SEO companies that own linking properties
-
Hi everyone,
I do some SEO work for a personal injury attorney, and due to his profession, he gets cold-called by every digital marketing company under the sun. He recently got called by a company that offers packages that include posting in multiple directories (all on domains they own), creating subdomains for search listings, and PR services like writing and distributing press releases for distribution to multiple media outlets. The content they write will obviously not be local. All this and more for less than $500 a month!
I'm curious if any of you have any experience with companies like this and whether you consider them black hat. I realize I'm asking you to speculate on a very broad description of what they offer, but their linking strategies sound risky to me. What experiences have you had with companies like this? Do you know anyone who has ever gotten a penalty using these tactics?
Thanks, in advance, for sharing your thoughts.
-
You just confirmed everything I suspected. Thank you!
-
posting in multiple directories (all on domains they own)
This is a "link network". Google is getting good at identifying their footprints and busting them and all of the sites that they link to. Dangerous.
When you finally divorce this company they will yank all of your links, then call your competitors and sell them the links that you just gave up. Bam, you drop and competitors shoot up above you. Your competitors will think these guys are genius because they kicked your butt.
Or, they don't wait for you to leave, they wait just enough for you to get improved rankings and business, then, just when you are enjoying the bigger money, they call your competitors, sell them links, competitors shoot up in the rankings above you, then they call you and say... Need more links? Be careful.
PR services like writing and distributing press releases for distribution to multiple media outlets
This is likely a good way to get poorly-done, duplicate content, posted all over the web with your attorney's face on it. :-0
whether you consider them black hat
Oh, yeah! (personal opinion only - weasels in black hats) Some of the work you list is against Google's webmaster quality guidelines and will get you in trouble with their Penguin Algorithm.
their linking strategies sound risky to me
Do you know anyone who has ever gotten a penalty using these tactics?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Are multiple links on the same domain worth pursuing?
Let's say you get a guest post on a blog that links to your site for $100. How much is the link from another guest post on the same domain worth? $90? $50? Does each additional link from the same domain lose its SEO impact? What if one blogger loves your content and is willing to post 10+ of your blog posts with links to your site in each - is that worth pursuing just from an SEO standpoint (I know it can be a good branding opportunity if the readership is right)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Getting Back Links When I Cannot Add Outbound Links to My Site
I have a collection of websites that I do not control in terms of content or page creation/editing. As a result, I have no way to add links to outside sites on any existing or new pages. Given this, how can I go about finding and requesting other sites link back to our sites/pages if I cannot offer them a link to their site in return? I know that content is a link driver, but I do not control the content, so I cannot develop new content to help drive links. I appreciate any help/advice any experts can provide.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dsinger0 -
Does Google Consider a Follow Affiliate Link into my site a paid link?
Let's say I have a link coming into my domain like this http://www.mydomain.com/l/freerol.aspx?AID=674&subid=Week+2+Freeroll&pid=120 Do you think Google recognizes this as paid link? These links are follow links. I am working on a site that has tons of these, but ranks fairly well. They did lose some ranking over the past month or so, and I am wondering if it might be related to a recent iteration of Penguin. These are very high PR inbound links and from a number of good domains, so I would not want to make a mistake and have client get affiliates to no follow if that is going to cause his rankings to drop more. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Robertnweil10 -
Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea
As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany0 -
Forum Ping Back Links
Hi all, This will probably be a fairly simple question, however I'm unsure of the correct terminology to get a good answer via search. Some of my competitors have links in the comment section of highly respected websites, example of one occurrence on the mighty Wired: http://www.wired.com/bodyhack/2007/07/good-green/ Since Panda and Penguin I know Google has attempted to disregard any sort of link juice from such comment/forum spam - is this the case with comment links in sites such as Wired, as above? I'd like to hear that such comment spam actually harms the ranking of competitor sites..is there any truth to this also? I want to avoid all sorts of spammy approaches to SEO such as this - I've always been an ethical marketer, and would rather not stoop to these levels...but if they work and there is no chance of ranking penalisation.. Thanks for your time, dudes!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | paj19790 -
Are back links from audio sites any good?
In light of G's view of links from directories and other sources I have heard that links for audio sites like soundcloud.com can be beneficial. Has anyone had any positive experiences building likes from sources like this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Aikijeff0 -
Are the Majority of SEO Companies 'Spammers, Evildoers, & Opportunists'?
This may not be the most productive Q&A discussion, but I've had some really interesting experiences this last month that have made me even more distrusting of "SEO" companies. I can't help but think of this post (not much has changed since '09). Even though it takes a pretty extreme stance, I agree with the core of it - _"The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web." _ I didn't start doing this type of work wanting to have such a negative opinion of SEO companies, but I just keep having the same experience: I'll get referred to someone who isnt' happy with their SEO company. They send me their web address, I check out the site, and seriously can't believe what I find. MISSING PAGE TITLES, EVERY CANONICAL URL ISSUE IMAGINABLE, AND 10'S OF THOUSANDS OF BOT SPAM EMAT LINKS FROM PAGES LIKE THIS...AND THIS and just recently a company a called one of my clients and conned him into paying for this piece of spam garbage, obviously scraped from the site that I made for him. and what's worse, sometimes for whatever reason these companies will have all the client's FTP and CMS logins and it can be hell trying to get them to hand them over. There's no webmaster tools set up, no analytics, nothing.... These businesses are paying a good chunk of change every month, I just can't believe stuff like this is so common...well acutally, it's what i've come to expect this point. But I used to think most SEO companies actually had their clients best interest at heart. Does every honest consultant out there run into this same type of stuff constantly? How common is this type of stuff really? Now, on to the positive. This community rocks, and I feel like it represents real, ethical, solution-oriented, boundary-less SEO. So thank you Mozzers for all you do. and I love using the tools here to help businesses understand why they need an honest person helping them. If anyone has thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear 'em...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SVmedia3 -
Setting up a Blog for more inbound links
Site A is my Main Site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CLTMichael
Site B is my Blog. Is using site B to link back to site A a good idea or should site A have it's own blog going after keywords?1