One of the main objectives for search engine marketing is to ensure your web site comes up high in search results when someone performs a search. New sites sometimes have a tougher climb. The marketing methods vary and some will insist it’s all smoke and mirrors, manipulation and perhaps cheating.
Someone found an example where the top 11 spots were held by the same company, but each with a different web site with unique domain and content. He wondered if this is “blackhat SEO” in action.
The Cre8asiteforums discussion, Is This Normal Or Straight Up Black Hat? A real life case study, may surprise you!
Interesting read! It certainly is a gray area and many people can dispute it but as long as they are totally unique sites with all unique content, we guess it shouldn’t matter who owns it. As long as they rightfully earned the positions…although #1-11 does seem beyond impossible to attain unless it’s some oscure keyword. Great discussion though!
Comment by Pay Per Click Journal — July 15, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
Gray? It is not gray - it is black hat.
I’ve turned companies in for doing this for keywords and watched their sites disappear. It is pure manipulation of the serps and G frowns on this. If the sites are dramatically different and not working for the same purpose, I feel it will pass muster. But, if they are just using different text/wording to get past the filters, then it is spam.
Many companies hide the owner of the urls in the registry information (one company had an agent in Australia obtain the URL), but once you went to the web site you could see who the actual owner was. I simply compiled this information, forwarded it all in a G Spam Report (re-submitted once for safety) and the problem was fixed in a month or so.
Comment by Al — July 16, 2008 @ 9:55 am