keyword spamming?

[fiddler]

I'm a simple webmaster with a client that is very particular about what he wants, which is ok, as sometimes it makes my job easier, and other times it makes it harder. Recently my client wanted to rank #1 with 4 keywords on the top search engines. Since I'm not an SEO expert, he opted to move his site to an SEO company. Again, I was fine with that, because my philosophy is, if I can't meet the client's needs, the client is better off elsewhere and I provided the new SEO "host" the ftp login info so they could download all the files before the dns was changed.

I had had my client for nearly ten years, and his site was very old, with a lot of outdated code. I had, on several occassions suggested that my client have me update his site, but he was happy with the look and didn't want to do anything, as the site was working perfectly as far as he was concerned.

The site was moved Nov. 1, 2008. Once it was out of my hands, I thought nothing more about it. Until last week. My "former" client contacted me because his site had not been fully functional since the new hosts had taken over and he was thinking about coming back to me if the new host didn't get the site working - he gave them a deadline of one week. The new host tried to tell him the site wasn't working because it had a lot of bad code it in. In reality, the site wasn't working because there were links to internal pages that didn't exist, while quite a few (of the existing) pages had javascripts of rotating photos and the new host didn't have the scripts (they are free and available on the web with a simple search), nor did they have all the photos that went with the scripts. When my client complained, the new host tried to blame me, saying the pages didn't work when I had it (believe me, my client is very much aware that those pages did work before the new host took over, and the new host "assured" him that they downloaded all the files from the server). I had to question why this company actually did nothing for 6 full months about getting the site to work properly. They had my email and phone number, as I was in contact with them several times before the transfer to make sure they had what they needed. My client spends his winters in Florida and didn't check his site for a couple of months because he assumed the new host would get the site working correctly (he paid them 4 times the amount it cost to host with me, but they were doing SEO work on his site, as well, so he expected to pay more). In addition, he sent them new material on March 22 to be posted on his website, but that never got posted. So now the client is back with me and he's trying to get at least half of his money back from this company. I've corrected the code and got all the pages to function as they should (which was simply a matter of uploading all the files I had backed up onto the server), so my client is happy again.

BUT, as I look over what this company has done in the way of SEO work on his pages, I have to ask if this is legit SEO work. They came up with 59 keywords for his site. Most of these keywords are the same, repeated over and over, only in different order (because I don't want to reveal who my client is, I'll give you an example: Texas Automotive Repair, Automotive Repair in Texas, Automotive Repair, Repair Automotive - that sort of multiple keyword "creation"). The SEO company used 20 of those keywords as the title for every page, then wrote content to place all 59 keywords throughout every page - some of it sounding utterly ridiculous because of the repetition. Furthermore, they placed all 59 keywords in the alt tags of every image on every page. They also placed all the keywords at the bottom of every page - in the same color as the background so as not to be visible to viewers, but which are visible to search engine spiders. With this repetition of keywords so frequent on my client's pages, isn't this a form of spamming, and doesn't search engines like Google frown upon that? The SEO company was not happy to lose my client, and they claimed he was rising in ranks on the search engines from the work they had done on his site, even though about half of the pages on his site did not even exist and those that did exist did not show the photos - which is the primary sales point as far as my client's viewers are concerned.

Much obliged for your thoughts on this.

[jimkelly7777]

This has been black hat for many years now. Back in 2002, any words repeated in the metanames over three times incurred a penalty.

Keyword stuffing is still a big no-no. Read the Google webmaster tools info on this.

[turftroll]

in the same color as the background so as not to be visible to viewers, but which are visible to search engine spiders



You can find this defined as spam by Google.

[morestar]

oh ya, black hat alright and i can't believe it myself sometimes. one of my maid service competitors did the same thing with white text on a white background, i reported them to google but to no avail and they still have the invisible text on the page with rankings just below my #1 spot.

anyways,

last night i did a search for a spidering script and found what I first thought was a nice and respectable site, just because of the clean look, nice clean and professional: sphider.eu

but look at the code, at the bottom...you will see...

I couldn't believe it...

