Michael Gray recently wrote a post about Google’s 2 tiered justice system and how they pick on the small guys but let big corporate guys slide. I have much love for Michael but I disagree with his example of the little guy being SEOMOZ’s Matt Inmann and his dating/quiz widgets embedding links for payday loans vs a business card site and theme from a business card page putting links to that business card page.
If you look at sites like doshdosh he has almost all his backlinks from themes (over 24,000) yet has a very high pagerank, technorati rank, and serps. I suspect its because he is using doshdosh as his anchor text and not some spammy keyword phrase.
In my own example of the mclovin id generator I embed links back to the site when you install it and have been very very public about it. Yet because the links are with anchor text of what the site is about Google is cool with it.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
Images provided by ShutterStock
Sneaky Facebook Advertising Tricks – Dialing In Your Campaigns Part 2 
Twitter will be as worthless as MySpace shortly 
Behind The Scenes at Getads 
{ 57 comments… read them below or add one }
Google do not allow embedded links as per Matt Cutt as well. Well, let’s see in the next PR update they might loose the greenbar but there is no way that this can affect their rankings.
Google only penalize a website through the greenbar by decreasing it, removing a website from the SERP is a different story.
Interesting…
It’s difficult to say, perhaps HP will get penalized in the next PR update.
Stanley
I think the point Michael’s making is still valid though the example of the lower tier isn’t necessarily the best one to have used.
I checked and doshdosh has only 5,620 backlinks based on google information.
Inmann also talks about the “oneplusyou” where his widget links back using keywords associated with his site for “free online dating”. he then had to change it to be only “oneplusyou”. Is mclovin id generator link back anchor text only the domain name as well? If so then it seems the key is a keyword rich domain name if you want anchor text to help you rank and stay off the radar of goo.
Interested in your comments
What this is to me is another example of Google telling Webmasters to do one thing and then penalizes them for it later. Like when they tell you if you want to get noticed produce good content and things of use for others online,etc. This is just that. THere are other examples too but this is a Saturday and I’m too hung over to think about it right now.
the mclovin id generator kicks ass =)
what do you mean 24,000 links from his own? meaning he gives link juices back to him from him?
I am so confused some blogs I read say PR is irrelevant and others say it is the end all of everything. I simply thing Google just may be way too powerful…
@Melvin, I think he’s saying the backlinks are from themes people have downloaded.
I think Michael makes some good points but a broader list of comparisons of individual vs corp would be nice. What was the anchor text with the id maker? I think that can be part of the issue. If it’s ShoeMoney, that seems appropriate. If it’s “make money online” that may be getting into a gray area. I’d figure same goes for DoshDosh since that is his brand. I don’t think the big corporate guys are sliding, as much as I think they are just not on the radar. It seems much easier to track discussions on various forums, groups, blogs, than to start cold and find examples of companies using questionable practices, imo.
24,000 plus is so huge a backlink.
I also agree. I had a pr5 forum and the same thing happend to me. I didnt feel as if google was really picking on my particular website though, it was my fault. Anchor links it is!
Its generally a crapshoot to what Google does. Either they do it or they don’t. With relevant anchor text I have generally seen them let things slide…
Dosh Dosh never uses any special anchor text for targeting keywords, and yes, thats why its getting some good backlinks and has good PR, not being penalized or such.
I was thinking to run one ‘myspace’ codes site to gain some extra back links [and some traffic] for one arcade site of mine (maybe “Free flash games” anchor), but not sure how will G! look at that.
If the only qualification is that the anchor text can’t be too spammy, then a person should a buy an exact match domain name and then release a bunch of wordpress themes. Unfortunately, I’m willing to bet Google would still punish you even though you haven’t bought links (since you released the themes) and the anchor text is merely the name of your site (which also happens to be a competitive phrase).
My question is this, if it’s wordpress themes now, what about webdesigners who put a “designed by” link in their clients websites? And then there is Authorize.net, who’s certifciate, the one you put on your site if you use their service, has a keyword rich link embedded in it. I took mine out, but for those site owners who are not savvy enough to do that, Authorize.net gets a benefit? They have 18k backlinks in the Goog. I’m kinda stuck in the middle here. I agree with you Shoe, but Michael has a point as well.
not so sure they would punish you. how much more relevant to your domain in anchor text than the name of your domain?
So if we’re going to decide it’s the KW that “pisses” off big G can we expect to see some KW widget sabotage …
Stanley Tang, I agree, it is really possible.
