Real Estate Webmasters Banned by Google
I try very hard to stay away from the drama that constantly engulfs Morgan Carey and Real Estate Webmasters. But this one is worth commenting on because it’s such a great example of what not to do.
Late last night, members of REW’s forum started posting that they weren’t finding REW in Google searches. This morning my inbox was full of emails asking if I thought they were penalized. After conducting a few searches on their most popular terms, it appears that they have been tossed in the penalty box. Not only are they not showing up, there seems to be an across-the-board toolbar adjustment as well.
Morgan’s reaction was to write a very long post that outlines his penalty assessment process. While discussing REW blogs, he quotes from his TOS the section that clearly explains REW’s strict stance on behavior intended to manipulate SERPS:
"Search engines: REW blogs perform very well in search engines - this is due in no small part to the fact that our authors write high quality (Unique) content that does not violate any search engines guidelines and is often referenced from other sources on the web. Our rules against link spam and other forms of search engine spam or low quality advertising posts ensure that REW Blogs are able to maintain their authoritative status by providing our readership with the highest quality (Unique) content possible. It is also very important that these rules and regulations are strictly enforced so that search engines can trust that they are indexing and ranking high quality "Human" contributed, edited and moderated content. Link schemes: Any attempt to artificially inflate page rank or link popularity is not welcome here. Search engines frown upon this kind of behavior, and it does nothing for the user experience - when a link is placed in any section of REW Blogs (In a post, in the relevant reading section, in the related links of a post) it should be done so for the sole benefit of the user, and NOT to send yourself link juice / page rank."
He also goes on to say:
Just to be clear directory aside - Real Estate Webmasters does not participate in any kind of link exchange (Solicitation or otherwise) on our domain http://www.realestatewebmasters.com. We do not sell links from our domain http://www.realestatewebmasters.com, we don’t buy links, we don’t spam comments with our links - in fact - we are so damn busy building technology for our clients that we wouldn’t have the time to go out and try to get links even if we wanted to - it’s the old "The carpenter’s house is in the worst shape in the neighborhood
By the time you get to the end, you walk away thinking that the penalty is definitely undeserved. But here’s the flaw in Morgan’s post:
He is making the assumption that any penalty that might be imposed would be directly related to guideline violations involving the REW site. It would be great if that’s how it always worked, but that just isn’t the case. (If you don’t think that’s true, just ask Bob Massa). Occasionally, search engines do issue penalties for general behavior that shows an overall disregard for the sanctity of their guidelines. And when that behavior is a direct contradiction to their constant flow of pro-guideline public spin, the penalties can be quite severe.
Here’s an example: (from an email being sent out by REW staff)
My name is Nick May. I am a Link Manager for Real Estate Webmasters. I am emailing you today to introduce a new, free system we have developed, based on contextual-quality links. This system is designed to put more focus on a fewer amount of links, as they would be located on pages full of content, relative to the site. Instead of having links placed in directories, 5 links will be placed on an already established contextually relevant page. Our format will be a bit different than the format you use. Your links, on our pages, will appear as comments and we will be using your keywords as the commenter’s name. You add 5 of our clients to one of your content pages and in return, we will add your site to each of those client’s sites, on a content filled page. This is just an introductory email to let you know a little bit about it. This system is working for our clients and I have some examples to show you, if you’re interested. Email me back and I will fill you in with all the information you need. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you will take part in this excellent new program.
(Emphasis Mine)
OK, so last spring many of REW’s clients got in trouble for cross-linked directories. Now, six months later REW staff members are sending out dozens of these emails (and have been since last June) offering to create fake blog comments stuffed with your desired keywords in exchange for you putting back the links that used to be in the spam directories that caused all the trouble in the first place.
So how is it Morgan forgot to mention these emails in his public plea to Matt? Is this employee sending these emails without Morgan’s knowledge? (Maybe it’s the same employee that hacked into the PREN Forum?) Or maybe he thinks there’s no way Google would know about these emails? I have no idea for sure, but you at least have to give him some credit. It takes a lot of balls to stand up in public and declare to the world that your shit doesn’t stink, even when so many people know it does.
Link Whores and Liquor Thieves
I while back, I received some swag in the mail from SEO Shirts. However, being the extremely lazy blogger that I am, I never got a round to giving them the link they wanted for the free shirt. So now I’m playing catch up.
Just for the record, I’m a big fan of “links for swag.” (Our mailing address is 23822 Valencia Blvd. Suite 310 Valencia, CA 91355) But I do think that if you are going to do it, you should take the time to make sure your swag generates maximum impact.
I think a T-Shirt announcing to the world that I’m a link whore is awesome. But this particular shirt falls a little short because of the size, typeface and colors used. It’s very difficult to read. A better approach might be a BOTW style white on black. That way, people could see that I was link whore from a good 100 ft. away.
