Spam

What Googlebot – Google algorithm goes through everyday.

Googlebot as a crawler and Google’s algorithm has to go through a lot of search engine spam / search engine manipulations every day.

googlebot search engine spam

Google faces search engine spam

Google a Goliath spider is tried to be consumed by many smaller animals. Many small animals are not aware that even Google’s Goliath fingers won’t fit in their mouth.

A small list of search engine spam Google’s algorithm faces to rank websites.

301 Redirect Spam
Ad Filtering
Affiliate Only Sites
Aggressive Link Exchanges
Auto Blogs
Automated Forum Posts
Automated Article Submissions
Automated One Way Backlinks
Automated Twitter Accounts or Twitter Spam
Buying Small/ Old / Hign Pagerank Sites
Buying Text Links
Click Fraud
Cloaking
Cold Calling
Comment Spam
Competitor Link Attack
Content Duplication
Content Farms
Craigslist Spamming
CSS Spam
Do Follow Links Spamming
Domain Farming
Doorway Pages
Duplicate Domains
.Edu & .Gov Link Spam
Expired Domain Spam
Fake Popularity & Fake Buzz
Fake Referral Spam
Faking ID’s
Forum Signature Spamming
Forum Spamming
Free For All Links
Google Group Spam
Google Bomb
Hidden Layer Spam
Hidden Links
Hidden tags That Search Engines can read
Image Optimization Spam
Internal Link Spamming
Invisible Divs
Invisible Table Cells
Job Posting Spam
Junk Article Sites
Junk Frequent Blog Updation
Keyword Misspellings
Keyword Page Creators
Keyword Stuffing
Keywords in URL’s
Link Dump Sites
Links Farms
Link Injection
Links From Counters
Machine Generated Pages
Malicious Web Pages / Websites
MFA Sites
MFA Sites
Mini / Micro Sites
Mirror Websites
No Script and No Embed Tag
Oneway Link Scam
On Page Spam
Page Hijacking
PageRank Sculpting
Paid Reviews
Parasite Hosting
Pay per Review
Phishing
Profile Spamming
RSS feeds Spam
Scam Schemes
Scraper Sites
Search Algorithm Reverse Engineering
Search Engine Submissions
SEO-Contest
SEO E-Mail Spam
Shadow Domains
Shopping Sites Spam
Sneaky Redirect
Social Bookmarking Spam
Social Networking Spam
Spam Blogs
Spam Directories
Spam Farm Alliances
Spam Tagging
Spam Widget
Sponsoring Non-Profit Sites
Sub Domain Spam
Sybil Attack
Themed-Pages
Three Way Links
Tiny Text Linking
Title – Meta tag Stracking
Trackback Spam
Unrelated Keywords
Video Optimization Spam
Widget Forced Links
Wiki Spam
Word press hacking
Wordpress Templates Footer Links Spam
XSS and Iframes
Yahoo Answers Spam
Fake News
Spammy Schema
Annoying Ads
Negative SEO

Check out our 101 search engine manipulations to find out more.

Operation Kill competitor – successful

Google has long claimed no one can hurt a competitor site. We believed Google all these time but we wanted to test it recently. We took a main tail keyword where our client ranks position 12. Our client wanted us to push into top 10 results. So we tried our secret weapon against our competitors. We added a bunch of low quality links from sites deemed low quality by Google. Just added 30 unique links from different sites to each competitor and BOOM within 2 weeks we saw the competitor sites drop 6 to 8 positions. One competitor dropped from position 6 to 14 other dropped position 9 to 17. Well it can be a coincidence but there was no update during the time we tested and those sites were sitting there for about 2 years. So what Google is claiming is truth we don’t know, but we believe we can sabotage a competitor rankings but pushing low quality links. When I say low quality links the links we added are from good pagerank pages and they are strong themselves but come from a negative area.

We wish Google seriously looks into this issue. If you think I am lying we don’t care but it is 100% true we tested and the results are positive. So why disclose a secret weapon? LOL we don’t want to take it as a weapon we just tested we prefer to do SEO search engine friendly way. We tested this to bring awareness to people.

