care.

Paul

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Eoon 9 years ago

Paul man,

So much stuff here that doesn't even remotely relate to what I was saying or asking.

You're talking about my PBN when I was saying the exact opposite (I mentioned I did build PBNs over the years but said that the website in question is completely clean) and that my issue is that somebody sending me links from a PBN.

You're talking like you know why and how exactly Google ranks stuff, you're talking about my lame lists. I explained what I rank for with this particular website, so there might be a chance there are few good bullets on those lame lists, don't you think?...you're on a rant and I have a problem that I came here to ask about.

I'm really not interested in d... measuring contests and yes, if your idea of an insult is that you know more about vacation whereabouts of Matt Cutts, I'll just let you know that that comment just brought a mild smile to my face. I'll give you that, you're the almighty king of Matt Cutts trivia.

Responding to posts like this is just a waste of my time, reading it is a waste of the reader's time, and it just feeds the anger issues you obviously have, so I'm not doing it anymore.

If you have nothing constructive to say, please keep the rants for yourself.

Anybody who'd read this thread would be amused...the issue I raised wasn't touched with a single word
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jinx1221

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

I am still not 100% sure that this is what's going on, because some of the things don't make sense, and I'd like to hear what fellow warriors think.

That's kind of the real question, isn't it Eoon? So, you have obtained a bunch of backinks from powerful PBN's, enough to send a red flag to big G.. My question is, why would anybody with that kind of powerful network even bother to bury your site, saying that you are the only one in your niche?

p.s. don't diss Paul.

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Eoon 9 years ago

Hey Jinx,

That's why I started the thread in the first place, because I'm confused. And yeah, being confused feels kind of nice, stimulating, it woke up my brain. I pretty much didn't do anything for that website in months, not even disavowing junk links.

My first thought about what you said would be - if you have 10 results on a page for a keyword and most of them based on black hat stuff, and this guy decides to take his competition down I guess he would have different approaches for different websites.

1. He might be doing something against other competitors, too, I can't know that, but sending PBN links to websites that are ranking with a PBN would be like throwing matches into a fireplace. He would also be exposing himself by directly acting against these websites.

2. But that's not even what raised my eyebrows the most - it's the fact that if he wanted to raise red flags as you said, wouldn't he be sending links from a poorly made PBN. Why would he go through the trouble of lowering the chances of the PBN being discovered?

Why would he take the time or resources to use good articles, why would he use WHOIS protection, why would he diversify the themes, why would he fill the PBN websites with other articles that are only linking to authority websites or have no links at at all, why would he link to authority websites from the same pages he's using to link to my site, why would he have a nice silo structure...?

He'd have more chances of harming my website with copied/spun articles, by linking only to me, by using the same personal details with no protection, by using the same themes on the PBN, by having one page websites, by stuffing keywords in the anchors (BTW. the linking anchors profile he's using is diversified with no exact matches, much like one would do if it was their own website).

In a word, if I was making a PBN for a website, I wouldn't do it much differently.

I've thought about it and narrowed down the potential reasons:

1. There might be something about the PBN I'm not seeing. All the websites are indexed, they did change quite a few owners over the years and come from Go Daddy auctions, but other than that I can't tell if anything else is wrong with them.

2. He might be testing new PBN websites to see the effect and then switch the links to his websites.

3. His plan might be to report the PBN to Google and have them penalize my site, but this would bring the attention to the niche and his shady website, so it would be quite a ballsy move.

I'm still looking into it trying to make sense of it all.

P.S. about Paul, it's just the 3rd Newton's law
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Rafay Zafar

9 years ago

maybe he is linking to your site and then his own site in a parallel market. Basically trying to dilute the outbound link ratio to his own site. Some people link to wikipedia and other generic sites but because this practice so rampant, it might in fact be a spam signal. So in order to keep the outbound link ration to money site(s) you need to link to authority sites related to the content. Thus making it impossible to determine which one/two of all the various similar sites is the high pr blog actually trying to rank.

Many people like myself dont consider wikipedia a quote/reference worthy source. It is a good starting point for any research but that's basically it.

