Is blackhat SEO REALLY dead? - Major brand still does it!
- SEO |
Ok. So I was doing a bit of research the other night on one of my competitiors to see if I could find out some their link bulding methods. What I came accross totally took me by suprise. One of the sites that ranks top 2 for multiple main and long tail keywords seems to be using xrumer type links.
The reason I looked into it so much was because the landing page does not have great on page SEO and mainly consistes of the deals they have on offer. The page was also an inner page of the website. I thought that maybe it was just due to the 'Brand' boost that Google seems to be heading with.
Anyway what I found was mainly guess posts and emd domains linking to the page. I was a bit suprised about the emd's because they were products that the company promotes but nothing to do with the page that they were boosting. So this is tier 1 so to speak and nothing wrong with that at all.
But then I found the the pages linking to these tier one pages were mainly automated Xrumer threads (tier 2). Most of these were indexed in Google but when you actually click to go to the page most of them had been removed so these pages would have been created recently and not yet removed by Google.
At first I thought that they were all just built by an affiliate hoping to either promote their own affiliate links direct to the site and without promoting their own website. But this does not seem the case - they seem to be promoting the brand directly!
Now surely a company of this stature would not be participating in blackhat SEO. Maybe it's just their SEO company doing it and they don't know about it. Either way they could be in for a big fall if they are caught.
I know loads of you on here would be thinking that it's the best method to go when building links is by building in tiers to protect the money site but xrumer links? Surely they will get caught out sooner or later and get hit with a bit hefty penalty - or maybe not.
Personally I have stayed away from this type of tactic since the start of the big affiliate killer updates but seriously with nothing to lose this is quite a tempting option on some of the sites that Google killed.
Don't ask me to name the brand because I wouldn't want a law suit on my hands but it does give me serious food for thought about going back to blackhat.
The reason I looked into it so much was because the landing page does not have great on page SEO and mainly consistes of the deals they have on offer. The page was also an inner page of the website. I thought that maybe it was just due to the 'Brand' boost that Google seems to be heading with.
Anyway what I found was mainly guess posts and emd domains linking to the page. I was a bit suprised about the emd's because they were products that the company promotes but nothing to do with the page that they were boosting. So this is tier 1 so to speak and nothing wrong with that at all.
But then I found the the pages linking to these tier one pages were mainly automated Xrumer threads (tier 2). Most of these were indexed in Google but when you actually click to go to the page most of them had been removed so these pages would have been created recently and not yet removed by Google.
At first I thought that they were all just built by an affiliate hoping to either promote their own affiliate links direct to the site and without promoting their own website. But this does not seem the case - they seem to be promoting the brand directly!
Now surely a company of this stature would not be participating in blackhat SEO. Maybe it's just their SEO company doing it and they don't know about it. Either way they could be in for a big fall if they are caught.
I know loads of you on here would be thinking that it's the best method to go when building links is by building in tiers to protect the money site but xrumer links? Surely they will get caught out sooner or later and get hit with a bit hefty penalty - or maybe not.
Personally I have stayed away from this type of tactic since the start of the big affiliate killer updates but seriously with nothing to lose this is quite a tempting option on some of the sites that Google killed.
Don't ask me to name the brand because I wouldn't want a law suit on my hands but it does give me serious food for thought about going back to blackhat.
If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.
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