Do you disclose the test results?
Ofcourse NO. We don’t want to keep our client’s rankings and online Business in jeopardy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting Quote Request

We are currently using RomanCart, which quite frankly is an fairly great shopping cart. But like all rented/leased carts, we find limitations when we need something that they do not have on their schedule to add. Sometimes it is (at least to us) fairly obvious that it is badly needed and should be added. For example, You cannot override the ground shipping and make it free. Now before you get excited and start making obvious assumptions, we can make it free by entering zero lbs and that works, but if a customer wants to select 2 or 3-day, they cannot.

We are looking for a new “very secure” shopping cart and have looked at several free and paid. OSCommerce (which is actually fairly good once we made some changes like 1 page checkout, etc. In addition to the basic stuff, we would also like to see the following. XCart which does not integrate with Google and PayPal. PdAdmin Pro (which we bought) but does not integrate with Google Checkout or PayPal. We know we can add this functionality ourselves, but would rather find a cart with it, so we can focus on our business.

Source code is almost a must. We are tired of having our hands tied by some developer who writes for themselves. We had one jerk actually make a change without any notice that prevented customers from using the cart for 5 freaking days.

Integrations with Google Checkout and PayPal. i.e.. Not just a link to them. We want communication between them and the cart, so that the shopping cart has a complete copy of the order just like the regular orders. i.e.. We want our metrics all in one place. RomanCart does this. If we could purchase the source for RomanCart, we would be very happy. If I could just get them to make changes once in a while I would be happy with them. We also tested Ecwid which had some impressive Ajax code, but again failed in the Google & PayPal integration.

Live Order tracking so customers can track where their order is. Funny, but most carts fail on this obviously needed functionality. EasyCart handle this very well.

Work with a previous existing website. i.e.. We call the cart with a product ID, instead of the cart building the website.

A really valuable feature would be PCI compliance. For example, delete all credit card details after products ship.

Most carts ship all products at once, but RomanCart allows you to ship partial orders. Very nice feature. Too bad you cannot get the source.

Note: It appears that a cart in .PHP or .ASP are better then Java, but I would think, that the way we use ours now would make a C# or C or C++ more secure. Maybe you can shed some light on this, offer us a solution, or point us in a possible direction to investigate.

Also, do you have a demo of the control panel?  The part for updating statuses and adding the tracking numbers..

Toronto based scammers sending fake SEO service invoice

This scam has been there for a while. A group of scammers based in Toronto, Canada are / were sending fake invoices in the name of some reputable search engine optimization companies. Apart from sending fake invoices they also send fake notices for non existent SEO services. They send out saying that they will get you listed in all search engines for a low price. This scam has been there for a while and even ftc.gov has taken action against it.

See more information here http://powerofgenie.com/2009/02/scam-takes-a-new-turn/

According to the FTC, since 2004, Toronto-based Internet Listing Service has been sending fake invoices to small businesses and others, listing the existing domain name of the consumer’s Web site or a slight variation on the domain name, such as substituting “.org” for “.com.” The invoice appears to come from the businesses’ existing domain name registrar and contains terms such as “WEBSITE ADDRESS LISTING” and “ANNUAL WEBSITE SEARCH ENGINE LISTING.” The invoice also claims to include a search engine optimization service. Most consumers who receive the “invoices” are led to believe that the defendants are their current domain name registrar and that they must pay them to maintain their registrations of domain names. Other consumers are induced to pay based on defendants’ claims that their “Search Optimization” service will “direct mass traffic” to their sites and that their “proven search engine listing service” will result in “a substantial increase in traffic.”
The FTC’s complaint charged that most consumers who paid the defendants’ invoices do not receive any domain name registration services and that the “search optimization” service is ineffective and does not result in increased traffic to the consumers’ Web sites.
The FTC charged that the “invoices” represented that the defendants had a preexisting business relationship with the consumer. The “invoices” also represented that consumers owed money for the continued registration of their Web site names and that the defendants would provide continued registration services for consumers. The defendants also claimed that the “search optimization” service would substantially increase traffic to consumers’ Internet Web sites. The FTC alleged all that of these claims were false and violated federal law.

There are scam in search engine optimization everywhere we just need to be more aware.