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Rafay Zafar

maybe he is linking to your site and then his own site in a parallel market. Basically trying to dilute the outbound link ratio to his own site. Some people link to wikipedia and other generic sites but because this practice so rampant, it might in fact be a spam signal. So in order to keep the outbound link ration to money site(s) you need to link to authority sites related to the content. Thus making it impossible to determine which one/two of all the various similar sites is the high pr blog actually trying to rank.

Many people like myself dont consider wikipedia a quote/reference worthy source. It is a good starting point for any research but that's basically it.

Thank you, it makes sense and I thought about that. I actually talked to my partner about it last night - we asked ourselves if it was possible that he saw our website as authority in the niche.

That's a possibility, but if that's the case then he is yet to link to his website. The practice you are talking about is yet another reason I am not convinced this is what he's doing.

For example - he makes a page with a link to my website and to a page on LifeHacker or WebMD talking about the subject. Obviously, the LifeHacker and WebMD are there to make it look natural. If he was linking to my website and another niche website, this would be a very plausible explanation.

I would still disavow of course, but would be kind of honored he did that

I do have links from a decent number of prominent websites in the field, I started expanding the topics I talk about, and the website is pretty big but I wouldn't call it an authority.

I guess if I see a link to another niche site on this PBN of his, this explanation becomes much more plausible. And I'll know, his money websites are clearly recognizable.

Thanks for the thought

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

So right now it's just paranoia.

There's always the Webmaster Tools Disavow tool, personally I doubt it performs many miracles but it's still there.

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Eoon

9 years ago

I feel the same about the disavow tool.

It would be paranoia if it wasn't happening, that's the definition of paranoia.

There's no before, right now and after here. The after would be the end of my website, I'm sure you understand I need to deal with this stuff as it's happening...

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Eoon

I feel the same about the disavow tool.

It would be paranoia if it wasn't happening, that's the definition of paranoia.

There's no before, right now and after here. The after would be the end of my website, I'm sure you understand I need to deal with this stuff as it's happening...

I meant you're still ranking pages, nothing negative has actually happened between you & Google.

You should be ranking pages for the same/similar keywords with multiple domains If the one site you have now is important.

I have 3 domains ranking for all my best keywords & a few with multiple pages ranked per each domain.

It's all about creating you own safety nets. Either you're prepared for the worst or you're not.

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

You should be ranking pages for the same/similar keywords with multiple domains If the one site you have now is important.

I have 3 domains ranking for all my best keywords & a few with multiple pages ranked per each domain.

My approach to having a safety net is diversifying, having multiple income streams that have nothing to do with each other.

What you said sounds like good advice, but I wouldn't know how to do it. Take this website for example - the rankings were built through interaction, interviews...guest posts and things like that. I couldn't ask a person to give me an interview for three of my websites or allow me to write 3 guest posts.

If you wanted to say that if you find a good niche you should spread your tentacles there, you're right and that's what I'm doing right now. Working on a site in a broader niche than the current but targeting these keywords among others using a different approach, a party hat SEO if you will.

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Eoon

9 years ago

hew, just wanted to share that I just successfully went through the manual Amazon review...it was a tough few days, guys

thanks everybody

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jinx1221

9 years ago

Is it possible somebody is posting to a Public Blog Network (those that run Pbn's who sell space for people to link to their own site? You know..) If you are the only one in your niche, and somebody sees you as somewhat successful, wants to take over that niche, that person might buy links from Pbn sellers, link to your site, then eventually report your site to Google. Then the niche will be open for him to conquer?

Possibilities.

If you aren't running a pbn yourself, or don't engage in any sneaky activity as per big G, one might contact big G and explain the situation. Any inbound links can be found, and the network destroyed.

Just my 2c.

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dvm3

9 years ago

Any chance that whoever posted to the PBN made a typo in the URL?
(example: .com instead of .net)

Is it possible the PBN sites were deindexed at some point and just recently came back? (assuming your domain had a previous owner who used them)

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Eoon

9 years ago

Originally Posted by dvm3

Any chance that whoever posted to the PBN made a typo in the URL?
(example: .com instead of .net)

Is it possible the PBN sites were deindexed at some point and just recently came back? (assuming your domain had a previous owner who used them)

About the first question - you mean like making a mistake when linking? No, no way, there's no such website to be linked to.

Second question - the domain for my money website is bought and developed from scratch, so not that's not an option either.

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