back links and black SEO

[greenkey]

Guys, I need some help understanding something.
I look at one of my competetors websites and they do well in SERPS. I check their backlinks and they have many hundreds. But when I check the pages which hold these links no links appear either visually or in the source. It looks like they are getting credited with many links they do not actually have. Any ideas why this is happening? I suspect some black SEO going on here but cant prove thing. All help appreciated.

[Jason Tor]

What are you competitors sites? Have you gone through the whole site? Are they directories?

Jason Tor

[voasi]

You may want to double the source and really check and see if they're in there. :)

Do a Ctrl-F with their URL.

[cbp]

or it could simply be that links were there when Google crawled the site (check the cache) and are not there now.

CBP

[mclamb]

I have the same problem except its with my site, thousands of backlinks that are simply WRONG. I posted here about it a little earlier, apparently its a bug in google which they will beat around the bush if you try to confront them about it.

[greenkey]

thanks guys but I am sure that the links dont exist i've been through meticulously the first 200 links and none appear visually or at the code level. I cant believe that I could get it wrong 200 times on the run.
I am suspicious not just because the links are not really there but also because the links all come from High PR sites such as yahoo.com and google.com. Something is definately going on. I suspect they are redirecting backlinks some how. I know one way to do this but want to know how they are doing it.

[greenkey]

here is an example of what I mean.
these guys have a PR 10 site
if you check the back links, they are linked to from various google pages and w3.org etc, clearly they are not linked from these sites but search engines think they are.
http://www.pr10.darkseoteam.com/
I know how they do this, but dont necesarily want to share it here because its a bad practice and dont want to help promote it.
OK!! as I am writing this I guess I have answered my own question. Its a black practice if I dont want to promote it by detailing it here I guess you dont either, sorry for asking in the first place.

Although I guess it does open up an interesting discussion on the morality of openly discussing black seo practices. Should they be discussed in order to stamp them out, or will discussing them promote them further.

[wednesday]

I look at one of my competetors websites and...

And you call these guyes compeitors? It's just a cheap trick. I wouldn't be bothered about such 'competitors'. I've got my site contents copied on hard cloaked pages by 'competitors'. I can point 'competitors' sites ranking #1 in yahoo that are just reprinting yahoo's own SERPs (really cool as a fact ;))). But this ain't gonna last. You have to be happy because there are some top serps to be free soon. ;)

Martin

[SEOforGoogle]

I think they should be discussed - if you don't know what you're doing is frowned upon by the SE's, how will you know?

Maybe there should even be a "Black Hat" Forum?

[greenkey]

Thanks for your positive outlook brainwash but the reality of the situation is they have been doing well for at least nine months (thats how long I have been competing against them) how long do I wait? another 3 months another 9 months.

OK so I could take the moral high ground and say their practices are unethical and I wont do it. BUT the economic reality is they are making more money right now. If in 6 months time they get found out great, but you and I both know if that happens they will be back again a month after with a few more tweaks.

This sounds like a rant and a whinge, it's not meant to be.

I know of plenty of examples of other sites adopting these practices who have been doing it for over 3 years (that I know of) and getting away with it. You probably know of some yourself. It seems to me that the really good sneaks get away with it.

There are some techniques Google and others CANNOT do anything about. For example.

I build a web site (site A) full of link redirect from Googles home page to my e-commerce site. My ecommerce site does really well because of the link from Googles home page. What can Google do. Ban site A? If they do then site B pops up and does it again.
They cant possibly ban the e-commerce site because they are not responsible for who links to them. If they took this approach then all I would have to do is do some link redirects from google home page to my competitors e-commerce site and get them banned. Easy.

Its a bit like the bad neighbourhoods scenario. You get penalised for linking to bad neighbourhoods. but no penalty if a bad neighbourhood links to you.

[greenkey]

SEOforGoogle, you are missing the point.

Openly discussing how to 'beat' google would not actually be used as a forum of things to be avoided by its readers or contributors. It would become a list of things you could do to beat google. if you inadvertantly do something bad. Tough. Try again.

But to publish/discuss the ways to beat google as a means to avoid doing it accidentally, just wouldnt work.
It's like writing about how to make a million in property, but hold on don't do it because some of the things aren't ethical. Do you really think people wont try it?

This is exactly why when bad practices become common practice Google stops giving you credit for them. But it rarely penalizes you.
think back to keywords meta tag.
think back to links from FFA sites
etc.
Google rarely penalizes it just ignores.