Enough is enough – will you stop spamming me

Please know that we are not a aggressive spamming SEO company like you and we hate cold calling or SPAM emails ( Unsolicited bulk emails ) . Please stop this

” am Katy from <> SEO Company and looking for long term Link Exchange partnership with your Company as we are in same industry. This approach will assure fast link building for you as well as for us. <> a venture of ( Name removed ) Name removed is SEO Link Building Company Incorporated in 1992 and into SEO business since 1998, with a team of expert professional Link builders, and duly approved by Indian Government (Software Technology Park of India) and member of CII (Confederation of Indian Industry). We are looking as a long term Link Exchange Partner with your team of link builders.
As a Leading SEO and IT company, We have got network of 300 Web Sites and Web Portals as well as more than 1000 reputed Link Partners SEO Companies, So our partnership in Link Exchange will benefit both of us.
Here are few point about us which will help you to select us as Link Exchange Partner:- We are in SEO Business Since 1998- We have more than 1000 Link Partners which can help you for fast link exchange with us for your client web sites- We are reputed company and all link will remain stable- Link exchange will be placed on quality websites- We understand link building better than other because of our 10 year experience Looking for positive response from you”

Please understand that SEO is not spam please don’t put us in your basket and spam us. This is the 10th email we got i removed your company name in future we will add the company name too.

New SEO scam or is it phishing ?

I recently came across these type of emails in number of sites we monitor. These mails seems to come from the same group of people. What are they trying to achieve?

“Sender’s name: Joseph SwansonComments from : Joseph SwansonSender mail id : joseph2319@gmail.comComments : We would like to get your website on first page of Google. All of our processes use the most ethical \”white hat\” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized. Please reply and I would be happy to send you a proposal. In order for us to respond to your request for information, please include your company’s website address (mandatory) and or phone number.”

Its very sad few people like them bring bad name to this company calling their strategies white hat.

Signature in forum profile – Is it a sort of spam?

Getting backlinks from forum signatures is in existence from the day forums came into existence and had the feature to have backlinks. Is it still a good strategy I fear no. Forums are meant for quality discussions getting solutions for problems that you cannot find anywhere else in internet. Using such a wonderful resource for the same of spamming the search engines for backlinks is not a good idea.

I am personally not against it but if you see forums like digital point forums they allow forum signatures in exchange for minimum amount of postings and this actually helps the spammers more. I have seen many just start useless repeat threads or one do one line posts just to create an extra page with backlink. Digital point forum is a typical example of forum spamming most people who visit there are lacking of any SEO knowledge and this leads them to wrong assumptions on forum signatures.

There are discussions here just to know what keyword to use in forum signature, which page to link to, whether multiple pages from same sites can be linked, Is text required besides anchor text etc. I feel all these are just waste of time people can rather spend their time usefully than spamming forums for signature links. I request leave the forums alone they are very useful places for getting quality information.

Adwords phishing beware

Now i see increased activity of adwords phishing, I get a lot of emails like this

“Our system was unable to process a payment for your outstanding Google AdWords account balance using your primary credit card. For the time being, your account is still open, and your ads are still running. However, we require you to update the payment information in your AdWords account very soon in order to ensure continued ad serving. Please update your credit card information in order to trigger our billing system to try processing your payment again. If you plan to use the same credit card(s), please use the ‘Retry Card’ button on the Billing Preferences page of your account. Otherwise, please follow the steps below to update the information in your AdWords account. 1. Log in to your AdWords account at: http://adwords.google.com 2. Click the ‘My Account’ tab. 3. Click ‘Billing Preferences’ link. 4. Click Edit next to the appropriate ‘Payment Details’ section. 5. Enter your new or updated payment information. 6. Click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished. In the future, you may wish to use a back up credit card in order to help ensure continuous delivery of your ads. You can add a back up credit card by visiting your Billing Preferences page or visit the AdWords Help Centre for more. Tip: You can review the status of your billing on the Billing Summary page, under the ‘My Account’ tab. If a payment has been declined, click ‘Payment Declined’ beside the line item to review information for that particular payment. Once your payment has been processed successfully, you can view and print an invoice from your Billing Summary page. —————————————————————— This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre at https://adwords.google.com/support/?hl=en_GB to find answers to frequently asked questions and a ‘contact us’ link near the bottom of the page. —————————————————————- Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, The Google AdWords Team”

Most of them are scam igmore it,

SEO – Spam – spam spam and more spam from junk SEO companies.