Maybe Something like This?
Moving on…. I figured since it’s Beer Friday and I’m already pulling pictures out of the Blackberry, I’d go ahead and post a few more.
Last week, my good buddy Todd, accused me of swiping a cute little anti-spam flyer during a recent visit to the Plex. Now I can assure you that’s not the case. If I was going to take something off of a Google bulleting board, I would have took the picture of the weird guy with lines all over his face. (Which coincidentally, was posted in close proximity to the spam flyer….)
Most people think that Google is all about kitty cats and lime flavored soda. But the truth is, that’s not the case. As you can see by this picture, there are some Googlers who really understand the concept of “work hard, play hard.”
Hey, is that a bottle of Belvedere? (FYI, the most popular Vodka in the SEO world)
How did the bottle of Belvedere end up at the coffee kiosk?
And who is that pouring the Belvedere into paper coffee cups?
(I have no idea, but based on the style of shirt, I would guess it’s a Canadian)
And finally, here’s a photo from the end of the evening. It’s important to remember that if you leave your clothes hanging in the hotel bathroom with the shower turned on (anything to not have to iron) for too long, you will set the fire alarm off when you open the door. When that happens (at 2:00 am), the only way to get it to stop is to rip it off the ceiling and pull that battery out.
The Do Follow OPML Project
One of the things that happened over the summer while I was on my blogging hiatus was the launch of the “Do Follow” movement. For those that haven’t heard about it, it’s basically a group of bloggers who have realized that having comments and trackback links automatically default to “No Follow” isn’t really a good thing. (And it certainly hasn’t stopped the number of people attempting to spam comments).
The core concept behind the Do Follow movement is something I genuinely support. I’ve always moderated my comments, so anyone being a jackass never makes it live. Those that do make it through are either personal friends or trusted colleagues who I wouldn’t have any problem “vouching” for.
But the overall implementation of the idea in my opinion has been pretty poor. When I browsed through the many Do Follow Blogrolls or Do Follow directories, I found quite a few blogs that I would consider either poor quality or sites that are promoting things (selling text link ads or blog reviews) that I personally don’t want to be connected with. (From a linking standpoint).
I also noticed that for the most part, being part of the “movement” hasn’t really helped improve the level of participation in the majority of the blogs on the list. I think the biggest reason for that is the fact that the only real requirement to get on the list was to install a Do Follow plugin, and then put a copy of the list on your site. In the end, that just created a clever link swapping scheme. So once people got their sites added to the list, their support for the concept went away.
When everything was said and done, I found that the highest quality “Do Follow” blogs I cam across were ones that I found by accident. They weren’t on any published list, and they also weren’t displaying any kind badge that announced to the world that they support “Do Follow.” They were just great blogs being run by people who took the time to remove the link condoms, install the appropriate spam plugins, and dedicate some time to proper comment moderation.
Blogs with those qualities are the type of sites I’d like to spend time on. And those types of blog owners are the kind of people I would love to have comment on my blog, and in exchange for their commentary, I’d be more than willing ditch the love glove.
But there really wasn’t any easy way to find and connect with these types of sites. So I thought I would borrow an idea from Lee and try and put something together.
We have begun the process of collecting and categorizing feeds from quality sites that are not on any of the published Do Follow lists, and do not display any information declaring that they are a “Do Follow” blog. Once we have a good quality list built, we’ll turn it into an OPML file so it can easily be uploaded into any feed reader. The Do Follow OPML file isn’t going to be available to the general public.
So how can you get a copy?
Pretty simple really. Just help us build the list. If you have a blog that you think would be worthy, just visit our submission form and submit it. We will review your site and then make a decision on whether or not we will include it. If we do decide to include it, we will provide you with a copy of the OPML file, plus provide you regular updates as the list grows.
In the meantime, if you would like to start the process of going Do Follow, you find a great list of plugins here.
Toolbar Hysteria – It Isn’t Really a Penalty
Here are some posts from Rand, Andy and Daniel on today’s toolbar hysteria. What I find most interesting about all the blog posts popping up is the constant use of the word penalty. To me, that just isn’t an accurate description; at least not in the sense that anything has changed recently.
Google has stated many times publicly that they do track and monitor sites that either sell links, or engage in excessive cross-linking. And they have also been pretty clear about the fact that they have the ability to prevent a site from passing juice, without necessarily impacting that site’s own ability to rank. Now that’s a pretty cool system, but the problem Google faces is the fact that is a) most people have no idea that there are two sides to PR, and b) the amount of green showing on the toolbar is still the primary factor used to determine price in the text link market.
