Black hat link building network UNCOVERED
An integral part of search engine optimisation (SEO) is link building. Inbound links from other websites are viewed as votes or recommendations by the search engines. Google monitor and reward websites which have a progressing number of inbound links with better ranking in the SERPS (search engine results pages).
Link building at times can be a tedious and painstaking task which has led webmasters to look into new and innovative ways of gaining links easily.
Coast Digital has recently discovered a link building network which guarantees thousands of links for a relatively low cost and they claim Google view their links as natural.
It was discovered when we were monitoring a website’s inbound links which went from 6 to over 1000 in a few weeks. This intrigued us and after some digging around we found a link network.
Initially it was difficult to spot as the source code was always very clean and didn’t indicate anything but a natural link. The break came when we noticed that the links were appearing in a similar position on every blog.
We decided that the links must be generated by a widget or plug-in of some kind. So we set about finding a WordPress blog and accessed its “wp-content/plugins” directory. After researching every file in this folder, we finally stumbled upon the link network plug-in.
The link network claims “it is practically impossible to find out if a site is participating in our system”. Coast Digital managed to trace them after 15 minutes.
What can we learn from this? Although link networks may seem a quick and easy way to gain inbound links, trying to deceive the search engines into thinking you have suddenly received hundreds, if not thousands of links naturally isn’t the recommended way forward.
Any means by which you try to artificially gain inbound links to gain better positions in the search engines will be detected and you will then be penalised by Google. It’s just a matter of time.
The Google peek-a-boo effect
This is something I’ve noticed over the past month and have finally found that someone has given it a name.
So what is the Google peek-a-boo effect? It’s where new, targeted keywords appear occasionally in the top 5 for a search, then you search again and they’re gone. I’ve seen it in relation to a few of our clients recently.
Now-you-see-me. Now-you-don't.
Initially I thought it was something to do with Google Data Centres, (Google works its data from many different data centres, each with their own IP address which can be viewed. This is where the original ‘Google Dance’ could be watched – basically you could watch the search engine results pages (SERPs) from many data centres and tell what was going to happen with your sites) but after checking a few I was seeing the same – now you see me, now you don’t – peek-a-boo effect.
Changes to the Google algorithm?
From what I’ve been reading over the past week other SEO agency staff are seeing the same. The current thinking is that Google is increasing the level of machine-learning in its algorithm by rapidly changing SERPs to test the performance of new or better performing sites (those with more inbound links, more traffic or new content etc.).
Other thinking is that it’s a randomization algorithm, where the top positions are locked while others below are in a constant flux. This is something I’ve noticed on the keywords I watch.
Some say this is just the natural progression with a new site, which could be true... But at least two of the sites I work with are long-established, but we are re-targeting keywords and not adding new areas or pages.
Why?
So why would Google do this in the live SERPs? In my eyes they are bringing new or refreshed sites and content into the SERPs to test them, to see how they perform before actually adding them into the SERPS properly.
But I must say I’m not seeing this across all the keywords I’m watching. And for sites/pages that are affected by Google peek-a-boo the traffic figures are fairly low, all things considered.
Please do leave any comments or questions you have about this topic and I will answer them and add to the topic as I gain more information.
The opinions expressed herein are the personal opinion of the author and are not intended as statements of fact and do not represent the view of Coastdigital Limited in any way
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