Google is having a major update at the moment and one site caught my eye. threestore.three.co.uk allegedly spammed its way to the top of MSN with 3.4 million backlinks but I figured Google was a bit cleverer. It seems not. threestore.three.co.uk is today sitting at number 1 for the term "mobile phones". They are a massive company and one of the 5 mobile networks in the UK. Most of the 3 million links are spam and are either COOP, LInk Vault or paid links. Most are footer links next to loans sites etc.
Dam, it's stupid how people/websites can just move there way to the top by spamming. How stupid can you get heh.. Ruins the fun
I can't afford 3.4 million links. If any major SEO bloggers are reading this please publish it and alert somebody at Google.
It certainly does look like they've got a tonne of spammy links there, but it's worth remembering that they are a big mobile phone network, so within those low quality links there's probably quite a few quality ones. Have they suddenly appeared at the top from nowhere?
there is a problem with Google as it showing spammy sites seach 'mobile videos' and you will see adult site sitting at No 2 and when you see it cached version you dont see any on-page optimization. There is some thing worng i noticed this in the start of FEB and email Shoemoney aswell but no responce from him. Hope someone here has to say more about this.
interestingly the poker and loans SERPS seemed to have improved somewhat although the pharmacy stuff is still looking as spammy as ever.
They have come from nowhere on this subdomain. Although they will have high quality links these point at the main three.co.uk site rather than this subdomain. The fact they have 3.4 million spammy links is pretty outrageous for a company like this.
Very interesting! That's one hell of a link-building campaign they've done. I'll be interested to see if there is any sort of reaction from Google, whether the site loses its ranking or stays there.
Just been on the phone to Three. The girl in the media centre is going to ring back with their official comments.
mad4, how do you know they spammed their way there? Did you check all of the 3 million links to determine that they were all spam? It's awfully slanderous of you to accuse a company of a business practice which they may or may not be conducting.
Interestingly one of the sites linking to them is http://www.lalalingerie.com owned by Summer. I will ask here whether the links are coop, link vault or paid.
I'm not saying they are all spam but 3.4 million links to one page? Come on. Even google.co.uk only has half a million. You could understand it if the page was linkbaity but its just the front page of their shop. I checked a lot and 90% were footer links exactly the same as on Summers site so it looks like link vault or something.
Obviously, you compete with them and you are put out by the fact that their SEO techniques are better than yours. Instead of complaining, I would recommend trying to discover exactly what they did to get their backlinks and ranking, and then do the same thing yourself, with your own sites.
I'd be seriously careful with that post you just stuck on your blog, it could land you in a spot of bother. Yeah they're spamming on huge proportions but it not worth getting into legal trouble just to make a point. As with most google updates it will roll back in a couple of days and they will roll out a new improved one in a couple of weeks. Just sit it out for a while