[CableGuy]

Delete all of that stuff before your site gets sandboxed by Google. 1st priority is the ghosting of the text on the bottom of the page....delete today.

I worked with a lot of SEO's over the years and most are not good. Some as the one you described are bad news. We do our own and there are a bynch of things and rules....that change everyday.....that you need to do to make your site come up in the organic search results. Too long to discuss here.

[adtastichosting]

Well from what you have described is very much so keyword spamming/blackhat and at the least will cause the site to fall like a rock in the index. "SEO" like that is just criminal at best.
At the most things like hidden text are likely to get the site banned altogether in google. "If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages." (May usually means "will)
(See: Hidden text and links - Webmasters/Site owners Help (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353))

[sofakingdabest1]

Tell your client he doesn't need SEO. His business is a regional service business. SEO is for world wide sales of services and products.

[B0B]

You’re fault. If it was a good client, you should have evaluated the new site as soon as it was up. If you have been doing this for 10 years you know that the majority of the webmasters are masters of nothing except getting a quick buck. A few minutes at Google Analytics, view source and a link checker would have prevented 6 months of a poor performing web site.

[SemAdvance]

I think you should replace the word SEO company with Fricking Idiots.....(being as nice as I can)

Keyword stuffing went out years ago.....

Might even want to have the client find a lawyer and go after them or report them here

If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: Federal Trade Commission (http://www.ftc.gov/) and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:

Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580

If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, please file it at econsumer.gov - Your site for cross-border complaints. (http://www.econsumer.gov/).

and feel free to out those hacks here and anywhere else that pleases you......

Good luck!!

[asimkhaliq]

Why using same title again and again, better use one title for the home page and write unique page titles for other pages. The prupose of website is to get customers and then navigate them thru different service/products. And for those services/products make unique pages and offcourse with a unique title. Now if they have 59 keywords this doesn't mean they have to have 59 pages for all keywords. "Texas Automotive Repair, Automotive Repair in Texas, Automotive Repair, Repair Automotive" these keywords can be use in one single page title. You dont need to write one word again and again. Get your main keyword and write the variation in page copy. Get some good links for those Keywords and wait for good SERP. Also remove the hidden links from the bottom.

As far as SEO firm . I had an experience with someone, they offered me free optimization for my home page, so I can test them. They wrote the Title around 300 characters, meta description was around 500 characters and meta keyword around 1000. They were repeating one word again and again and showed me around 250 keywords for my website. Now when u get this kind of work...... All you can say... Its spamming.

Just get rid of all so called stupid SEO and try to make the page nice clean and search engine/customer friendly. Keep in mind for SEO -- anything which is customer friendly is or will be search engine friendly too. Google will be bankrupt if it shows garbage result in their search result.

[Dinghus]

No, that is NOT black hat. That is STUPID hat. Things like hiding text has been known to be bad for your rankings for a very long time now. Anybody still trying to pull that off is an idiot. There are ways to do it that ARE black hat. I won't talk about them here tho.

Coming up with zillions of variations and trying to get all the pages to rank for them is stupid. Focus on 1 maybe 2 phrases on a page. Build more pages for more phrases.

Sheeesh.

[crankydave]

The only hat it is is "old hat".

There's nothing "illegal" about hiding text. No law against it. It goes against Google's published guidelines, and likely that of all the other SE's but it not "illegal".

It's an "old hat" means of trying to manipulate the SE rankings.

Point out to your client that it goes against the SE guidelines and could cause problems in the long run. Once properly informed, it's your clients decision to make as to what to do.

Dave

[kcire]

All I can say; if Google and others do not like it, you should also at least have doubts.

Also I think it is very client-friendly to assist them to 'another' who has something to offer you don't, a good client will remember this kindness!

[ArthurNYC]

No need to get too carried away with "criminal" accusations ... but I think you already knew the answer to this. They are run a cheesy business ... what do you expect?

Arthur

[OutSourceToday]

Hi,

It makes us sick to read what this so called "SEO FIRM" has done. Its plain stupidity.

