I have been reading the threads on link building for some time now. Most people advocate link building in a non-spam manner. Some will say that link building in a spammy manner leads to SERP drops. While I agree with this... I was recently HIT with an argument that doesn't gel with this way of thinking. If spammy one way link building get you penalized by Google, and dropped in the SERPS, what's to stop a competitor from ruining you by building thousands of spammy links back to you? With this argument, it seems like the more the merrier. Yet I can't help think that G somehow doesn't let it slide. Any thoughts? PS: The reason I'm asking is because I've been using TG lately... and although my campaigns can hardly be considered spam (even by very stringent standards) I've seen a drop, instead of raise (or neutral at least) in the SERPS.
you are right and wrong. Spammy link building cannot penalise a site but cannot help. Because a competitor could sabotage you, Search engines only devalue spammy links. instead of giving you a point for each link, the link will provide 0 points, nothing more and nothing less.
I AGREE with you... but here's the weird thing... as mentioned above, I started using TG, very conservatively... the result was drop in SERP. Tried another site I have, same result. Just to clarify - I barely dipped my feet in the water so to speak... I didn't go out guns blazing trying to post etc... Hence my question which I asked a TG rep...
No - G doesn't penalize you. They thought all of this out at Google. The "Google Bowling" doesn't work neither - though it used to work.