The Buying and Selling PageRank Scam

[bhartzer]

There's a scam out there, and I'll be the first to tell you that it's really a scam against website owners--and a lot of innocent webmasters (just like you and me) are falling victim to it. I'm hoping that by posting and exposing this scam that you will be more educated as a webmaster and as a consumer.

I've labeled this scam the "Buying and Selling Stolen Pagerank Scam". Here's how the "Buying and Selling Stolen PageRank Scam" works and what these scummy people are doing:

The fraudster buys a domain name and sets up a website Directory. But, before they make the directory available for public view, they steal the PageRank of an innocent website. They do this by redirecting their directory's domain name to the innocent website that has a high Pagerank. By doing a redirect to, for example, a website that has a PR8, Google thinks (rightly so) that the Directory's domain name has a PR8. Once Google has assigned the backlinks and the PR to the redirected Directory domain, the Directory domain owner 'turns on' the Directory--and it appears to have a PageRank of 8.

Redirecting a domain name is not the problem. The problem is when the Directory owner attempts to scam innocent webmasters into thinking that they are getting a link from a PageRank 8 website (whereas the PR has been stolen from another website). In many cases, the Directory owner is selling links from their website on the premise that it's a link from a PR8 site. The next month, the Directory will most likely not have a high PageRank. Therefore, the innocent webmaster who thinks they have bought a link from a high PageRank website has been scammed.

What's an innocent webmaster to do? There are tell-tale signs that a directory or website that you're going to get a link from has stolen PageRank from another website.

First, check the backlinks of the Directory or website that's going to link to you. If you cannot find links that are suppposed to be linking to the Directory, then become suspicious. Look some more at random, and you might see a pattern. It's very easy to expose sites' backlinks like this if you use a tool like Optilink that will analyze backlinks for you. In Optilink specifically, if the "target links =0" on the majority of these backlinks, then be suspicious.

Second, if the backlinks of the Directory or website that's going to link to you has a huge number of backlinks (thousands or hundreds of thousands) and you've never heard of this directory or website, then be suspicious. Check more backlinks and see if there's a pattern.

Third, if you've never heard of the directory or website that's going to link to you and it has links from extremely well-known websites, is there a reason why you've never heard of it?

Fourth, if you receive an unsolicited email that states that you can purchase or get a reciprocal link from a high-PR website, then be suspicious. Most real high-PR websites or directories (like DMOZ, Yahoo!, or niche directories) won't send you an email. In fact, in most cases, you have to beg, plead to, and offer your first-born son just to get into their directory. They won't be contacting you by email. If you get such an email, check the backlinks out thoroughly like I suggest in the first three tips.

Lastly, if you see advertisements that state that you can purchase or get a recprical link from a high-PR website and it sounds intriguing, check the backlinks thoroughly like I suggest in the first three tips here.

Buying and selling stolen PageRank is definitely a scam, and those doing it are feeding off of innocent webmasters. In fact, as a consumer who almost got suckered in, it really should be illegal for them to do this--it's downright fraudulent.

[BStone]

This whole page rank frenzy has just gotten out of hand. Short term high page rank can be bought or stolen. Advertisers used to ask for detailed demographics prior to purchasing advertising. Now all they want to know is what the page rank is and how many links it will provide.

[tacimala]

Nice writeup bhartzer, that was a very interesting read. Pretty smart idea on the shady webmaster's parts, but too bad that Google isn't set up to stop that. (yet)

[Mel]

Thanks for bringing this shady practice into the light of day Bill, where hopefully it will wither and die.

While I agree that the scum who practice this deceit should be tarred and feathered, if Google had their PageRank set up properly such a scam should not be possible, and thus they should take their fair share of the blame.

[bhartzer]

This type of scam really shouldn't be possible, but it's happening because Google isn't updating PageRank but once a month or so.

Personally, I think the only way they could stop it is if they update PR more frequently, possibly daily. People are still obsessed with PR, and that doesn't help, either.

[Christian_SEO]

It figures.... those that have businesses in, and depend on, linking for ranking and traffic had better start seeing the writing on the wall.

That which can be manipulated by the masses will be rendered null or less effective at some point.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I could be wrong, but doesn't it just make sense?