They are definitely keyword cramming. Key things to remember are

1) Keywords in meta need to be in the content of the site
2) Try not to have more then 10 keywords per page
3) Try to keep Keyword Density at 2% - 3 %
4) NEVER have keyword in the same color as the background of the site


( the above are our opinions only )

Do remove all the keywords they have done and add as appropriate. If you like you can send us the URL via PM and we will suggest a few more details to you.


Hope this helps.

[InfoHQ.us]

fiddler,

I'm not a SEO Guru but one of my websites is among the top websites on page 1 of Google for the keywords of "digital products" which is a very highly competitive keyword.

I guess I know a bit about SE0.

1 You wrote "I had had my client for nearly ten years...". You did nothing to improve the website? Because you were "a simple webmaster"? You were like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned? You are correct to call yourself "fiddler".

2 You wrote "My client spends his winters in Florida and didn't check his site for a couple of months because...". A bad webmaster and a bad client = an easy way to make some money.

3 59 keywords? I don't want to say much about those 59 keywords except that I agree with OutSourceToday who had written "Its plain stupidity.". Why not add "paris hilton" too. She has a lot of fans.

If you have yet to learn anything after reading all the replies, all of us have wasted our time replying to your post.

[SEO]

I wouldn't call it 'Black Hat' SEO.

It sounds more like 'pointy hat (dunces hat) SEO'...

[freeadlists]

Delete all those keyword stuffing/spamming terms today! A few years ago I had a so-call SEO'er work on my website. They did the same thing and I received a little "greeting" from the Big G. It takes a very long time to recover and I assume most don't.

You should also watch out for the use of tiny fonts and invisible text.

I would just do some research on acceptable SEO techniques. It takes time but will save you a lot of headaches in the long-term.

[risk]

I wouldn't call it 'Black Hat' SEO.

It sounds more like 'pointy hat (dunces hat) SEO'...

totally agree, theres nothing black hat about that, just stupid!

also why are you taking back clients ? - charge them three times as much for their stupidity!

[furnitureboy]

Great article and very interesting. My website is on a frontpage asp. platform and maybe is getting a bit out dated, but for selling furniture it is functional and does the job, my worries are that it will get left behind by google due to the old style software used. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated?

[Niche]

It's a rather effective way to get flagged by google:rolleyes:

[zidit]

Google use your keyword spam to judge you as spam site

[Bill Treloar]

I like the term by user SEO -- "Pointy Hat SEO". You may know how Jay Leno likes to make fun of "stupid criminals"? Well, these guys are "stupid black hat SEO guys".

Actually, it seems they don't know enough about SEO to be real black hat SEO guys -- they're just stupid SEO pretenders.

People like this give the rest of us in the industry a really bad reputation.

Get rid of all the stuff they did and start over using true SEO techniques. And explain to your client why it takes so much time and is going to cost him so much money.

[netroact]

fiddler,

I'm not a SEO Guru but one of my websites is among the top websites on page 1 of Google for the keywords of "digital products" which is a very highly competitive keyword.

I guess I know a bit about SE0.

1 You wrote "I had had my client for nearly ten years...". You did nothing to improve the website? Because you were "a simple webmaster"? You were like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned? You are correct to call yourself "fiddler".

2 You wrote "My client spends his winters in Florida and didn't check his site for a couple of months because...". A bad webmaster and a bad client = an easy way to make some money.

3 59 keywords? I don't want to say much about those 59 keywords except that I agree with OutSourceToday who had written "Its plain stupidity.". Why not add "paris hilton" too. She has a lot of fans.

If you have yet to learn anything after reading all the replies, all of us have wasted our time replying to your post.

InfoHQ.us,
You might try reading a post before you comment about it. Fiddler acted very responsibly and graciously to the client. Admitted he wasn't an SEO expert, and
helped them move to a new service. Not everyone is an SEO expert. You sound just like one of the many self-acclaimed experts a few years ago, who loved to brag about how easy it was to get high rankings in the SERPS. They criticized people mercilessly who were sincerely trying to learn SEO. That is, until Google stirred the waters, and many of them dissappeared from the top rankings.