He was looking at the links for the quote on yahoo… still not bad.
people that use his themes are giving the link juice to him
if you want to rank in search, i have heard it is important. also if advertisers pay you based on your PR it is important. if you have direct traffic it might not be as important. shoe seems to think content is the big thing (i don’t think they necessarily contradict).
I believe Google PR means nothing now, so I don’t care about how many scores they give my websites.
HP??
Its a big authority already, i largely doubt about it being affected!
Its not a question about PR here.
Its about backlinks and getting penalized from Google.
I too agree that PR has no value now..
While Google may not be picking on the little guy in this example, things are increasingly getting harder for the little guys, especially in PPC and Google AdWords. I predict that by 2009 there will be very few small businesses left that can successfully compete in AdWords unless they start preparing for the coming AdWords war now. You can learn more about what I mean at http://www.TheComingAdWordsWar.com (note, I am not selling anything there, it is just a report I am sharing).
Its easy to point fingers at the big guy, but they also help a lot of fledglings.
That Said, One also needs to look at how the markets are and what one needs to do to survive the competition.
They don’t, and content IS the most important thing. Case in point, the strongest subpage on this site is the SERPS tool.
It seems everything is always changing and G is trying to stay a step ahead of everyone trying to game the system.
~Terry
thats why site who gives out themes get a high pr….
The wiggets mingle2 used never got penalized. It still rank on my screen. It was the fact that the redirct mingle2 had to justsayhi.com Since it was removed, just say hi came back to the FP on the main terms.
This is an old and trusted way of garnering links, and can’t see big bad google being too hectic about this.
Have to agree with you Chetan, this exercise is unlikely to rock the boat too much, as HP is an established authority, with 1000′s of backlinks to their URL’s. However, if you’re a small fry, and your angle was the popular embedded widget, which is an old school SEO “holy grail”, then you’re stuffed…..it’s just another classic example of keeping ahead of the game. I strongly suggest reading “Who moved the cheese?” for an insight into the importance of not stagnating.
You must always check backlinks via yahoo. Suggest you try SEOquake, awesome tool!
If we want to have many backlinks than we should follow doshdoshs example and offer some free good stuff that people can put on their websites.
That’s all people’s feeling.
We can still manipulate many things and results
Correct, and in return for them using your widget opn their page, you ge a free backlink. Nothing odious about this at all, standard practice, in fact.
old strategies but effective.
Thanks Web Marketeer, what an awesome tool.
I think your post is a bit superficial on this. It does not make sense that Google once says “No embed links are to be considered legit” and next to be like (but not publicly saying it) that “That embed links that are not with keyword rich anchor are fine”. It just simply doesn’t make sense.
However Michael is right, if one gets punished everyone should be punished. Lets take for example a xhtml coding website that offers coding services. Would the “not spam” keywords be considered just the branding name, or everything what the site has to do with (starting from, but not limited to) “xhtml coding” “psd to xhtml” “psd coding” “html coding” “css coding” etc etc…?
Where is the line between spammy embed links and not spammy embed links? (considering tho that embed links were labeled as spam)
This is basically the same a reciprocal link exchange is it not? Only diff is text vs widget?
Sure it’s always like that, and you can never know the next thing Google will do
Thanks for the post
I’m not sure manipulate is a word I’d want to use personally. I would rather just get legitimate results without having to manipulate anything and G treating everyone equal.
~Terry
You hit the nail on the head there, Sean. A keyword rich URL is the ultimate advantage in this SEO game.
Have to admit that SEOmoz is hardly a sterling example of small fry, quite the contrary, in fact.
PR is a way to gauge relative authority of a site. If you have quality content and lots of links from relevantr high PR sites your PR will increase as a result. PR is the entire concept that the original Google algorithm was built around, so saying that it is irrelevant is incorrect. All other factors being the same, the page with the higher PR will outrank the page with the lower PR.
Thanks for this, makes really interesting reading! The Coming Adwords War, indeed! The small fry seems to be getting squeezed on even the level playing fields of the world wide web!
Its not basically reciprocal link exchange, read the post completely and you will understand it well.
Thank you for clearing this PR thinking up for me. Now I need to figure out SERP. I’ll continue researching and reading.
Do you think that Google will drop Hewlett Packard in the serps i typed in business cards and didn’t even see them on the first three pages.
If I was HP I wouldn’t worry about a Google slap as much as I’d worry about what people think of those lame templates they slapped together.
I think everyone is quick to pick on Google…but as it’s been said before…the whole internet itself is NOT Google. Just most of it.
I think it’s an old strategy but it still work
thanks for the reference game. hopefully can make my blog better.