Google Answers Spammers

Elite Skills · #1 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 03:30 PM

A recent article has been appearing that says people who spam their site on google answers will receive high pagerank.

Today a bunch of webmasters decided to say minimally related things and post their website in every page they could.

NO!

Adding your link will not get you any higher pagerank than posting in any other forum.

Spamming google can get your page blacklisted. Google hates unrelated links on content rich pages and promotional frenzy in what is ment to be a scholarly resource.

Nothings more disgusting than seeing a poor guy suffering from anxiety getting posts telling him he needs this or that medication, antioxident, or book.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=480848

Absolutely disgusting.
- Jimmy

mj2043 · #2 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 03:45 PM

Interesting thread....I always wonder why people want help for their medical problme from open forum, that make them worse.

MathsIsFun · #3 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 05:26 PM

They just need a good moderator, right?

If someone spams this forum, sooner or later it'll get deleted. I have seen "buy from me!" ads posted here, and it is always amusing to see how long they last (not very long!)

And, if they tracked ip's or domains that get moderated out, they could blacklist them after too many spams.

Elite Skills · #4 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 05:52 PM

Man did I get scared... my pages had no pagerank for a second there.

ticketauction · #5 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 08:04 PM

I read that article and tried it out. Unlike others, I did NOT abuse it. I posted 4 comments, all at least a pargraph long in questions regarding my industry. I was unbiased and included comepitors urls in my answers--- is this ok? and will google still punish me?

Elite Skills · #6 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 10:47 PM

No, if you're answering questions it's fine.

It's not fine if you pop in your url in every post you make.

It's not fine if people ask a question for two dollars and answer it themselves on another account advertising their webpage.

cbp · #7 (**permalink**) 03-09-2005, 11:28 PM

I just read the newsletter article saying to do this --- talk about encouraging people to ruin Google Answers.

CBP

flood6 · #8 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 01:05 AM

I read that article this morning and could not remember any SERPs I monitor or any recent searches where I saw G Answers often in the top 10.

I did some looking and could not really find this gold-mine that the author was talking about. I guess the IBLs would help to some extent, but like forum signatures, blog spam, and wiki spam the benefit would be limited at best. And like those methods, it would be just as annoying to the genuine users and researchers.

I imagine getting involved could be beneficial for the right person in the right market, but it would take work (like most worthwhile things seem to); effort better spent improving your own content and rankings instead of Google's.

Elite Skills · #9 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 01:19 AM

Moderators have been cleaning up for the past several hours.

It was a LOT of spam...

Google answers prompts get a pagerank of 0 at first and most stay there. This is not much different at all from many high grade forums. Since links cannot be put in an html tag, it's just your plain domain name. This will not improve rankings for any particular keyword, but add like another blog site would, as mentioned.

If google starts loosing revenue from it's service, there'll be far more hell to pay for those who spam.

DrTandem1 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 11:39 AM

I read that article, also. I can't remember from where it came, but it was sp@m. I read it and deleted it without much thought. Now that I think more about it, it makes me wonder why someone couldn't "answer" questions at Google and sp@m with their competitors URL. They probably can.

Therefore, I suspect a couple of things. It is doubtful that Google crawls its own site(s). It is also doubtful that Google will blacklist any sp@m URLs, unless it can verify that their source was from the owner of said URL. Lastly, I suspect that they just clean house and remove URLs as unauthorized ads, not as a means of protecting link popularity's integrity, if there is such a thing.

Elite Skills · #11 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 12:06 PM

Yes, that is the spammers mentality.

Most webmasters are arrogant enough to sign up with their own email address.

If google is losing revenues as people are bastardizing their educational resource, I bet they'll go one step further to verify.

Google does crawl its own pages, and rather frequently. That is why the article said you'd higher your rank.

cbp · #12 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 04:12 PM

Quote:

I can't remember from where it came, but it was sp@m.

SiteProNews ..... big dent in their credibility after carrying that rubbish.