Fiddler
Sounds like your client learned a hard lesson so many of us have learned about unscrupulous services on the Web. Your client is very fortunate to have someone like you to fall back on. You didn't say whether or not your client will let you update the code now. Hopefully they will listen to you at this point. My thoughts on the matter (for what they're worth) are that you should raise your prices for the extra work, and insist that they let you help them update the code, design etc... Perhaps you could even outsource the SEO to someone you know is transparent, competent and reliable. You have possession of the ball again. Go Man! Go!

[deepsand]

Great article and very interesting. My website is on a frontpage asp. platform and maybe is getting a bit out dated, but for selling furniture it is functional and does the job, my worries are that it will get left behind by google due to the old style software used. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated?
Spiders/bots/crawlers retrieve content, not information re. the tools used to create it or the languages employed.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[james113]

Tell your client he doesn't need SEO. His business is a regional service business. SEO is for world wide sales of services and products.


I strongly disagree with this. Being found in the top of organic results for regional search phrases gives a business more credibility and coverage especially on Google search.

I would be happy to help you get your clients site listed for the desired phrases. Send me a PM and lets discuss it. My rates are very reasonable and I can wait to be paid until the results are seen.

[phcarmaster]

hmmm.. aw that is one nasty black hat SEO company. SEO stuffing should not be done. Your client is lucky he didn't get penalize by google for keyword stuffing.

I think you should tell what SEO company handled your client site. This will help people who need SEO work not get that black hat SEOs.

[themezoom]

Aloha,

Local search is definitely coming to the forefront, especially as Google moves towards perfecting IP based search results. (check the broad phrases like "dentist"etc you will see your local results. This will become more of a conundrum over the next few months.

The "keyword density" issues that everyone here has already addressed are basic no-no's, so I will not continue the dialogue. The real issue is making sure your client is well organized for "themes"not so much keywords, and that they are able to rank highly for more of their terms using far fewer inbound links.

Another issue I think you may face is making sure that you have adequate records of what the site was like before your client ran off to a more expensive and less intelligent firm.

Yours,

Russell Wright, Theme Zoom com

[deepsand]

Local search is definitely coming to the forefront
If the survey results are to be trusted, it's already there. By 2006-2007 40% of visitors to brick-and-mortar store were already using local search prior to visiting the stores.

[Paul B]

Much obliged for your thoughts on this.

There are times when a client is simply not worth the agro. This looks like one. Drop them....

[Jenie0109]

what makes more stupid is you don't listen to those good seo advice and once you got banned. You'll ask again what are the remedies.lol X_o

[zeruel]

Definitely a big NO NO! Even though keyword density isn't working anymore, stuffing keywords on content could certainly kill your site.

That's what is wrong with some of these SEO companies. They certainly don't know what they were doing.

[LD]

Geo-specific terms help facilitate visibility for local businesses in Serps - especially those with moderate competition.

[deepsand]

There are times when a client is simply not worth the agro. This looks like one. Drop them....
Indeed, there is such a thing as a bad customer, one who needs to be "fired" if they don't shape up.

[ericajoieake]

If I were you I will use another safe strategy, because keyword spamming can't help your website but in opposite and once your website penalized by google you will regret from the first time heard about that thing and even how hard you optimize and building links to it google will not allow your website to get rank.

[ireneherz]

Fer sher this is not legit and is going to hurt your client if you leave that stuff in. Besides, the site has to make sense for the visitor and the guy searching for it!

Scary how many bad web companies there are out there!

[Dinghus]

It is interesting that in reality keyword stuffing on a site WILL help your ranking, up to a point. However you can't do it like they did it. You have to be smarter than Google.

A friend of mine is trying one out that I'm interested in seeing the results of. He has one site that is just nothing but his key phrases repeated over and over about 100 times. The Meta tags are just those key phrases.

When a bot comes a knocking, they see that site. When a real visitor comes around, they see the real site.

This pushed his site to #1 in like 72 hours. BUT how long before G catches on and does the Google Smash Dance on him? I guess it depends on how long before somebody turns him in. :)

[deepsand]

shape up and dont waste your time..
:confused:

Speaking to whom?

