Sabotaging Competitor Inbound Links

[evilgreenmonkey]

Just a thought...

Company A has hundreds of inbound links from blogrolls and blog posts; Company B does not.

Company B buys a comment spamming application and leaves random comments on each blog that Company A has links on, in the form of "This is a paid review", "I was paid to review this service", "This is a ReviewMe Paid Post" etc.

The comments will not contain any links or trigger words and will therefore bypass most spam filters.

If Google relies on disclaimers such as this to void any link value from paid reviews/links, can they tell the difference between a fake disclaimer in a post's comments and a real one in the actual post?

Could Company B obliterate a large part of Company A's genuine inbound link base by using this technique?

[Marketing Guy]

Interesting idea but I'd think that if company A had a load of naturally occuring blog links then it would stand to reason that most of those blogs would be active and the comments wouldn't get through (the blogger would delete them).

Even if the blog links were paid for (and disguised), it would probably still be the case that the comments wouldn't get through because the bloggers would probably be Google-savvy enough to ditch them.

MG

[egain]

Still its a shame that this type of conversation is even open to debate...

[jimbeetle]

If Google relies on disclaimers such as this to void any link value from paid reviews/links, can they tell the difference between a fake disclaimer in a post's comments and a real one in the actual post?
I think the number of false positives would make relying on such disclaimers near useless. As an example, well, with three disclaimers, this thread might be marked as a paid review.

[JayAre]

Same question, different approach : sabotaging competitor's inbound links by buying cheap links on adult sites, gambling sites, viagra sites,...

I'm sure that happens also.

[kgam]

Still its a shame that this type of conversation is even open to debate...

I agree with looking down at those that practice these attacks on others, but I do like to be knowledgeable about what the tactics are so I can keep an eye out to make sure no one is doing it to me.

[Marketing Guy]

Yup but it is the unfortunate nature of business and as old as business itself - competitors (not all of course, but some) will, in my experience, beg, borrow, bribe and steal if they need to - anything to get that extra edge.

It does come down to the old SEO cliche of karma though - the annoying competitor / customer / visitor / forum user / employee / friend / colleague that you deal with badly can end up being a major PITA but in the same respect even your competitors can be great allies if you build that relationship with them. Half my new business over the past few months has come from other SEOs (and I've passed on a lot of work myself as well).

But regardless of your intentions and good will, there will always be people who take advantage of that and play the dirty game and I think a savvy businessman needs to accept and be able to deal with that in their own way.

MG

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Same question, different approach : sabotaging competitor's inbound links by buying cheap links on adult sites, gambling sites, viagra sites,...

Doesn't Google state, that websites never get punished for having links from bad neighborhoods, as nobody can control who links to their website? (whereas one can obviously control, who one links to)

I think I've read such a statement a couple of times on SEO forums. However, I'm not completely sure and everything Google spokesmen say isn't necessarily the complete truth.

Any ideas?

[Marcia]

They've never stated specifically that someone else absolutely can't do anything to hurt your site. The language used in the Webmaster pages leaves just a wee bit of wiggle room. It's people's personal viewpoint and interpretation that outsiders never can hurt, but that isn't what Google has said.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

thx Marcia. I've heard that statement quite a few times and actually read, that it was an official Google statement some time..somewhere... but never really saw it myself.

[JayAre]

from Google's Google Webmaster Help Center (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34449) :

What can I do if I'm afraid my competitor is harming my ranking in Google?

There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages.

Almost nothing !?

[debraM]

Company A has hundreds of inbound links from blogrolls and blog posts; Company B does not.

Wouldn't a simple spam report by Company A to Google take care of any issues with link devaluation?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Almost nothing hehe that is a good one :D

[sam890]

You need to stop worrying about your competitor’s links and start to think about your own. Instead of trying to sabotage their links study them and try and do something similar getting your links in the same spots.