Grrr... Google really loves spam!

[MakeMeTop]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kenwood+electronics&btnG=Google+Search

Look at #1.

I have been monitoring the SEO done by the people who did this site on a number of URLs for about a year. Now they are using a noscript tag to keyword stuff. At least this is a change from invisible text. Everything that is called blatant spam by most people is constantly done by them - and all the sites ride nice and high in Google - and have remained there - month in, month out.

Or is it just 'clever' non-obvious SEO that Google doesn't like!

[Advisor]

hmmm...always wondered if the noscript tag could work that way...apparently it can, and works well, at that!

J

[Alan Perkins]

Just been there with my scriptless browser. Nice branding!

<NOSCRIPT> has its place. You can use it, or abuse it. I prefer to use it.

[prosayist]

Me n' Mozilla kenwood car audio didn't wanna radio stereo get the multimedia streaming audio shockwave digital sound audio and visual effects kenwood player <!--electronics electronics electronics-->
:rolleyes:

[Kal]

Gotta love that alt tag. Hey, imagine if the Brady Bunch had a web site that needed SEO. You could use
<marcia marcia marcia!> and it wouldn't be considered spam. :green:

[french dread]

greetings makemetop,
I don't understand why you see kenwood optimization as spam?
None is fooled, the website is fully relevant. The noscript content is representing the real content of the website.
It is just deep optimization but imho not spam.
spam is fooling people and search engines in my opinion.
It is not about the technique used (if not dangerous for ranking of course)
I prefer to have this website #1 instead of a regular one not relevant.
Don't u think?

[MakeMeTop]

My opinion on what is spam is not important. I actually agree with you on the relevancy issue. However, if I optimise a flash site by using IP delivery (user agent delivery often works OK) and make a flat HTML version of the site using the exact words shown on the target page and submit it to Google it will be banned. Nearly every other search engine will index it and even if it were reported they would almost certainly allow the page to remain in the database as it would meet their relevancy criteria (I know this as fact). Google will ban it out of hand (I also know this as fact). A page like the one indicated above will be banned for keyword stuffing on nearly every other search engine but is top of the pile on Google. On Google every ham-fisted spam attempt usually works for a while. You don't even have to write a gramatically correct sentence but will be included. Even Inktomi does grammer parsing (I've tested it).

I couldn't care less about methods used by other people to rank sites. I'm just interested to find sites that are pretty much banned by every other SE can get listed high in Google - whereas sites which can be listed high on every other search engine are banned on Google. Hence my statement, Google loves obvious spam - but doesn't like covert manipulation.

[Alan Perkins]

If I optimise a flash site by using cloaking and make a flat HTML version of the site using the exact words shown on the target page...Please elaborate - if a human with a Flash-incapable browser visits the page, do they see your flat HTML version?

Google loves obvious spam - but doesn't like covert manipulation.IMO, Google would not like spam, cloaked or uncloaked. But they can't fight the battle on all fronts at once. Phase 1 may be to get all spam out in the open...

[MakeMeTop]

>if a human with a Flash-incapable browser visits the page, do they see your flat HTML version?

In that example - absolutely. I would (unless there were technical reasons as to why I couldn't do this) serve the HTML page to them and they would be able to navigate the (alternative) site. I know that you would not deem this a spam method, Alan. However there may be technical reasons or customer instructions which prevent me from using this preferred method - so I may use IP delivery - which I know you would condemn - even though I would have no fear of the site being seen by any human user and would not prevent it from being cached by Google. Now - regardless of my technique - I have created a fully functional site which is designed to be fully usable and make sense. This happens if I use user agent delivery (serve one page to Netscape, Opera and IE - another to everyone else), noframes, noscript or IP delivery or on the page optimisation. It is easier to have one optimisation technique which covers all delivery methods and sometimes they (delivery methods) change as I persuade the client of the benefits of moving more and more of the optimisation to being visible on their own sites.

On your second point - I think you are probably correct. Google likes to see manipulation techniques out in the open - that way they will (hopefully) tighten up their spam filters. I have no gripe with Google - I just want to growl sometimes when I see a 20 minute slam-in-the-words optimisation effort work so easily when I can take weeks to put a thought-out strategy together and refuse to take this easy option. I also have no problem with Google banning cloaking - I would never cloak a client site in any way, shape or form. I rely on more traditional methods for their rankings on Google.

[Alan Perkins]

Glad I gave you the opportunity to say that Barry :)

I don't condemn IP delivery or agent-based delivery, per se. Neither of these are cloaking, in my book. Cloaking is a subset of these technologies, when they are abused to deliver content to a search engine not designed for the search engine's users to see. That content is spam, just as the <noscript> content we are discussing here is spam.

My problem with cloaking is that a site that is making appropriate use of IP delivery or agent-based delivery is tarred with the cloaking brush and may even be banned by a zealous spam filter. The kind of problems you are having ...