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The Most Clever Way to Spam Google
I stumbled across a very clever strategy that one site owner is using to
spam Google. It is helpful to analyze what he is doing as this can give us a
hint or two of what makes Google tick.
The site in question is:
http://www.top-12-online-casinos.com. The keyword he is targeting is:
Online Casinos
Basically this site owner is using a proprietary software program that does
the following:
1. It goes to Google and compiles a list of all the sites that come in a
search for his target keyword AND all the sites that these sites link to
(that list may contain thousands of sites).
2. It then starts crawling the sites in the list while extracting from each
site the email address, the URL and the PageRank. It then automatically
composes and sends to each site an email, requesting to exchange links. The
extracted information is inserted in each message so the email looks
personal (see below an actual copy of the email message).
3. Each email message contains a link that when clicked upon takes you to a
dynamically generated page that contains 2 elements. One is the exact
details of the text link you are requested to add to your site. The second element is a form that
already contains the details of your link to be posted on his site. This is
created on the fly using the info in your title and description tags. You
may modify the details in the form or submit it as it is (see below an
actual copy of this page).
4. Your link is automatically added to his links pages once the software
crawls your site and finds his link present. Plus, as an added bonus it will
also add to his directory a thumbnail screenshot of your home page (this
probably acts as a "bribe" to encourage the link exchange).
To sum up, this site owner is using a machine that automatically creates for
him thousands of inbound links within a short time.
But does it work? You bet!
Within one month of using that software his site jumped right to the #1
position in a Google SERP for: 'online casinos', one of the most competitive search terms on
the Internet. Before that he was nowhere to be found.
BTW, my attention was first drawn to this when I received from him a request
to exchange links with one of my sites. This was strange as this site of
mine was not active, had a PageRank of 2, no content whatsoever (beside an
'Under Construction' sign) and the email address he was using to contact me
was never made public. After further checking I discovered that this email
address was accidentally embedded within the HTML code of that site. This
was the first hint that I am dealing here not with a human but with an
automated program.
Conclusion? the analysis of this "success story" provides us with yet
another proof of how inbound links are an important factor in the
Google algo. (in light of his sophistication I'm sure he is using other
unethical methods that may contribute to his "success")
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Actual email message generated by
the software
(modified to conceal the details of the person it was
sent to)
Dear Webmaster,
May I invite you to add your link to our popular online gaming portal
top-12-online-casinos.com
I visited your site
http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.com and found that it would be fair to exchange
links between our sites. Your site has a Search Engine PageRank of 2 and my
site has a rank of 6. PageRank 10 is the highest. This exchange would
improve our search positioning.
I would be very happy if you could select the category you would like to be
listed in and change anything else in your listing
http://www.top-12-online-casinos.com/form#####-###.html
Your link is guaranteed to stay on our page for as long as the reciprocal
link is be present on your page.
The front page screenshot will be generated for your site once your
submission is reviewed.
I appreciate your time.
Sincerely yours,
Meir.
--
Meir Liraz
Email:
webmaster@top-12-online-casinos.com
Fax: 972-3-7360014
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