Break the rules and you get listed prominently in Yahoo!

I admire the morals of the people on this forum, but what they say and what we all see in search engine results is not the one and same. According to the experts on this forum, spammy sites do not get prominent listings in Yahoo etc. But enter "equitalk affiliate program" for an example. Half the sites ("Get information about...") are near identical and obviously belong to the same webmaster.

Is frustrating when I try to stick to the rules and struggle to get listed for quality sites and then low-grade software-generated spammy sites dominate the listings and make money.
Does anybody care to comment?

 

Certainly I will comment. I don't think people are saying that spammy sites will not rank. I think you will find that most including myself are saying that they will not rank forever.

Accept the fact that once you cross the line into blackhat, you need a succession of domains ready to rocknroll to replace those that get banned. Because eventually they will get banned. Then all your work will be gone, and you start again.

Of course spam sites can get to the top! But spamming is short term. If you are building a business then you might prefer to go long term with one site, rather than short term with many.

 

Good point. However... it can work as a business, albeit an unethical one:

I go to many an affiliate conference and the majority of the affiliates I get to talk to in detail admit that all they do is bombard the search engines with datafeed results and software-generated pages. Met a few of them who have been doing it for years, so it's not just tricks that keep them listed prominently for a few weeks or months. (And, btw, some of them are earning up to £30,000 a month by doing it, so they're earning far more than honest SEOs, not just me - it's a massively successful business )

Anyway, I'll continue to stick to honest SEO techniques, because I'm sure the SEs will - one day - get better at filtering out spam.

 

If someone says that, he sure isn't an expert...

 

1. The thing is about spammy pages is that your always at risk. Many of us have legit businesses and can't afford to look spammy in order to achieve first page ranking on Yahoo the dirty way. You can work the search engines without spam and many of us choose to stick to that route.

 

Trouble is of course, if you are in a particularly competitive field (as we are) then not everyone does take the moral high ground. For the moment at least, the spammers are winning on the most competitive search terms.

Stopping it isn't really in the search engine "managers" interest, as they are now making money off legit businesses wishing to beat the spammers through PPC schemes.

I agree that the trend is to discourage this sort of spamming, but everyone has different ideas on what is or isn't acceptable.

 

the goal is to make as much money as possible, there is not "high ground"

 

High Ground my arse lol.

I have no moral high ground, it is just a different way of running a business.

Take shops as an example (offline)

Some retailers pile it high and sell it cheap, they don't care about reputation, or quality of goods, they don't care about the overall shopping experience, and they will risk a rollocking from Trading standards about their methods of advertising.

Other retailers spend a fortune on the shopping experience, brand reputation etc.

No right, No wrong, just different.

Personally if someone is looking to buy cialis, then regardless of how a site got there, so long as they are fining what they want then fine!

It is when people employ crap methods, and all you bloody well find is a load of pages with bugger all use, apart from adsense, that I get wound up.

 

Quote me one post that says that...

If they said it - they are clearly not experienced.

 

Spammy sites do not get prominent listings in Yahoo "FOR LONG"

Eventually nothing spammy is long-term but it's definitely not true that spammy sites don't get prominent listings for a short term period! Old Welsh Guy has some very good points

 

Yahoo seems to have trouble eliminating the spam. One day they may figure it out, but I am also going to die one day. Which will happen first?

 

Sorry, there IS a high road. I sure hope anyone who disagrees and thinks everything is about money isn't wasting their time in church/mosque/synagogue/temple.

 

I agree in general, Yahoo has a fair amount of spam. However, if you do a search for "blah blah affiliate program" I would expect to see a lot of similar affiliate sites.

 

I am not quite sure this is true.

While trying to figure out how to improve in Google, I found a lot of my previous attempts ranking well on Yahoo.

Having found out about my Yahoo rankings, there is no way for me to clean them up. This has been happening for 6 months.

Unless Yahoo decides to drastically change their SERPS, you just have to accept Google and MSN are different and act accordingly.

 

I don't think you can do a search in any major search engine and NOT find spammy sites in 2 or 3 of the top 10 listings. I always tell people that Black Hat techiques do work and a site can rise to the top quickly--but only until you get caught.

I know of a large number of very spammy sites that never seem to get caught by G.

 

I definetly understand where your coming from, and all webmasters that "follow the rules" hear you...

The best way to think about it is that generally, the black hat tactics and spam have their days numbered, and the clean sites following the rules will be around for a long time to come...

We all see what you see from time to time.... Sometimes it even makes you wonder what way is better, but in the end, keeping your site clean will keep you in the game, where as, the blackhats will move onto another domain when they are caught...

The main thing is that the engines do not want the spam, they are trying to find and elliminate it as much as possible, but they do miss things here and there.... Just keep your nose clean, and as you see these sites come, you'll watch them go away too when their time has come.....

 

oh please,

How times have you guys had a site that you did everything "right" on , drop in rankings or get deindexed

Being "good" doesn't guarantee anything, its a false permise

you can do everything "right" and your site can still fail, your site can still not turn a profit, and your site can still not rank

can you guys share some "black hat" techniques that work, that actually make a site come up in competitive serps?

I'd really love to hear them.

 

PioneerGold, there are exceptions, rare or often, that applies to any rule. I speak for the vast majority on this board.

 

That's simply not the case...

It will get harder still, but Google is only a machine afterall...

There will *always* be things that you can do...

You'll need to join in the BH forums really...

People aren't always that keen to share their experiences, as it just means more competition... But there are certianly places you can go to find out more.

 

Spamming is indeed successfully, But it is not permanent. The moment Search engine get to know about your tricks, You'll get banned forever.

I like the ethical path for search engine rankings.