Dan Thies and negative SEO

That guy can't prove anything.

As far as we know he could be the one that created the links & wants to stir things up in the SEO community to drive more traffic/sales on his own sites.

If he can't prove anything one way or the other, why would he even bother posting on the Google forum?

Starting?

Dude, back in October/November last year, WE warned you guys! This is just the beginning. Google opened a huge box and NOW they won't be able to fix it - unless they re-do a big part of their algo.

Sad news for all IM industry.

Did you see this moronic response on the Google thread:

Although apparently not from Google, this is the type of response Google provides.

Instead of working on your site, a competitor could make you spend endless amounts of time creating "documentation," preparing a Google Docs file, and submitting endless requests for reconsideration.

When you think about it, does Google really want a dossier, argument, and report about every website prepared by webmasters about what links they did not create, and have it reviewed by someone?

And what about most of the planet which does not have a Google Webmaster Account?

.

Really? Think again.

Umm yeah...on a second though, take a look at this: Negative SEO case study RESULTS on Dan Thies

Why do you say stuff like this? He can get it fixed because he is popular figure but small business owners will be affected.

Awesome case study right there!! Wow

Building ANY backlinks = black hat according to Google

Yeah, whatever. If that works for you, then go ahead and "run with Google." Good luck!

They don't 'smack everyone in the face', the webmasters that get Google slapped are generally using methods that manipulate their system and cause lower quality search results. Google's updates are meant to provide higher quality results, which makes sense considering they're a business and have to provide quality products to their users to stay alive.

This update might enable others to 'smack' innocent webmasters but do you really think Google will leave that door open for a long period of time? Obviously this whole 'negative seo' thing is gaining publicity and more and more people will use it to their advantage. When the search results drop in quality Google will make changes and close the loopholes.

It's their business! They can do whatever the hell they want! Just like you can choose a business model that doesn't involve Google.

The discussion has value. That sort of comment doesn't, and it's not likely to lead to any productive end in this circumstance.


Paul

Fundamental thought process problem? Instead of focusing outward try focusing inward and changing your presuppositions that Google is out to get everyone, and the whole 'us against them' mentality. It's not going to get you anywhere.

As far as good honest people being harmed negatively, every story I read so far (aside from negatvieseo's case study) admitted to building backlinks. I'm not trying to preach white hat seo, I take risks like many others here when the risk is worth it. But #1 don't base your whole business on manipulating Google when it obviously won't last (obvious considering their goals and past record) and #2 like I said Google will fix the loopholes. Yes that is my opinion but I'm pretty sure it's common sense.

You along with a few others here have this radical idea that spammers are going to take over and the end is near for Google. And you call us crazy?

Edit: Sorry Paul just noticed your post above, will try to bring the tone down to a more neutral level.

I can't either so good luck to you as you move along

Like I said we are grown ups. Most of us knew we were gaming and are looking for ways to move forward. Whining about how Google harmed us doesn't do a stick of good and frankly this push to utilize negative SEo is just short sighted and strategically dumb (not saying you are saying the strategy when thought through is) . It assumes one of two illogical things

A) that the other people you use it on will just sit there while you tank them and not turn around and tank you. Competitive serps won't have that result. Its all good for weak serps where people don't know anything going on with SEO but go ahead and tank a site of mine with backlinks and you won't be at the top for very long. I'll return the favor and so would any SEO worth his sauce. So its for weak serps where no real SEO working.

B) that as a campaign against Google they will return to the status Quo rather than put safeguards in that will STILL leave marketers without many options for links that matter.

So frankly go for it . Some of us will leave you guys to it and you can burn your wheels for us while we move ahead with building things that last and will survive the change that will inevitably come.

Dan Thies sort of apologized for the Matt Cutts tweet in the thread at Traffic Planet. He said something like he shouldn't have said it (it was insensitive) and he was just trying to get information out of Cutts that could benefit his readers.

He also said that the decreased rankings could have been caused by him recently changing his theme.

A lot of people say that you don't lose rankings when you change your theme, but one of my sites disappeared from Google for over 3 weeks when I changed mine.