[williamc]

I think Keyword stuffing had been used in the past to obtain maximum search engine ranking and visibility for particular phrases.

This entire post is stolen from: Wikipedia

"used in the past to obtain maximum search engine ranking and visibility" - Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS322US322&q=%22used+in+the+past+to+obtain+maximum+search+eng ine+ranking+and+visibility%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=)

[SEO]

This entire post is stolen from: Wikipedia

"used in the past to obtain maximum search engine ranking and visibility" - Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS322US322&q=%22used+in+the+past+to+obtain+maximum+search+eng ine+ranking+and+visibility%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=)

Hehe... Dare I ask how you "stumbled" upon that gem ... ... ?

[williamc]

Hehe... Dare I ask how you "stumbled" upon that gem ... ... ?

he/she happened to steal a post from somewhere I read frequently and I recalled seeing it a few days ago. So while bored, I went thru some of their other posts and found that 99% of what they posted was stolen. The user and their posts disapeared very soon afterwards. The mods are pretty efficient here :)

[morestar]

It is interesting that in reality keyword stuffing on a site WILL help your ranking, up to a point. However you can't do it like they did it. You have to be smarter than Google.

A friend of mine is trying one out that I'm interested in seeing the results of. He has one site that is just nothing but his key phrases repeated over and over about 100 times. The Meta tags are just those key phrases.

When a bot comes a knocking, they see that site. When a real visitor comes around, they see the real site.

This pushed his site to #1 in like 72 hours. BUT how long before G catches on and does the Google Smash Dance on him? I guess it depends on how long before somebody turns him in. :)

I think my site has been smash-danced upon...
I dropped from #4 out of over 70 million pages to page 6.

[morestar]

No, that is NOT black hat. That is STUPID hat. Things like hiding text has been known to be bad for your rankings for a very long time now. Anybody still trying to pull that off is an idiot. There are ways to do it that ARE black hat. I won't talk about them here tho.

Coming up with zillions of variations and trying to get all the pages to rank for them is stupid. Focus on 1 maybe 2 phrases on a page. Build more pages for more phrases.

Sheeesh.


I tell you now though...the keywords being the same color STILL works after almost 5 years for one of my competitors, on google.com they are right under me...

[crankydave]

I tell you now though...the keywords being the same color STILL works after almost 5 years for one of my competitors, on google.com they are right under me...

Question... How do you know that they are being given any value/weight and not being completely discounted?

Question... How do you know they would not be above you if they decided to remove that text?

Dave

[morestar]

well i truly don't know the answers to those questions...maybe they would be above me if they did remove them but my site has a few hundred pages with tons of content and back links etc...

i just though for sure they'd be penalized by now...but nope...

[crankydave]

That's kinda the point. You really can't know if they're hurting themselves with the text, if they are ranking exactly where they should be because of all other factors and the text is ignored, or if Google hasn't noticed.

Dave

[kevsta]

Title stuffing still works to an extent, and massive amounts of text and over repetition of phrases and / within<h> tags can do too, we have current examples also.

its amazing really that such blatent spam tactics still work right alongside clean well built sites that are utterly within G's guidelines.

[crankydave]

its amazing really that such blatent spam tactics still work right alongside clean well built sites that are utterly within G's guidelines.

I hate to keep repeating myself but what makes you think it's "working"?

Dave

[kevsta]

I hate to keep repeating myself but what makes you think it's "working"?

Dave

heh you dont have to repeat yourself Dave I'll rephrase.

whether or not it "works", or Google discount that stuff entirely and it ranks on other things, to the vast majority of normal people looking at that, including probably most of the SEO amateurs out there, when they see site ranking above them with this kind of stuff on it, is it fair to say a lot are going to assume it doesnt hurt you much at the very least?

is that the best way for G to encourage the general populace to play by the rules?

they should really be removing blatent spammers until they sort it out, whether it works or not, no?

remember those "candy links" dave? those sites still rank for those terms, and it is helped if not because of those links I would bet my house on it, they dont have any others worth having.