DigitalPoint COOP Ad Network

[ihelpyou]

I want to discuss this. It's been awhile since anyone anywhere has said one word about this network.

http://www.shoplagom.com/

Scroll to the bottom. Those links that lead to "other" domains are in this digital point ad network.

Do they say "sponsored" or advertisement, or anything at all? No they don't.

Are they "relevant" to the actual content on the site displaying them on the front page? No they are not.

What's the usefulness of those links to real visitors to that site?

Why is the site posted in here in this network to begin with?

What's the purpose of this ad network?

Does this ad network serve the greater good of the internet as a whole?

Check the Google Adsense right above the coop ad network links. Google actually makes it clear the links are "sponsored". What's the reason behind the digitalpoint ad network in that they don't clearly state the "ads" are ads?

Let's discuss this.

Bottom line; What is the "real" reason behind this digitalpoint coop ad network?

Who of you in here is actually a member? If a member, please state the exact reasons you are in this network. Thanks.

[Connie]

Haven't heard much about the Coop for some times.

I think those who use the Coop still believe that backlinks are the secrete to high rankings.

Personally I would be afraid to use a system like that.

[ihelpyou]

I personally think it just adds to the crap and bogus interconnections of websites these days.

I would be deathly afraid of showing "ads" for those sites in that silly network. Can you imagine being associated with the crap sites in that network just because you are linking to them? WOW; the more you look at them, the more agast you become. Following the trail of this network is awful. Just go to the digitalpoint forums to see all the members who are in this network. That's all that place is made up of... link mongers who are living in the year 2003 still.

[Quadrille]

I'm amazed they still bother - they probably haven't ralised the rules have changed.

Having the spam links probably loses seo value these days, rather than adds it.

Very 2003, maybe early 2004 - certainly not 2006 :)

[Connie]

I personally think it just adds to the crap and bogus interconnections of websites these days.
No doubt.

The best thing that could happen would be if Matt Cutts would target the network as an example in his blog.

[nuthin]

the problem is incoming anchor text in sheer volume from authority web sites, still works.

like the example i showed you in the staff area about people that are using text advertising on "free hit counters" to get thousands of backlinks with there varied anchor text out there on the pages that insert the hit counters code.

people are just laughing all the way to the bank by just manipulating a weak hole in Google's algorithm.

so i won't say there using 2003 or 2004 methods, as it simply still works today.. if you know what your doing.

will it work in a few years time? that's not for me to decide, but based on common sense you would think Google would try to stamp this out -- "that's if they can.. which is still yet to be seen"

Matt Cutts can say the rules have changed in regards to purchasing links for PR.. but *newsflash* ... these guy's couldn't give 2 damn hoots about visible PR, that's a moot point.

i don't believe he has specifically got straight to the point and the underlying cause of the problem that Google is being faced with.. and that is anchor text and backlinks with anchor text from authority web sites (in volume).. which my research shows still works and works good.

so they still got a long way to go, to catch out the smart ones.

the dumb people and networks you will see outed on forums like this, the smart ones are just going about there job quitely and you will never see or hear from at SEO related sites or forums.

there the ones Google should focus on catching. good luck with that. :)
Google created this monster all on there own, now they need to fix it..

but trust me, your home user and the main stream population doesn't see all the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes to get web sites in front of em and the Google user is generally happy with the results returned by Google.. so for Google to act it would only be to better themselves and not to appease there audience .

[Quadrille]

I don't think it's quite a s bad as that.

Google has made it clear that a bunch of unrelated links should not carry the value of relevant 'organic' links, and there's good reason to suspect that such links have been devalued - so the anchor text gives google the way in to dealing with this kind of link exchange.

Also, google has made clear that link exchanges, however big and 'indirect' are frowned upon; with this lot, we aren't talking a circle of 7 sites - but as Google knows where they are, the size of the ring should not be a barrier to discovery, indeed, it gives google a way to find ALL the participating sites.

If the sites have not already been devalued, it's simply a matter of time. Mind you, I doubt it's a priority - have you seen some of those sites? They mostly have nothing to say to anyone. I can't imagine any visitor staying long enough to do any business.

[nuthin]

Originally posted by Quadrille
Google has made it clear that a bunch of unrelated links should not carry the value of relevant 'organic' links, and there's good reason to suspect that such links have been devalued - so the anchor text gives google the way in to dealing with this kind of link exchange.



who said anything about 'link exchanges'?
i'm talking about one-way links with anchor text in such a volume that Google cripples to it's knees.

these people don't mind waiting 6-12 months when they know there advertising spend pays off in big ways.

[Dan0]

If you keep refreshing that page, you'll see that some of the links are transient - they appear and disappear, easy for the engines to filter really.

Some of the links appear to be persistent though - what makes those advertisers special?

Doesn't matter much, really. I've seen how these kind of schemes can get sniffed out, and it's not that hard to find the network any more.

[nuthin]

anyone can find anyone's network, you can't hide anything on the Internet these days.

it all comes down to

A) can you be bothered reporting it to Google
B) will Google even read your message and take suitable action
C) try and adjust there algorithm, which most of us will never see unless they combat the easy stuff like dampening reciprocal links

does Google wish to better itself? As when you look at it, they already have the name and there not going to get less popular anytime soon to the masses.

if you were Sergy or Larry where would your focus be?
the serp's (what made them what they are) or what is currently making them money (Adwords?)

i don't really know where search is going to go from here as I currently feel there starting to reach that point where they would be asking themselves "ok how can we better determine the relevance of a site to a particular query?"

currently you have on page optimization, one way links from authority sites, recip links, anchor text, age of domain, url/file names, title tags, img alt tags.. all playing some part.

the million dollar question is where to from here?
and have they found the right balance with what they currently got?

