How Google could catch you buying links
- 30th Jun 2008
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ok if I was Matt Cutts this is what I would do ..
ok first things first we know Matt Cutts does not like people buying links we also now that Matt Cutts said they use cookies and Ip addresses to help them catch spam..
So what I would do is run a search query in Google Logs for anyone that went to text link ads then find your IP and Cookie, then look at all the sites you visit, remove common sites like the BBC, Twitter Facebook and CNN etc,
Then I would look at the sites you go to the most ( those will be your own or your clients, at a wild guess) then cross reference all the other sites you have visited, the chances are if you are buying links you will be checking them at least 1 a month to make sure everything is ok, you may even be telling google via the Toolbar that you are in tla and going to sitea, then back to tla then siteb etc etc
Then I would correlate the data, find out which sites are linking to the prime sites.
but I wouldn’t do anything just yet, you see if I find a site that’s buying links, the chances are the other links the link selling sites will have been purchased, via the same network so in a few months I can watch the trades happening and I just would collect all the data, then 1 day I would just devalue all the PR on the selling sites, if the buying sites didn’t have enough links holding them up I would ban them has well
Now you would think that if you did everything possible to stop me from finding you out, well think about all the others that are buying links, how many are buying links where you are what if they are stupid and get caught, in turn I would find you
DaveN
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so, how does google know that you’ve visited tla.com?
it’s in the cookie you say? you fail …
google does not know which sites you’re surfing unless you visit them by clicking in the google serps.
it’s a shame that someone who doesn’t understand such simple things like cookies calls himself a SEO …
If they did this then what is to stop me from buying links and pointing them at davidnaylor.co.uk with the intention of getting you banned because you are my main competition?
Nah! They don’t need to go to those lengths. They just need to drop in to digital point, or CAP, or 90,000 other forums with daily threads entitled ‘buying links’ or ’selling links’ and start from there. It’s amazing how the message hasn’t got through yet. :D
Do they need to go this deep though when blatant link buying (loads of footer links and sidebar links) still works in most competitive industries?
Anybody can find hundreds of paid links and bring down entire networks just by running queries in Yahoo Site Explorer for 5 minutes.
@smartie, the cookie is an identifier to cross reference you and your IP.. the Toolbar or ANY SEO PLUGIN that pulls pagerank automatically will tell google if you have been to tla or not..
DaveN
added : I actually quite a bit about cookies ;) data trapping and tracking… if the truth ever got out .
DaveN
1) I guess everyone uses the toolbar huh?
2) I guess Google would be fine with taking the risk after breaking their own TOS by data mining the Toolbar, Analytics, Gmail or any other Google Account. It is hard to prove if this data is part of the ranking algorithm but with a controlled experiment, it would be EASY to prove that Google was using your personal data to arbitrarily ban sites or devalue links.
3) I guess searches on the Internet and visiting sites means that you are buying links from them, even if you were visiting the sites that legitimately linked to you (which most people do when checking their backlinks or referrals). OF COURSE people who visit both sites (your site and the one that links to it). That’s how the Internet works! Should Google make a connected that the visitor owns my site, or the other site they came from?
4) I suppose ANYONE visiting TLA is instantly guilty of buying or selling links from from or anyone else. Hmm, now I should be care what sites I visit because Google might be watching? God Forbid that site ever link to me in the future. Then maybe we both get banned. Maybe we should all just stop using the internet just in case.
5) What about multiple users on the same computer or IP? Work, Home, public WiFi IPs, Libraries, Airport Access, Wireless PDA access, or automated link checker on a server with a different IP. The potential for false positives is enormous. With public IPs or corporate LANs there could be hundreds or thousands of people using the same IP.
6) I personally deny any cookie from Google. Luckily I do because maybe all of my legit sites might be flagged be someone else visiting my site or any other site that links to them.
7) “…if the buying sites didn’t have enough links holding them up I would ban them as well.” — are you serious Dave? I hope this is a joke. Did you not think this through and realize the abuse and widespread sabotage that would take place? You can’t EVER EVER ban a site for who is linking TO it. You can devalue the links but a search engine should NEVER take action against a site for something that is beyond their control.
It is amazing that Google created this mess, then when they realize that they can’t fix the problem, they either force webmasters to conform to their strict rules governing the entire internet, or ask the public of help as to police themselves.
If Google really wants to stop search engine spam, the first thing they should do is stop showing the Google Page Rank. Page Rank is the value that many sites use to determine the price of a link or a page. If users didn’t know, they would have to guess and it would strike a huge blow to the link selling industry (though it wouldn’t wipe it out completely).
If they really wanted to take it a step further they should STOP showing backlinks and indexed pages. If no webmaster knew how many pages were indexed or inbound links were on their site or another site, then the money invested in this blackhat techniques would be much riskier since there would be virtually no way to determine the ROI.
People buy links, do blog & forum spam, set up satellite sites, join link networks, create link partners, etc because it has been determined that it actually makes a difference in the rankings and there are tools that can measure those results. Take away the tools and it eliminates large chunks of spam (or amateur SEOs trying to play in the black or gray area).
For the professionals who set up massive non-footprintable networks, Google isn’t going to catch those people anyway. But they only make up a small fraction of the spam on the Internet and most of the time even though certain techniques were used the content is still relevant so Google doesn’t really look at that bad.
But Google can’t even catch the simple things. After being a professional SEO for nearly a decade, Google still doesn’t catch even the simple spam. I still see keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, duplicate content etc.
Interesting — we suppose judging by the comments that there are ways around getting caught but is it all really worth it in the end?
Why doesn’t someone from google just sign up for TLA and devalue all the sites they see there. They’re all there in the interface.
Welcome to the future. If something like this were to happen where GooGle had started tracking which sites you visited so that it could use that information against you that would mean people would stop using GooGle. And find a safer more open Search Engine that is not so worried about optimizing that damn algorithm.
And voila, Dave N cracks the July 2nd can of woop-ass (before it happens) :(
Google want all webmester to by link from google ad.
And google gain in it!