I'll still be watching the situation to see if the negative SEO ends up working. I really enjoyed reading the thread about it! I think that Google will probably fix the situation with his website, especially if he's friends with Matt Cutts.

Great find adaptise. This is one of the reasons I take people's claims with a huge grain of salt. Its easy to claim things and have people going oooh and ahh

Very much doubt it, since Panda has nothing to do with backlinks. It's a site quality filter (a machine learning algorithm).

Sure, Google will try to fix things, but it isn't that easy (tweaking things). They can't just remove the penalties.

Regarding "holes in the negative seo theory", even if his theory could not be replicated exactly across many sites etc...

I honestly believe that what NS posted is just one part of many devious processes that people use to hurt websites' rankings. I personally want Google to develop an algo that identifies quality content, gives proper credit where its due, and rewards quality content and user experience with great organic rankings and traffic, and want them to develop an algo that doesn't allow external factors out of webmaster's control to have such potentially drastic longterm affects and implications...because then we wouldn't be in this mess and people could without a doubt focus on providing the most quality content for users and rewarded accordingly. If Google was the Google that Google has been saying they are for the past decade, well lets just not go there lol...though they are certainly rushing around to get other reliable data signals for rankings, pushing AuthorRank, etc. BTW, the whole g plus author thing is a HUGE win for Google in terms of fighting SPAM, similar to Facebook comments, etc. THE PROBLEM IN MY OPINION IS THAT WE SEEM TO BE A FEW YEARS AWAY FROM THIS TYPE OF ALGO being "complete"...what do you guys think?

Posts and discussions like the following just illustrate the type of storm we have brewing it seems...

Google the following for an example: "[METHOD] Illuminati Link Domination Strategy", some of the traffic planet posts, etc

AdWords advertisers can ofcourse use their account reps for "sway" in this regard as well, reporting sites they might find minor issues with etc this can be heavily abused certain ways...and is.

301 redirects can be used to funnel "spammy" linkjuice and force subsequent link loss in all kinds of devious ways as well...building 1000's of links with one anchor text used on crappy properties you control, and then reporting the site and removing-deindexing those properties en masse will certainly not help people's websites. Do you believe stuff like this wouldn't hurt newer "average" websites in "average" niches? Do you believe stuff like these processes isn't happening more and more behind the scenes now that the different Google "triggers" seem extra sensitive in many regards?

Many, many options out there for people that don't necessarily include just blasting crappy links, reporting their competitors for linkbuilding, etc...

I dunno about you guys, but I'd love for Google to be the Google they claim they are, so I can get on with creating quality content that my demographics are asking for without even worrying about "SEO/links/negative seo/competitors using visible loopholes that have existed for some time even after being pointed out many times, etc". If you provide HUGE VALUE you want Google to address issues like these, no? Discussions on this negative seo topic provide more LONG-TERM value for the ENTIRE WEB COMMUNITY AT LARGE and RELEVANCE than 90% of discussions on here in my opinion. EDIT: For those that might misunderstand me on this point, I mean THIS STUFF NEEDS TO BE DEALT WITH, BUT THEY CONTINUE TO EITHER IGNORE OR JUST GENUINELY CAN'T STOP IT AT THIS CURRENT TIME I GUESS. In the mean time, the small-medium-sized guys are at risk IMO...which is the majority of the Internet.

For example, discussing activities that occur in order to come up with a realistic solution does not equate to endorsing these activities. In my opinion, a certain political party here in the States has a huge issue with making this "logic leap" a lot of the time and they fight the same way many on this board do to harass others and "shut up about what is actually going on in the world" lol...

I'd imagine it's probably done for even less in a lot of cases.

If you can find 5 fiverrs for $20 then I'll print out this entire forum and eat the paper with no sauce

I guess "white hat" seos/"black hat" seos are forever sworn enemies, or something like that maybe? Who knows, like those Spy vs spy cartoons I guess...

I just don't want people coming in here throwing personal insults and derailing the discussion either. Hopefully we can keep the "personal" stuff out of this in that regard and keep discussing the reality of negative seo issues etc...