[Dave Hawley]

Bill, any example URL's of this? I would like to look into myself before forming an opinion.

[CLBridges]

It was my understanding that Google considered redirects a possible attempt at spamming their index so didn't/wouldn't index it? I thought for sure I read that in this forum somewhere?

Carrie**

[debtfree95]

never knew people can manipulate PR this way also

[Dave Hawley]

I too would have thought Google would be up-to-speed on this, which is why I would like to see an example.

[mcse]

But if they manage to get a good number of recip links, they'll keep the high PR probably...

[bhartzer]

Dave Hawley, I would rather not post specific examples here, but if you send me a PM I would be glad to give you an example of a directory who has stolen PageRank from another site.

mcse, if they manage to scam other webmasters into thinking that they're getting a high-PR link (or paying for a high-PR link) then how does that make it okay?

Google is not up to speed with this because it's still happening--and the stealing of PR has been going on for quite a long time now. I just felt that it's about time that innocent webmasters be told about this.

Google's own policies allow the stealing of PageRank. If you redirect a domain name to another site then it will inherit the PR of that site. All you have to do is wait for a PR update, stop the redirecting, and you now have any PR you want. And since the Google Toolbar continues to show the high PR, any site that has stolen PR can scam any webmasters they want.

I call this stealing PageRank, and it's got to stop.

[Silene]

I may have witnessed an example of this with one of my client sites (as victim). By sheer coincidence, today the site owner asked me to check their stats for the past six months and asked me why visitors had dropped in half. I noticed that in Jan/Feb there were an inordinate number of referring URLs from two sites in other countries that, when you visit them, are obviously masked or being redirected. These two sites are primarily directory/forum sites and they have absolutely no content-relation to my client's site. After Feb, the referrals trickled away. I couldn't track down any links in those sites that could account for the high number of referrals. While there may well be another explanation, I am wondering if these two sites did indeed redirect one of their URLS to my site, then after a month or two directed the URLS elsewhere. Am I misunderstanding the process of the scam? If anyone knows how else this might have happened, I'm very interested!

[mcse]

I'm not saying it is OK! I'm just curious if this scenario is possible...

Originally Posted by bhartzer

mcse, if they manage to scam other webmasters into thinking that they're getting a high-PR link (or paying for a high-PR link) then how does that make it okay?

[ferret77]

why be secretive bhatzar

just tell what the directory is

[Dave Hawley]

Hi Bill

Have you ever emailed Google about this?

I just sent you a PM for a URL. If, after checking it out, it is as you say, I will be contacting Google ASAP. The more that do this, the more likley Google are to sit-up and take notice.

I'm still struggling to believe Google are not onto this though.

[Dave Hawley]

They do this by redirecting their directory's domain name to the innocent website that has a high Pagerank

This is what I cannot understand. As far as I'm aware Google will only pass on PR if there is a permanent redirect. Also, the PR is passed to the site being redirect to, not the other way around.

[ferret77]

will one of people post the url , so we can see

I have sites that have forwardeers on them and no pr is there

www.keysvacationrentals.net pr5

www.keysvacationrental.net pr 0

been togather for more then a year so I sort of think you guys are full of it

[bhartzer]

ferret77, the only thing I can think of is that it appears that you're doing the wrong type of redirect. Your PR0 is there because of duplicate content. It should be redirecting via a 301 to the PR5. Then both sites will show a PR5.

[bhartzer]

Dave Hawley, Google will pass on PR even if it's a 302, but a 301 is preferred.

[ferret77]

are you going to tell us the url to the directory or list any exmaples of where a redirect domain has equal pr as the real domain

or what?

[bhartzer]

I personally prefer to not even acknowledge these thieves and liars out in public forums.

If you'd like to see the url, send me a PM and I'd be glad to give it to you.

[Dave Hawley]

Google will pass on PR even if it's a 302, but a 301 is preferred.

Hmm, I have heard differently, but I'm not sure on this.

Regardless, what about the second part of my comment, that is;

"Also, the PR is passed to the site being redirect to, not the other way around."

I cannot see how re-directing to a high PR page would pass on PR to the site doing the re-direct? If would have to be the other-way-around.

Lets'say page "A" is the bad guy.

