ufindus more like uspamus
- 21st Apr 2008
- Leave a Comment
- Google
Internet Marketing
Ok maybe I’m been a little harsh here, over the weekend I did a quick search on Google for”Armani Suits Harrogate” clicked on #1 ufindus and been an SEO instantly thought hmmmm what going on here then.
so is this bad or good practice.
http://www.ufindus.com/fashion_clothing_shops/harrogate when I went to this page, I notice that the word Armani wasn’t visible that I had search for.
So a quick view source and Ctrl-F for Armani I found the text in the meta and in a Div
class=”category_desc_header” id=”catDesc” style=”display: none”
hmm the ok so “Show Category Description” display the text
“Are you looking for fashion clothing shops in Harrogate? Choose from a range of designer labels bringing you the freshest fashionable clothing. We have a choice of fashion clothing shops stocking a variety of designer labels in Harrogate today. Fashion clothing can be found to suit all occasions and tastes. If you are looking for suits and evening wear there’s a great choice of designers to choose from. Suits and evening wear for men and women are available from well known names such as Armani, Paul Smith, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce and Gabbana and many more. Even casual wear can be spruced up a little with a choice of casual clothes from designer labels. Great for nights out or dress down days at work designer casual wear is great for when you want to look smart without putting in to much effort. Casual designer fashion clothing is available from brands such as Diesel, Firetrap, Ringspun, Sonetti and Teddy Smith. If you want to fit in at the coolest parties and hippest clubs then designer streetwear is the choice for you. Fashion clothing from streetwear designers allows you to relax in comfort whilst creating an effortless style. Designer streetwear is available from brands such as Ecko, Akademics, Rocawear, LRG, Addict, Carhartt and Zoo York. Find fashion clothing shops in Harrogate with the results below.”
I wouldn’t class it has been hidden text more misleading text, but adding paid listings from Overture for the keywords like “Fashion Clothing Shops” so I get ..
Fashion World UK
Top ladies 2008 fashion in sizes 12-32; Save 10% on your first order.
www.fashionworld.co.uk
Celebrity Style at ASOS
The leading online fashion store Buy now for next day delivery.
www.asos.com
which neither sell Armani and neither are in Harrogate, which means if you live in Harrogate and need a suit quickly, drive to Harvey Nichols in Leeds
DaveN
13 Comments | Leave a comment »
This blog post now ranks for that term
So they’re a glorified MFA type of site, monetising via people clicking on the ads for the actual things they want. Interesting. to be fair though, clicking on one of their ads is one stage further than I normally get with uFindus. I spot them all the time in top slots on loads of local stuff, after several disappointing visits where I couldn’t find what I wanted, I now just skip that first click from google and move to the next search result.
FAO : DaveN
I work as the SEO manager for the Customerstreet Group. I was interested to read you small article regarding potential Blackhat SEO techniques on our UK business directory. I would just like to inform you that the code: class=”category_desc_header” id=”catDesc” style=”display: none” is associated with a piece of Java Script that has the description for the page closed when the page opens. The reason this is done is for the end user. When a user of our directory service is looking for something, they want to find what they are looking for ASAP. So we do not have the description of the page open when the page loads. If the end user wants to see the description they just click “Show Category Description”. In conclusion: no content is hidden on any of our directory pages.
As all webmasters know, to get a page found, it needs to contain relevant content to the search, this is the reason this is done. If we did not allow anyone to read the description and it was hidden in CSS or off-set so the text displayed off-page the search engines would not like this. We are an honest company who strives to follow the Search engines rules explicitly and will always continue to do so. When looking to get a good reputation on the search engines it is critical that their rules are followed to the letter.
I would imagine that you have seen drop down menu systems, the description works on the same principal, Google and other search engines see all the content but as a webmaster you can choose how the content is displayed on page load, open or shut.
If you would like to learn more about the java drop down box here is a good place to start: http://mootools.net/. This is a very informative site that shows examples and downloads that you can use yourself.
Hi Lee Johnson, has I pointed out I think I was been a little harsh when I posted, I was more annoyed the fact that you provide and set of results for Armani when you say things like,
“Suits and evening wear for men and women are available from well known names such as Armani”
then list site that don’t sell Armani, it just wastes my time.
DaveN
Hi Dave, that was a quick reply, I do understand your quandary but as you may not have noticed, we have 100 on the results for the search you made. We cover surrounding areas too with distance in miles from your current search. Emporio Armani is on the list so it does relate. Here is the listing:
Emporio Armani
Tel: 0161 8398789 - 84 King Street, Manchester, M2 4WQ (43.39 miles)
We could make it even more specific to the current search location but we have looked into this and some areas will not display anything in some of our categories so we felt it more important to the end user that they do see results, even if its only the closest location to them even if it is several miles away.
If I was looking for something lets say a “dye sublimation printer” but there was non in my town/city I needed one for my business but there was none locally, I would not mind if the directory did show me the nearest location to buy one.
If you have any more questions please reply here and I will try and explain your query.
get yourself to the armani shop at mcarthur glenn in york for a cut price suit ;-)
ufindus are not honest! their main business plan is hard selling websites/listings to small uk companies. customers never get what they are promised - one reason why the company has to rebrand every 2 years.
UFindUs are one of the largest directory companies in the UK, we offer several services to help clients get more visibility online. Clients can have a custom website built, have premium listings on our directories, we also have trade specific directories that a client can be placed in.
As the SEO Manager of CustomerStreet my job is to get our directories and trade specific portals as high up the list as I can. Our paying clients pay for us to perform for them. We have over 30.000 clients who feel that our services are a worthy part of their advertising budget and help them get coverage on the SERP’s (search engine results pages).
We are still called UFindUs Ltd and have been since inception of the directory business, we also have other services & directories as a part of the business and as we have grown the company has now grown to encompass over 150 of the UK’s busiest directories and we market them all together under the brand name of Customer Street. All our services can be found here.
In total we get around 90 new subscribers to our service every day and around 10 subscriptions lapse for a variety of reasons including people who have found that it has not worked for them. Like any advertising product we certainly can’t guarantee that it will work out for everyone but we try really hard to make it. You have to assume that the 80 or so extra subscribers we gain every day appreciate the service and certainly that is the feedback we get.
I hope this helps Tom understand a little more about UFindUs a part of the CustomerStreet group which is despite the anonymous criticism still the largest producer of websites in Europe.
So nothing to do with Iomart then? That’s good because they previously promised two of my clients page one listings on Google and then made it extremely difficult to cancel when they couldn’t deliver.
The question no-one is asking is: ‘Armani’? What’s the big occasion? Hope it’s not a court appearance ;)
Lee, so you think building a single page website for each business on their own url stuffed with keywords and a link back to the mother ship is good do you
In the area’s I operate the serps are full of this shite and you certainly will not be the first what google have culled on a massive scale with what your doing here because basically your spamming the fuck out of google…lets not beat about the bush here, thats what your doing
hahaha,Will Critchlow no just lost some weight, and I like Armani
here’s a couple of examples I found in case you have trouble pin pointing any
http://www.blockpavingsheffield.com/
http://www.pavinginleeds.co.uk/
now correct me if I am wrong but i don’t think google would class that as websites of quality now would they, its there purely to spam google for the links