Extremely worrying - if brad fallon can be stuffed by this, what hope the rest of us?

[kimmrunner]

So you get your site to #1 or #2 for your main keyword phrase and BLAM!!!!

The next day you are gone, so far down in the rankings, that nobody sees you. And it isnt google that slapped you, it is one of your competitors

Brad fallon is one of the biggest names in SEO. His stompernet is one of the best sources of information and it is an exclusive club that generally you cant get in because of limited numbers -

Yet at the time he reopened stompernet to new members - his flag ship wedding favors site had dropped from #1 to #17 and was falling, and the internet community was saying , was he using grey hat? or was he losing his touch?

It turns out it was neither - he was being forced out of the rankings by unscrupulous hackers , using proxy servers to make all of his content appear to be duplicate - the author of this article who fixed the problem for brad reported what he knew to google - who according to the article did nothing. SO now he has gone public.

Alerting the criminal fraternity to the possibilities in the process.....

It makes fascinating reading. SEO guys

http://www.seofaststart.com/blog/google-proxy-hacking
(http://http//www.seofaststart.com/blog/google-proxy-hacking)

[SteveGibson]

I read that, it's pretty scary.

I guess part of the reason google did nothing is that it's anti-SEO i.e. it only drops sites down the google rankings, it doesn't raise them (directly).

So, although some site owners are suffering, losing a site here and there doesn't make much of an impact on the quality of the SERPS.

Steve

PS I think Dan Thies talks a lot of sense about SEO.

[An Oasis]

Dodgy link kimmrunner

This has also been an issue in Live. When you can get your competitors taken out of the index overnight.

[kimmrunner]

Dodgy link kimmrunner

This has also been an issue in Live. When you can get your competitors taken out of the index overnight.

Link now fixed in post above