A new insurance comparison site has just launched. ChooseInsurance who may have spammed their way to the top of Google have undergone a facelift. ChooseInsurance now appear to be QuoteZone! Their old site is still visible in Google’s cache but it won’t be for long.
Both websites are listed on the same IP Address: 88.208.206.71
www.quotezone.co.uk
www.chooseinsurance.co.uk
Both websites have listed the same parent/trading style/SEO company:
Seopa Ltd
The whois information remains with our old friend in Woodstock but the DNS has changed.
So, what happened? Did the rather irate Paul Hornblower sell out?
You guys have got it so wrong! I laughed and laughed when reading your blog. Thanks!
Have ChooseInsurance been QuoteZone in disguise all along?
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Noticed this morning that moneyexpert.com have been pushed back for “car insurance” – 112,000 backlinks must have been over cooking it!!
Chooseinsurance also seems to have been dropping of late, any one got any opinions on why.
@Rich
I saw that too. They got stuck into the link buying in a huge way.
Mind you, they’ve still got good [loans] and [mortgages] positions.
Yeah, noticed they still rank on those terms.
Similar thing to fool.co.uk last year – they seemed to drop for “car insurance” first, but stuck around a while for loans, mortgages etc – think they used the digital point network as well….
All short term stuff
PS – Uswitch’s link buying seems to be kicking in, they are moving up the charts for “car insurance”.
Again, sorry to drag up non-insurance stuff, but sticking with the moneyexpert.com theme, check out their position 1 result against Mortgages.
Click once delivered to mortgage area – click a second time, you are through to the home page. This is blatant cloaking. Still seems to be working pretty well though.
@Tron
Good spot my friend. You know what to do:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html
Don’t worry about deviating off the insurance topic. This is definitely relevant.
I couldn’t find the same activity with any other listings but it also seems as though their heavy link buying for [car insurance] back fired as they’ve had most of those discounted and dropped to position 40+.
@ Tron
Good spot on the cloaking, certainly looks very dubious to me.
When you combine that with the 6million+ back links they have clearly purchased moneyexpert.com are very much violating Google’s guidelines.
I’m very surprised Google haven’t punished them already, [mortgages] and [loans] are very competitive.
Surely a cloaked redirect in Google’s results and 6 million back links would warrant a penalty.
Looks like it’s time for us all to send some spam reports asking Google to sort this out.
Just had a look at the re-direct on their [mortgages] rankings, looks very black hat IMO.
The high volume of BLs also seems highly suspicious.
I’m amazed MoneyExpert.com are willing to risk their long term brand reputation by using such methods. It wasn’t too long ago that Ocean Finance were hit hard by the big G
@ Marcus – it is a bit of an odd one. I wonder if they have hired an agency and are unaware of the situation, or else is deliberate and are merely after the short term cash. Admittedly, there will be quite a lot of short term cash.
Whatever the case, they can’t stay up there that long. I am amazed they have been permitted to get away with it for as long as they have already.
Money-sodding-expert.com have climbed back up to the 2nd page for the term [car insurance].
And 700k+ completely natural, not paid for in any way, absolutely ethical and wholly white hat backlinks. That’s impressive in anyone’s book.
Have you actually looked at their on-page optimisation for the term [car insurance] which Google is returning as their best result? It’s not targetted to that term at all. Firstly, they’re relying on the Big G to work its synonym magic (they’re using motor insurance). And secondly, this only accounts for about 0.000001% of the page!
The more I look at Google’s search results, the more I lose faith in the ethical, guideline orientated approach. Damn, the Big G is deserving of a huge slap around the chops.
Still ..chooseinsurance.co.uk has taken a hit and dropped out of the top 15 results for [car insurance].
@Ernest – I agree entirely – it is one thing to see people maintaining prominent positions, but then to see recovery through such spammy and cheap tactics is frustrating.
[car insurance] and [mortgages] are two of the most popular searches in the finance field. Combined we would be looking in excess of 1.5m searches a month. They will be delivering hugely significant traffic numbers through a cloaked page and the spammiest of all spammy link networks.
It would also seem that Google’s reporting facility is pretty much worthless.
@ Tron
I totally agree, this is extremely frustrating. Google wants people to stay the right side of the white hat/black hat line but then fails to punish sites, like moneyexpert, who blatantly spam their way to the top of the SERPs
Moneyexpert have been top for [mortgages] and [loans] for months now using these unethical tactics and it seems Google is doing nothing about it.
And now they are working their way up for [car insurance] again using the same approach.
@Ernest
If moneyexpert are spamming their way to the top for [car insurance] again don’t you think they deserve their own special entry on the site? Then we can really take a look at their activities.
ChooseInsurance experienced a brief ride at the top spot for [car insurance]. They have now been banished to the second page. Unlucky!!
Comparethemarket.com has gone top on the car insurance term ‘compare car insurance’ very quickly. Their rise has pushed Moneysupermarket into the number two spot (that will be annoying them) and as a result Moneysupermarket have gone top on PPC on that term.
The big question is how have comparethemarket done this? It’s not by being a strong brand or good SEO I think, but I expect by ‘link building’ and lots of them. I estimate they must be spending £20k-£30k per month and at that level their approach can’t be ethical – does anyone know how long it takes Google spot this?
@Ernie
I believe ComparetheMarket are using Tamar for their SEO, and having done a spot of analysis on some of their other clients last year (out of pure jealousy), they do seem to use a lot of grey if not black techniques.
I’d never seen a link farm before checking the backlinks of some of their other insurance clients…
OMG just discovered that Tescofinance have hit position 3 in Google for ‘car insurance’ with 1,250,000 links! Almost impressed by the audacity…