How you get google to ban competitors spamming ?

[lockie]

Recently ive come up against a new form of competitor.I dont mind competition but only if we all get to play by the same rules. This particular guy has bought hundreds of domain names and is setting up near identical sites and getting the whole of the first page results with his keyword spamming sites.
Ive reported it to google but as hes doing this everyday all of the time so it doesnt end.
If you search for "locksmith" and what ever your local town is, you will see what i mean.Its got to the point a certain area of my work has completely dropped but luckily im strong in other areas, but not all are.
The problem is the public are getting ripped off by this parasite as he over prices everything and subs everything out, he even had the cheek to ask if i would sub for him. A job that should costs £70 he is charging at £150 so no i wont sub for him as i have morals about ripping people off.

Try putting in locksmith lewisham and look at the results and sites for an example.
Hes doing it with quite few trades now so its going to affect a lot of people

Any ideas how to deal with this ?

[DarrenC]

...read www.mattcutts.com/blog it's a good read for things Google.

Edit: just seen the results you mention for locksmith lewisham :O

That's the worst results I've seen ever.

[lockie]

" Edit: just seen the results you mention for locksmith lewisham :O

That's the worst results I've seen ever.! "

Thats only one search term, its got to the stage that other locksmiths in different parts of the country are complaining about their own local areas.

try these locksmith charlton
locksmith deptford
locksmith bermondsey
locksmith catford

In fact it seems any local areas in london hes got covered by a domain name and spam site.
Also check out all the hidden keywords at the bottom of the sites

Any ideas ?

[An Oasis]

Just compile a list of his sites with examples, point out there is also (nearly ) hidden text more like keyword stuffing and file a spam report.

They will take action will sites that are that blatant.

[Tin]

Come on! Give the guy a break... it's not all bad. I mean he's been very very subtle with his use of the meta keyword tag:rolleyes:

ps; haven't posted it here as I didn't want to ground the forum to a standstill

[JustOneUK]

Try putting in locksmith lewisham and look at the results and sites for an example.

There are such few results you should easily be able to take the no1 position. The same for most London areas, there only seems to be about 800 results for that term.

where does your site rank?

[sirearl]

Come on! Give the guy a break... it's not all bad. I mean he's been very very subtle with his use of the meta keyword tag:rolleyes:



Nearly as Subtle as me :)

google don't like

1 duplicate content

2 spam keywords

3 misspelling of key words

4 hiddem text or links (although his are only very faint?)

go for him Lockie

google guide lines http://www.google.co.uk/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

you need google abuse to report him:mad:

although I am surprised he has got away with it so far without a penalty?

Earl

[natureday]

I have seen it so many times. Where people like that get to the top, but dont' worry they dont[' stay there. Give him another month, and he will be way down on the list.
Anna:)_

[lockie]

Ive reported this guy so many times but hes just producing more and more sites. Ive yet to see any results from reporting him over the course of 2 months.
My website isnt optimised for locksmiths but more for security gates and it works ok for this (but could always be improved).

As long as he gets booted in the future im not too bothered but as yet his "get rich" scheme seems to be working unfortunately.

[snackspot]

It must take some effort for him to do this. He will soon get fed up

[An Oasis]

This guy is an idiot and he is probably also hosting on the the same C block(s) you need to really start worrying when he get a bit smarter and starts to cloak as well. Cloaking is the next step he'll take, when he gets rumbled doing things the way he is currently, he has the taste...

[da8iwr]

A few years ago, many sites set up as directories, such as www.touchsunderland.co.uk (http://www.touchsunderland.co.uk) part of touchplc, which all went belly up. They were really hammering the local trade, and made some major problems for all industries across the UK. It soon fell apart as Google demoted them very fast.

Touch had a huge network across the whole UK, but in real life all they did was buy the data from yellow pages i was told, but they didn't last long.

Maybe try it back at them at their own game, just make sure your site isn't attached with any links, just put an image of your email address and phone number, so if it gets banned, they wont ban your real site.