[Quadrille]

Originally posted by nuthin
who said anything about 'link exchanges'?The thread title is a bit of a giveaway ;)

What is the COop if it isn't a rather large link exchange?

[nuthin]

i thought you were referencing my post which you quoted.. which was more in-tune with brought one-way anchor text links at a volume which Google seems to cripple under. ;)

link exchanges most people would know they would probably get dampened to a certain degree as time goes on.

the people that buy anchor text links at a certain volume and would continue to pay the rental fee to keep them there.. are the ones that seem to do well, for now at least.

disbelief sometimes that Google would even count or weight the anchor / links, even when there placed on unrelated web sites.

the smart ones would keep them related, vary there anchor's from site to site and if ever questioned would just say there just "advertising" and the links aren't for Google's benefit.

yeah right... pull the other one.

:D

these are the people that Google will find difficult to handle.

[Quadrille]

I think you're right; Google does find it hard.

What they seem to be doing is snipping away, rather than tackle the problem head on; for example, we can be fairly sure that 'non-related' links, paid for or not, are being severely discounted - and I'm sure there'll be more attacks on the practice.

Google's difficulty is that paid-for anchor text links are a deal between advertiser and publisher; both are happy. And on a site-by-site basis, visitors are happy too, it's just one more advert.

The problem comes, as you say, with the shear bulk.

I think the recently announced policy of 'discounting' rather than straight bans will make it harder for spammers to come up with the 'next big thing' because it's harder for them to work out what's working, what's being 'bounced' by Google, and what's a plain old fashioned waste of time.

[nuthin]

if you don't have an advertising budget set aside just for purchased links in such hot industries like web hosting for instance, you will generally find it difficult to compete on Google.

some would say over the years it simply has come down to having to do this to survive in such cut throat markets & well, hesitantly.. i would have to agree.

unfortunately for alot of SEO's that work in these type of markets, its part of what has to be done and it has come down to this.. even though 4 years ago a budget just for purchased text links probably wasn't even thought of.

so i really can't say buying relevant links is good or bad, spam or not spam -- even though we know what there motive is.

would you think these forums needs to take a step back and think logically for a sec on the stance portrayed when it comes to this sort of text link advertising?

unfortunately i just think Google is accepting this as a legititmate technique and probably has been for quite some time.

unrelated anchor links = you should just be gone from Google, your stupid if you think you will last for a long time with these.

on theme recip links = dampened? fair enough, would certainly hope so.

relevant anchor links = ?

[Dan0]

Originally posted by Quadrille
I think the recently announced policy of 'discounting' rather than straight bans will make it harder for spammers to come up with the 'next big thing' because it's harder for them to work out what's working, what's being 'bounced' by Google, and what's a plain old fashioned waste of time.
Search engines shouldn't ban a site for buying advertising, or for selling it. What Google is doing with paid links is right on the money.

They'll continue to show them in a backlink search, they just don't allow the site selling TLAs to pass PageRank and reputation through links. The same thing can be done to DP's network which Google or any other engine can map out very easily.

As you say, the beauty of it is that they rarely tip their hand (Matt Cutts posting about XML.com is an example of hand-tipping). The beauty of it is that the buyer/trader never knows if the link is working for SEO, unless of course they know how to test. So money will continue to pour into fruitless attempts at link spam, instead of going into other things that might be more successful in manipulating search results.

[nuthin]

there's certain networks that provide "text link advertising" in such volume, like the type of sites i have been posting on this forum tonight that are obviously aimed at the SEO type market.

Google hasn't been able to pick up those patterns and from looking on.. in my point of view, they should have been able to see a pattern.

surely there algo should be able to see something and flag em'

unfortunately i don't think it has and if they do have a crawler that picks up on specific "linking patterns" it currently isn't at its best.

[ihelpyou]

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=74619&page=7

We've been warning you all for about two years now. You have never wanted to listen. Now you all are crying because you are having pages being dropped and becoming "supplemental", and lots of other things going on.

Gee whiz; Let's have a pity party.

Looking at all the sites participating in this link spam network, why should they deserve a presence anyway? Most are butt ugly. Others only exist for Adsense. Still others are simply useless to the internet as a whole.

I say it's about time Google did a little bit of scrubbing.

Here's an older thread warning you:
http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18016&perpage=10&highlight=coop%20quadrille&pagenumber=9

[g1smd]

Matt Cutts is almost certainly aware of what is going on now: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/notifying-webmasters-of-penalties/#comment-23814

[Dan0]

Matt Cutts (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/notifying-webmasters-of-penalties/#comment-23441):
was your site in anything like an digital automated link exchange network? Maybe in 2004?
Yeah, I think they're pretty aware of it. :D

[ihelpyou]

Google has probably been working it out how to de-value all the sites in that network for along time. They know the network only exists for one reason... to game the se's.

All it had to do was put in the nofollow tag on ALL links and all would have been fine. They didn't do that as the network is only there for the se's. Period. It deserves what it gets. Besides, the quality of sites in that network is very poor anyway, so it's no lose to Google or the internet at all. People who got into it are the own worse enemies. They have had plenty of warnings from many sites about doing any link schemes for Google.