Sites like Forbes haven’t been passing any significant juice for quite some time. Yet Forbes continues to have a steady stream of advertisers willing to pay rates based on the perceived value displayed in the toolbar. That’s pretty much a no-win situation for Google when it comes to winning the war on paid links. As long as mainstream sites can charge high prices based on their toolbar PR, there will always be more sites trying to sell links than Google could ever police by hand. So they can either spend a shitload of time and money trying to explain to people that just cause you see it, doesn’t mean it’s real, or they can simply adjust the toolbar score for offending sites to a level that more accurately represents the site’s ability to pass juice.
If you were Google, which approach would you take? For me, it would be a no-brainer. Reducing the amount of PR displayed in the toolbar is the equivalent of the Health department forcing restaurants to hang a sign with their inspector’s grade on it in the front window. Regardless of how nice those restaurants look from the outside, most people will think twice about dining there if the sign in the window has a C on it. And the revenue loss the sign creates motivates the restaurant owner to figure out how to get rid of all the roaches in the kitchen.
In the big picture, I don’t think this approach is going to make the text link market disappear. But it might very well force the big brand sites to stop selling links. And doing that will go a long way in helping Google paint the picture that buying and selling text links is a dangerous and evil practice used only by the worst of spammers.
Why Sphinn Needs a Dumbass Button
The cool thing about a specialized vertical social site like Sphinn is you tend to get a better concentration of smart people contributing stories to the community. But that’s not always the case. Rose Desrochers posted a link to a story claiming BlogCatalog doesn’t pass PageRank because their links contain OnClick. Her evidence was a SEW post from last year where Matt and Brian made some comments about the Washington Post selling blogroll links.
Andy Beard responded with a great post that explained what was really said (and more importantly, what was not said) by Matt and Brian. He also included a ton of quality researched information that would lead most sensible people to the conclusion that the idea that the mere existence of OnClick automatically prevents PageRank from being passed is probably a bit far-fetched. But Rose isn’t one of those people. Instead of responding to the specifics in Andy’s post, she instead resorted to name calling.
Now normally, I’m not a big fan of Digg’s "bury it" function, but in this case, I think it’s warranted. If we can’t get Danny to give us the ability to make a stupid post go away, then at least give us a big red Dumbass button that will flag the post as one not worth clicking on.
Bodog’s Battle of the Brand
Early last week, Bodog Entertainment lost control of over 3000 domain names, including bodog.com due to a default judgment in a patent infringement case. I’m not going to delve into the specifics involving the suit, or the potential ramifications to the web as whole, because that has already been covered in great detail in other places.
Instead, I think there is some great value in taking the time to look at the SEO implications of last week’s domain seizure. In terms of organic search, Bodog has been the 800lb Gorilla for quite some time. Not only did they dominate the SERPS for popular generic gambling phrases, they also enjoyed an extremely high level of search traffic from branded terms. Even to the point that Google returns the word “bodog” as a related search for “poker” and “online poker.”
Now, if you’re new to the SEO game, it’s important to understand that getting to a point where the world’s largest search engine thinks your brand is synonymous for the two most coveted generic phrases within your space is pretty much the equivalent of reaching SEO Nirvana. Obviously, the volume of search traffic being in that type of position produces has a positive impact on the bottom line. But the real question is will the loss of that traffic be as devastating to Bodog as many people are suggesting?
For many other companies in Bodog’s space, I’d say the answer would be an absolute yes. But Bodog has a huge advantage over everyone else, because no one understands how to build and maintain a brand better than they do. Bodog is much more than an online gambling company. They are a digital entertainment company that has successfully established their brand in several different verticals in an extremely short period of time. And they also have an incredible understanding of how to leverage the web.
While they may have lost temporary control of their branded domain names, the plaintiff in the case can’t seize control all the other places on the web where their brand is deeply entrenched. (MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc.)
All of that, combined with an extremely proactive PR team who jumped out in front of the story so that it could be leveraged in their favor has put them in a position that will make it fairly easy for them to weather the storm.
In just a little over a week, Bodog has been able to establish over 43,000 links to their new domain.
That has helped put them back in the top 20 for the term “bodog” despite the fact that Google hasn’t even come close to purging all the pages from the original domain, and dozens of opportunistic affiliate spammers are coming out of the woodwork trying to rank for Bodog’s name.
Within the next couple of weeks, I think you’ll see Bodog regain most of their branded SERPS, and then generic phrases will begin coming back as well. It just isn’t possible to suppress a brand with the level of momentum Bodog has for very long.
Using Google’s Brand to Spam & Jam
During yesterday’s Rockstar show, we spent some time talking about the latest domains on the web being used for some good old fashion parasite SEO. A brand new domain on our monitoring list was http://www.quizilla.com
