Comments on: Search Engine Spammers and Cheaters

By: Google Facing Antitrust Probes – Beat That Quote Acquisiton?

Google Facing Antitrust Probes – Beat That Quote Acquisiton? — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:47:19 +0000

[...] to stick in the top spot regardless).Google’s previous BansGoogle have banned or penalised many people in this space before:ConfusedMoneysupermarketKwikfitBest Deal InsuranceGo Compare TwiceIf you’ve got [...]

By: George

George — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:17:12 +0000

@Richard, My apologies for assuming Latitude do the SEO for NU (is it just PPC?). There's an article here that says it's Neutralize. George

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 14 May 2007 11:18:56 +0000

I’d love to say that we (Latitude) do the Norwich Union SEO, but alas we do not.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:10:42 +0000

Great debate.

Just wanted to shovel a few more coals onto the fire by bringing up ASDAfinance.com

Similar to 17to40.co.uk’s rapid entry to the top 5 when this debate started, asdafinance.com has arrived at Google No.2 today for ‘car insurance’.

Anyone know who’s doing the SEO for ASDA? Their strategy is transparent, although in today’s SEO climate more of a greyhat approach – link buying.

They’ve amassed 200,000 links to their car-insurance.html page through site-wide link purchases on some decent domains.

How, exactly, does the Google algorithm not compensate for such wild fluctuations in back-link quantities?

By: Ernest

Ernest — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:22:16 +0000

Interesting spark to the debate! Does either ‘Henry’ care to evaluate further on this?

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:15:20 +0000

Henry strange to claim tamar do not work with 17to40 because tamar have incoluded detailed success stats recenlty in your sales pitches.

If you do not work directly you are very very close to people who got it devalued in the search engines.

By: Ernest

Ernest — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:10:13 +0000

@Kevin, you’re right to an extent. The market for SEO and PPC has been stretched – the top get further ahead whilst the lower end don’t get a look in to prove themselves.

However, as far as SEO goes, the top of the market have consolidated into three camps (Tamar, SpannerBoys and A.N.Other). Those with Tamar and SpannerBoys will follow very similar tactics…not wholly ethical as there is a huge amount of grey (and dare I say black) hat activity going on here. As the algorithms catch up or shift emphasis, the whole lot stands to lose out…depending how severe the shift.

History stands that those who follow the guidelines and ethical practice will have the last laugh.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:21:03 +0000

Ernest,

Is there anymore news on 17to40.co.uk?

It would be good to hear some details, ideally from Google, as to what has happened to them.

‘The Big G’ only have themselves to blame for this situation. They make it almost impossible to achieve a decent SEO placing without resorting to these kind of tactics.

Without such tactics, SEO and PPC proves to be a real barrier to entry into the car insurance market; so it’s easy to understand why they did what they did.

By: Ernest

Ernest — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:04:58 +0000

Cheers Dan. Indeed, it looks as though 17to40.co.uk are missing from today’s listings. Update? Exclusion? Let’s wait and see.

Hands up…who submitted a spam report to The Big G?!

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:21:25 +0000

It looks like google may have taken action against 17to40.co.uk as it’s no longer ranking for “car insurance”.

It’s retained it’s cache and PageRank though so it doesn’t look like an all out ban.

Dan