Page "A" (PR0) re-directs to Page "B" (PR8). All that will happen is, page "B" would gain no extra PR.

Page "A" (PR2) re-directs to Page "B" (PR8). All that will happen is, page "B" would gain some very small PR.

Regardless of the PR of page "A", or "B", I cannot see how Page "A" re-directing to page "B" would be any advantage to page "A". In fact, it would be to the determent of page "A".

[bhartzer]

Dave, if you have a PR0 domain and redirect it to a PR8 domain for a month or so (or at least one PR update), your PR0 domain will become a PR8 until the next PR update. Thus, you have essentially what is the equivalent of one PR update during which you can scam people.

On a side note, I find it very interesting that this article was recently add here, as it's definitely a good summary of my original post:

http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/...yingLinks.html

[Dave Hawley]

Dave, if you have a PR0 domain and redirect it to a PR8 domain for a month or so (or at least one PR update), your PR0 domain will become a PR8 until the next PR update

I'm still having a hard time grasping this. What is the logic in Google doing as you show above? I can only see logic doing it the other way around. For example.

I buy a new domain and decide it's time for my whole site to move to it. The new domain home page has PR 3, while my old domain home page has PR 8. I set up a re-direct from old to new and you are saying the Google will give my old domain (not new domain) some spin-off from the new domain?

[ChrisBowd]

Seriously though I have noticed exactly the same effect.

I registered a couple of Yahoo! listed expired domains with NameCheap and temporarily used NameCheap's dynamic URL feature to redirect the domains to one of my existing PR5 sites.

Once the new sites developed specifically for those domains were complete, I stopped the redirection and pointed to the new domains' permanent nameservers. Lo and behold the domains retained the PR5 untl the next PR update.

Last question: how many others have just redirected to Microsoft for the next week or two :-)

[Dave Hawley]

Chris,

I registered a couple of Yahoo! listed expired domains with NameCheap and temporarily used NameCheap's dynamic URL feature to redirect the domains to one of my existing PR5 sites

Why did you point the new domain to the old one as apposed to pointing the old to the new? Also, what was existing PR (if any) of these expired domains home pages?

Once the new sites developed specifically for those domains were complete, I stopped the redirection and pointed to the new domains' permanent nameservers. Lo and behold the domains retained the PR5 untl the next PR update.

So if they "retained" PR5 they must have already had PR5?

I cannot for the life of me see why Google would pass on PR from B to A, when A is redirected to B.

Last question: how many others have just redirected to Microsoft for the next week or two :-)

This is exactly why I cannot see Google passing on PR in the opposite direction of the re-direct!

[bhartzer]

Dave Hawley, if you buy a new domain name and point it to your current domain name the new domain name will inherit all of the characteristics of the current domain name. Both domains, since they're going to same content, will have the same backlinks and the same PR.

[Dave Hawley]

bhartzer, this still doesn't answer my questions.

1) Why would one point a new domain to an old domain as apposed to the logical oppostite, that is, old to new?

2) What is the logical reason for Google passing on PR in the opposite direction of the re-direct?

You just keep saying it does. I'm not saying this doesn't happen (although I have seroius doubts), but saying something over and over doesn't make it fact.

[bhartzer]

Hi Dave,

Let me try to explain. Say your company has www.companyname.com. Your company has had it for years. You realize that you want to be safe and register www.company-name.com and www.company-name.net and companyname.net just to protect them for possible future use.

When you register those new names, you logically forward those names using a 301 Permanent Redirect to the main domain name, www.companyname.com, that you've had for years.

Google gets ahold of those domain names and crawls them. He sees that they're all redirected to www.companyname.com, and assigns all the PR and backlinks to all of the domains.

[StupidScript]

I am as confused as Dave Hawley, bhartzer. I have come to trust what you write, however what is to stop every new domain from being 301'd to google.com or microsoft.com or yahoo.com until the next PR sweep, if only to gain the temporary benefit? Why would Google choose to allow this? There is absolutely no guarantee that a new site would retain the value of another site, even when published by the same person. Why assume the site 301-ing to microsoft.com is as valuable as microsoft.com, even out of laziness?

I, too, have difficulty seeing why Google would do something as easily manipulated as that, especially considering their practically-Luddite rules and regulations for normal webmasters.

