can you link-spam your competitors to get them banned?

I was reading some problems Atlanta Realotr had when he, so Shawn's theory, got site banned because he was too aggressive on seo, buying links, it was suspicious, so they banned him.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1432&page=7&pp=10

well how about this.

Say you are, oh, 13 in the serps. You want to be in the first 10, be on the first page. Only 4 to go.

How hard would it be to create link farms/link gardens, whatever you want to call them... and aggressively link your competitors? Do the worst blackhat seo possible, get on this google "watch list"... that's what you want. Initially, this helps your competitors, but they don't need this because they're already in the top 10. Then eventually google "catches" that a "flagged" website is linking to them, and kicks them all down the serps. Hooray, you are now in the top 10.

Has this ever been done, speculated about, or written about?

Thomas.

 

No No, get mine penalized!

 

Could you actually make that much difference to an established site? I'm not sure that would be the case as the existing backlinks are influencing the current ranking and while a large increase in new backlinks might see those backlinks sandboxed the original links would surely still carry weight and thus maintain SERP position.

Mick

 

the links may be penalized (and their benefit completely nullified), but the site itself won't be- if it is, I'd be really, really surprised.

 

How many new backlinks do you think would raise a flag? Over the course of the last 30 days I have set up approximately 100 new reciprocal links.

 

Being a small fry has its advantages.

 

I thought you weren't penalized for the sites that link to you only the sites that you link to.

 

In order to adversely effect a site like Digitalpoint with a barrage of incoming links would be to have access to equally as many links that Shawn has coming in right now. Atleast in my research, the site doesn't begin to be effected by excessive links until that site double its links in a given update period. (obviously not the case for small numbers of IBLs.)

 

It sounds like it isn't really the high number of links but the time period that they are obtained in.

 

I would also suggest that, in the short term, this would only help bump you competitors UP the SERPS, leaving you even further to go!

 

Links from a bad source are kind of like political opinions from France. Nobody pays any attention to them.

 

"I thought you weren't penalized for the sites that link to you only the sites that you link to."

This is true. You can't get a site penalized for having too many 'spammy' inbound links...only when your site links to these 'spammy' sites...that's when you get in trouble.

 

It not who links to you, but who you link to, that will get you in trouble.

As for the Google Sandbox - it only applies to the new links being made.

 

I guess I should chime in on this since it is about me to some degree. IMHO if your website is reported for purchasing links and it can be shown that these links have no true value other then to affect the serps..then yes you will get penalized...I should know LOL

Since the links I was purchasing have been drop I am now coming back up in the serps. I can also say it didnt happen till after those purchased links were drop and my website was spidered. I would also say that I think some of the effect of my penalization was due to those purchased links being on the same IP block.

I do think what started the ball rolling on my website was the fact that it was reported to google along with that other realtors website that was also purchasing links from the same seo.

I can not say with 100% that it was just the link purchases because I changed a few things within my website.

1. I removed all links to that Seo

2. I removed all links to that Seo's real estate forum.

3. I removed all my realtor sitewide links and only have them on the homepage only now.

I do however whether it be by luck or plan to see that I appear in the serps again after my purchased links have all been taken away.

I did see something strange when comparing my website to the other realtors who is still with that seo..and that is my homepage is indexed by google where the other realtors is not and he was penalized before me.

I have gone from having over 2700 pages indexed to just 2 or 3 pages indexed in google right now. Maybe after the next gbot visit and the next major update if my pages get reindexed then I will know that it was the purchased links.

I do agree with the theory that the amount of links you get from month to month is a factor..this is the reason I also think that purchasing links is a bad idea now. The PR is great but what good is the PR if you have no rankings.

My website got ranked to the top for my major search phrases and minor ones due to the fact I had more backlinks then anyone else in my industry..but it was something short lived.

There was no true Optimization to the website so therefore the links and all the anchor text associated with them was the reason I hit the top 5. In googles eyes that wasnt a relative site for a top 5 ranking when all my links were mainly purchased from non themed websites that had nothing to do with real estate or any other relative advertising means.

If you wanted to advertise for real estate clients..why would you have a link from a tool design and selling company..lol where or why would you get any type of real estate referral from that type of website and google knows that. So therefore its not hard to say that the link from that website was for nothing but to manipulate the serps.

 

That is the common belief. But, an interesting point was made to me the other day. By swampiing a competior with irrelevant backlinks it will tend to skew his anchor text relevancy which appears to be more imortant than the number of links pointing to your site. Certainly not a white hat tactic, but one folks should be aware. I simply prefer to out SOE my competitors.

 

Interesting thread, if you have time to build so many links for your competitors, you better do it for yourself.

To make a website penalized, maybe duplicating several websites could be effective.

 

Ahh. every now and again, a gem
Cheers !

 

it won't "skew" his anchor text relevancy.

if he's doing well for allinanchor for "widgets" and you link to him from 1,000 sites with "discount spaceshuttles" his ranking for widgets doesn't drop.

you're just helping him rank for discount spaceshuttles.

the worst thing that you can do with something like this is another "miserable failure" clone..