We get these regular spam emails and we at Search Engine Genie are against spamming people for SEO related work.
Spam SEO email:
“On studying the lately Google algorithms – we have launched our new Link Building packages which are highly competitive and more productive in terms of Back Links and SERPs of website. You might have noticed that these days when we analyze PR pattern in top ranking sites, most of them are not high PR and even if you analyse backlinks of any site, most of the sites listed in backlinks list are low PR. In nutshell, there is no pattern of Pr is fond either in SERPs or Backlinks. Therefore only relevancy of the linking page matters these days. Also, it is suggestible to go with a mixture of all page rank links to avoid Google Filter Trap as Google tend to catch the uniformity in patterns of incoming links and it tends to reduce the weightage you should be getting of each campaign.
This founding has made us launch a new package of thematic links (irrelevant of PR) as well as update our existing packages to match with Google requirements. We have now included the following in all our packages – 1. We offer deep links in each campaign (acquiring links for inner pages with home page, targeting keywords for their related pages only).2. We offer rotating anchor texts (a set of couple of link details is used to make sure that Google does not identify a similarity in anchor texts for all back links).3. We offer a mixed PR links in the final report.4. We create links slowly and do not get all links created in a day or 2, so as to make it look natural for Search Engines.
These are not the only quality benchmarks but are only a few of those which are always taken care of while creating links for a project site. Still, if you find any link below the quality expected for genuine reasons, we replace it immediately without asking a second question (the first one will be the reason for which it was rejected).
We realize how important it is for many companies to outsource their business to other reliable companies and therefore to choose the Right Outsourcing Partner. Most companies overseas have achieved a significant amount of savings by outsourcing either complete or part of their Link Building, SEO or designing/development projects to India not only to cut the costs but also to ensure guaranteed results.. Thanks to the IT talent and cheaper labor costs in India.
With all our campaigns we assure you – -> Links will produce an organic traffic at website by doing ethical link building-> An appreciable improvement to current SERPs (search engine result position) at targeted keywords and keyword phrases.-> Balanced mechanism to prevent Google Filter trap.-> Goal oriented strategies for cost and time effective end product i.e.-> Complete return on investment ( ROI)
The methodologies we use to build links are —>Article posting – well written and preapproved by you, articles are submitted to highly reputed article directories.–>Link Popualrity – One way links are created by getting links on other theme related websites.–>Directory listings – Links are placed on relevant categories of a few highly reputed directories.
Please note that we can do all or a few selected methods to create links on the basis of your choice. We have a few packages for each of these.. with base package starting @ $5 per link. Please feel free to let us know for more details on quality, process or pricing.
Minimum order quantity is 100 links. We provide links @ 25 links/week.”

Apologies to our users for Badware attack on our site.

We recently had our site being attacked by a virus injection code due to the vulnerability on our server. Older version of IE was responsible for this code injection and since it happened in a weekend we were unable to fix it immediately. We got a warning note from Google but our tech guy was there to fix the site by sunday afternoon. Monday morning Google removed the warning message from its search results after we cleaned the site for potential badware and filed a review. Google was very quick to fix the results and we are very much thankful to Google.

Now we have our guys monitoring the site 24 hours a day 7 days a week for potential problems they will be able to fix it immediately if there is any sort of problem. I once again apologize to our dear website users. We get more than 10,000 users a day and if anyone’s system got affected we apologize for it and will make sure this will never happen again.

Our site is a safe site and will remain to be safe now and for ever,

Unfortunately we have the following message in Google safe browsing diagnostic. Google has all the rights to protect its users from malicious codes we will make sure this never happens with our site again.

“What is the current listing status for www.searchenginegenie.com/?

This site is not currently listed as suspicious.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 105 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 2 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 09/14/2008, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 09/13/2008.
Malicious software includes 2 exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 1 new processes on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including :::::::::.com.

1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including ******.cn.

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, www.searchenginegenie.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

Request a Free SEO Quote