Not doubting you...it's simply not clear what Google gains, or why they might allow this. They seem to have so much more to lose, and it's not a big trick to discontinue doing it. There MUST be a reason...if only laziness.

[Dave Hawley]

Let me try to explain. Say your company has www.companyname.com. Your company has had it for years. You realize that you want to be safe and register www.company-name.com and www.company-name.net and companyname.net just to protect them for possible future use.

Yes, so you re-direct www.companyname.com (old one) to www.company-name.com, www.company-name.net and www.companyname.net (the new domains). Is it even possible to redirect one site to many? I would have thought you could only re-direct one domain to one other domain.

When you register those new names, you logically forward those names using a 301 Permanent Redirect to the main domain name, www.companyname.com, that you've had for years.

No, it's not logical at all. You could however logically 301 Permanent Redirect the old domain the the new. But only if you were no longer wanting to use the old domain. By doing a 301 Permanent Redirect you are telling Google you are soon to be dropping the domain in favor of the new one.

Doing it in the oppostite direction is not logical. This is why (as far as I'm aware)Google only passes on PR etc when/if there is a 301 Permanent Redirect.

Google gets ahold of those domain names and crawls them. He sees that they're all redirected to www.companyname.com, and assigns all the PR and backlinks to all of the domains.

No, this is what makes so sense. Google would pass on PR etc in the direction of the permanent re-direct only. That is, old to new. Not new to old.

If you redirected from a brand new domain(s) (No PR) to and existing one, you would not achieve anything as the brand new domain(s) would have nothing to pass on.

I'm sorry, I simply cannot see this ever happening.

[Mel]

I have several unused domains that I point to my main site, so that anyone who types in one of these unused names will be taken to the main site, but the address bar will still read the URL of the unused domain.

None of these domains have any PR associated with them, (PR=0 on the toolbar) for the simple fact that there are no links pointing to them.

[Dave Hawley]

That sounds logical and is what I would expect to happen.

[cbp]

but the address bar will still read the URL of the unused domain.

This is were a lot of confusion exists. If the URL was still in the address bar and Google did come by (if you did have links) you would get hit with the duplicate content filter as Google would see this as two copies of the same site. If the URL changes in the address bar (ie redirect), this will not happen - as Google will see it as one site.

CBP

[Mel]

Originally Posted by cbp

This is were a lot of confusion exists. If the URL was still in the address bar and Google did come by (if you did have links) you would get hit with the duplicate content filter as Google would see this as two copies of the same site. If the URL changes in the address bar (ie redirect), this will not happen - as Google will see it as one site.

CBP

Well, lets put it this way, its been that way for three years and no penalty yet.

[cbp]

its been that way for three years and no penalty yet.

That would be because, as you said, Google does not know about the URL (there are no links to the "other" URL's)

CBP

[fathom]

Increasing PR to 9 within 3 weeks - without backlinks !

Some examples here but likely not showing anymore. DNS Spoofing is only good for a few weeks.

[Dave Hawley]

That seems different again to what bhartzer has posted.

[bhartzer]

What I can tell you is that I have accidentally tested this method and I can give you specific examples of where people are using this stolen PageRank method to hoodwink other webmasters into paying for links from a "high PR" site.

A few months ago I registered a domain name. Not planning on using it for a few months, I redirected it (actually using a 302 in this case) to another website. After 3 weeks or so, PR was updated and this new domain I registered had a PR9. During the time that it showed that it was a PR9, I could have done a lot of thing, like sell it, sell links, get reciprocal links, etc.--all things that I would consider to be fraudulent. I now have put content on the site now, so it's now a PR4, the PageRank it deserves.

The problem here is that the PR shown on the toolbar isn't updated quickly enough. If Google were to update the toolbar PR quicker and more often, webmasters can continue to scam other webmasters.

By the way--this type of redirect can be done at both the domain level (redirect an entire domain) or even at the page level (through an .htaccess redirect).

[StupidScript]

Wow. Hard to argue with those observations. It's truly amazing that this condition should exist.

[Dave Hawley]

That is weird! I wonder what the logic of Google doing this is? What did the PR of the site you pointed to go down to and did it go back up?