CBP

Elite Skills · #13 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 04:31 PM

They have 0 as their pagerank now.

collusion · #14 (**permalink**) 03-10-2005, 05:04 PM

Funny thing is the article is still on their homepage. LOL.

cbp · #15 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Editorial Note: The article published in SiteProNews on March 9th entitled "A Back Road Loophole For Getting a Top Google Ranking" received a lot of negative feedback from readers who tried the ranking method suggested by the author. Given Google's response that even on topic posts could result in being banned, we strongly recommend you not use the method suggested to boost rankings. The advice provided by the author is obviously no longer a loophole.

What a load of rubbish...there was never a loophole.... I certainly won't be trustng their newsletter anymore.

I think Google should sue them for the damage they have done to Google Answers.

CBP

DrTandem1 · #16 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 07:45 AM

When I read these schemes I think of get-rich-quick schemes and quickly discount them. Especially, when the author used the word "loophole."

The point is, Google Answers was not to be used as an SEO tool. So, anything that has the supposed ability to artificially raise your site in the SERPs is likely dishonest. When you read how he suggested manipulating Google itself for this purpose, it should have thrown up all sorts of red-flags in your mind.

Build a clean site for your visitors. As long as it doesn't have any obstructions to the search engines such as a noindex,nofollow statement or built entirely with images and no text, it should be ranked in the SERPs.

The simple truth is you don't need SEO, just a webmaster to design it properly in the first place.

collusion · #17 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 12:19 PM

Hey good DR I agree with you on the red flag for that whole situation but you shouldn't have compared it to a get rich quick scheme. I agree you should use due diligance but some of those "schemes" are actually valid. ( See: www.equitybegone.com/board/ )

I will also no longer be even slightly entertaining those newsletters anymore though. Although I didn't do what they said and they probably helped me against my competition ;) it was wrong and the author should have done his homework first.

There "were" obviously a respected source before this incident and also ranked pretty well. Why didn't they know that Google is most likely a subscriber? They have a team of people out there looking for people who know about "loopholes" so they can fix them. You can compare it to anti-piracy teams that software makers have scouring the world wide web for cracks and serial numbers so they can patch them.

DrTandem1 · #18 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 01:15 PM

I was simply using an analogy. I did not mean to imply that all get-rich-quick schemes are illegal. However, I still say, if it is a scheme in the sense that it is evading the true intent or purpose of a system, such as Google Answers, then it is unethical.

Maloney · #19 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 05:02 PM

The article actually didn't state 'spam Google answers'. They gave a good example using LED boards and said:

Quote:

All they’d have to do is post a comment to this query listing their company as broker of LED boards. You can even list URL’s in the comment.

Responding to someone's question about LED boards, and providing a LED board website as an answer - that isn't spamming in my mind.

To me the message was: watch google answers and if there's someone looking for help that your website can help with, post it because it helps in the SERPs. And out of 4.2 million results, the google search for LED boards *does* list the google answers thread in position #2.

If someone here makes a thread asking for a place to buy gold spangles, and I respond saying - hey I sell gold spangles at thisismygoldspanglessite.com, is that spam?

This newsletter pointed out an observation of google answers showing up high in the SERPs and how someone could use that to their advantage. It wasn't about spamming google answers IMO.

collusion · #20 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 05:14 PM

Good point Maloney. Maybe the spamsters in us all jumped out too fast huh?

cbp · #21 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 10:11 PM

Quote:

This newsletter pointed out an observation of google answers showing up high in the SERPs and how someone could use that to their advantage. It

It was a flawed observation. The way SiteProNews presented it was irresponsible.

CBP

collusion · #22 (**permalink**) 03-14-2005, 10:30 PM

It was a gamble just like the stock market and SEO's lost.

cbp · #23 (**permalink**) 03-28-2005, 04:12 AM

Anyone seen the latest rubbish from SiteProNews. This weeks newsletter should be called "How to get yourself a permanent ban from ODP/DMOZ" ... anyone readng it, please don't follow the advice.

CBP