Web spam

Outing a scumbag black hat spammer content thief

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 27, 2007 in Web spam

There are two kinds of black hats in this industry: Those whom I respect because they show some common sense and those who are stupid enough to piss me off.
This idiot openly shares his secret by demonstrating how he scrapes SEO Theory and other SEO blogs.
I left a comment that was awaiting moderation. It [...]

No Blogs Allowed

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 24, 2007 in Web spam

There was a Charlie Brown movie or television special many years ago when Charlie had to go into the hospital and Snoopy undertook the arduous task of visiting him. Every place Snoopy went he ran into a sign that read (and was accompanied in the soundtrack by a deep basso voice saying) “NO DOGS [...]

Google’s desperate gamble

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 6, 2007 in Web spam

Although it’s still a little too soon to suggest that Google’s downward spiral has finally begun, Google has lost search market share two months in a row. As near as I can determine (based on largely unreliable third-party estimates), Google began losing market share in late May.
Late May. That would be about the [...]

Stupid blog tricks and other SEO foolery

Posted by Michael Martinez on July 21, 2007 in Web spam

If you think you have heard everything good that SEOs, would-be SEOs, and spammers can say about blogs, think again. You’re in for a summer full of blog spam, nonsense, SEO quackery, and loads of great ideas for links that should drive any sane person to hit the delete key.
You see, a while back [...]

The Great Reciprocal Linking Myth

Posted by Michael Martinez on June 11, 2007 in Link Theory, Seo Myths, Web spam

There are three kinds of Web sites people are most likely to link to:

Their own sites (the “sister” sites linking syndrome)
Their friends’ and relatives’ sites (the “buddy network” syndrome)
The sites that rank first on search engines for related topics

People do occasionally link to very well-qualified sources of information, but such links are rare [...]

Answers to nearly 100 SEO questions that brought people to SEO Theory

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 23, 2007 in Link Theory, SEO Theory, Search Engine Optimization, Supplemental Pages, Web spam

What do you rank for? What queries do people use to actually find your site?
Many Website operators never look at their Web server logs. Buried in all those 1-time visits are a treasure hoard of queries for which you rank poorly but could do better on. If someone is digging into the [...]

Intermediate SEO: What ‘white hat’ spam looks like

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 16, 2007 in Intermediate SEO, Web spam

Have you ever heard of William E. Bailey? I have. Never met the man. But I knew people, when I was younger, who had been involved with the direct sales company Bestline Products, which Bailey founded in 1966. Mr. Bailey — who sold the company to Jerry Brassfield in the mid-1970s — was as close [...]

Avoiding the unsustainable link-baiting pyramid scam

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 3, 2007 in Link Theory, Web spam

It’s only a matter of time before link baiting becomes so formulaic that people launch “build your link bait reputation” schemes. There are already proto-pyramid link baiting schemes rolling through the blog community. I participated in the popular “blog tag” game earlier this year, as did Matt Cutts of Google and many other [...]

Web Spam 101: Blog Farms and Copy Swapping

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 1, 2007 in Web spam

A link farm is any collection of Web sites where all the member sites link to all the other member sites. The classic link farm implementation calls for each site to have a “links” page that is reachable from the root URL. All the linking is done from “links” page to root URLs.
Of [...]

Web Spam 101: Do SEO Bloggers Dream Of Eclectic Forums?

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 30, 2007 in Web spam

I learned more about basic search engine optimization from spammers than I have ever learned from all the high-and-mighty “ethical” SEOs combined. Think of me what you will, but I know a great deal more about the Black Hat Arts than I have ever written about.
Here at work we’re required to build strictly ethical, [...]

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