There again, if you make up your own real mini sites with domain names designed specifically for the keywords you want to cover, where you don't hide keywords or meta info to go against Google, you may be able to get above him and stay there.

If you do it right, you can make all the links on the mini sites, just go into your own main site. So the visitor wont even really notice they have switched sites, as you keep the similar design.

www.trimbridge.com (http://www.trimbridge.com)

Check out the bottom left, there are 3 mini sites with relavent keywords, which are on page 1 of Google for those keyword.

[An Oasis]

It must take some effort for him to do this. He will soon get fed up

It takes absolutely no effort and very little money, that's why he is doing things the way he is. Anyone can do this!

[RedEvo]

It's very annoying. Another common one is keyword stuffing using the noscript tag. Stick with the ethical if you are in this for the long haul :)

d

[lockie]

Well so far nothings changed with this guy so what do i do ? Do i take him on at his own game ?
Any suggestions are welcome.

[natureday]

Just know that you can be on top and you will be.
Go and rent the movie "The Secret."

[-1-]

These sites are not really doing anything wrong and I can not see google doing anything about it anytime soon.

This guy is using a very simple method which has been used by SEO guys for years and to be honest he can afford to lose a domain every so often as his returns will more than cover the cost of the domain.

As for effort I would say these sites take around 10 seconds to build and he is using a simple cms script to insert keywords and data. He can simply buy domains and add them in a couple of clicks.

You should either take copy him and build a dump network using a generic name or invest more in your site to dominate the serps.

[lockie]

How can you say the sites are not doing anything wrong ? He has loads of hidden keywords at the bottom of each page which is against googles guidelines.
Im considering playing him at his own name to see how effective it is, how or where can i get the cms script your mentioned.

[Cred-X]

I don't really know if he's breaking any Google rules or not, but I guess the lack of action by the Abuse department at Google speaks for itself.

[-1-]

How can you say the sites are not doing anything wrong ? He has loads of hidden keywords at the bottom of each page which is against googles guidelines.
Im considering playing him at his own name to see how effective it is, how or where can i get the cms script your mentioned.

Keyword stuffing would be a more relivent term if he is using the same keyword over and over or hiding the text in a CSS file which would make it invisible to the human eye.

You would need to have a script written which can build these sites ( i recon around £500 ) and then simply get a cheap cpanel reseller account and get them going.

[sirearl]

How can you say the sites are not doing anything wrong ? He has loads of hidden keywords at the bottom of each page which is against googles guidelines.
Im considering playing him at his own name to see how effective it is, how or where can i get the cms script your mentioned.

His keywords are not actualy hidden,to be hidden they have to be the same colour as the background.I am surprised that google has not penalized him for keyword stuffing especialy in his title ?

Google abuse is not very effective in my experience:mad:

Earl

[An Oasis]

...Im considering playing him at his own name to see how effective it is, how or where can i get the cms script your mentioned.

That's fine just make sure that you do not endanger you main website. Host using a different hosting company and be prepared to have your network of spam sites sacrificed.

Not sure if you should register the domains via a third party, as well to prevent look ups, personally I would.

[-1-]

Ok here's how to set this up

1) Purchase a cheap hosting account with Cpanel and unlimited accounts
2) Create a script with keyword insertion and data scraping ( have 5 different templates)
3) Purchase your domains from any well known supplier
4) Do some simple seo

As I said in a previous post make sure you use a generic name to obtain leads and do not associate it with your main company. You can then simply dump the network at any time without affecting your brand.

[lockie]

Its certainly tempting to do you just so he gets slapped down a bit, ive had the cocky so and so ringing me up asking if i want to sub for him !! The problem is hes affecting so many locksmiths up and down the country so i could quite easily organise this as a multiple joint effort with those affected. Once hes realised hes fighting a losing battle then i will just stop it and carry on as normal.
Now to find a script and some templates.:D