How do they get away with it?

[John K.]

I am revising my website and am beginning to get around to consider SEO for my ranking with respect to getting more hits from potential customers as well as increase my Google ranking.

The thing I am noticing in great contrast is that my chief competitors in my market are (and have been) showing up on the first three pages of Google for the last three years and all of them violate just about everything that this forum and everyone else says about proper SEO to stay in good stead with Google.

For example, all (yes all) of them are doing the following:
-They have no customer policy or privacy policy page and if they do the page is not per Google requirements
-Their keywords and meta tags are crammed with words and phrases that are not in the content of the page, if at all
-Their page content is not relevant to the keyword or phrase typed into Google, and landing on the page makes you wonder
-Page naming styles that have no meaning towards the page

I use Firefox and left click on their pages and select view page info or page source and get all the information they are using to cram their pages with things that aren't true about what I am seeing on the actual page

Their are a lot more things I am noticing that I am advised not to do regarding "proper" SEO, and I am not saying I will go against that, but...

Another thing I do notice is that these website moderators are going all over the Internet and back linking on as many sites as they can find where they can put a hotlink to their website, either spelled out, or naming photos and logos with their website link in it (classified sections, free posting blogs, creating their own blog, exchanging links, etc... anything to get their link on another website).

At the end of the day, the point of this post is that it makes me wonder how these moderators can get away with this and apparently suffer no ill from Google, while I consider following the "rules" and wonder why. It's not fair!

What's the use of following the rules, if their seems to be no punishment towards the competition who is clearly NOT following the rules and getting better visibility and ranking?

I sure am interested in any comments on this, and does it also bug other people if they notice this as well.

[Vasili]

Re: How do they get away with it?

It is simply the thrashings about of those who are following the oldest "SEO" scheme in the book before Google clamps down and eliminates them completely (see the SEO scheme description here - 1st paragraph) ...... Two months ago, Google announced that it will shift entirely to Organic Metrics and de-emphasize the optimization methods that have been core to site promotion altogether. Their reasoning? There are simply too many websites to value, let alone assign meaningful values that signify any relevant ranking system as they attempt to sort out the explosion of Spam-sites and manipulated and abusive linkbuilding "strategies" that continue to choke the overall traffic.

Instead, Google is moving further down the road to refined metrics that involve advertising, trending, and simple Content caching (which has always been their simple goal, and which fits in supportively as they make greater efforts to cache all the Content in the World they can --- obviously to begin charging for access to it, yes?).

Quite frankly, unless you are talking about a difference of $100,000+ in the missed revenues you calculate are due you, you need to remind yourself of your place on the internet, and the scale in which you as an individual are seen and allowed to make a difference: it will not be long until Content is once again the singlemost important driving force of website elevation (as it should be), so take the time to refine your compositional skills, to deepen your resources online (have a perponderence of articles and relevant Content to establish yourself as the most 'relevant' and 'authorative' online resource for the SE's to return their Search Clients to), to implement H-META, and to make sure to dot every "i" and cross every "t" you can think of ... without overdoing it!

Let your depth and quality of relevant Content get you naturally where you need to be. Your time is almost here ...

Some Additional Comments:

> 6 Changes Every SEO Should Make Before The The Over-Optimization Penalty Hits (SEOmoz)
> Google Crackdown On Over-Optimized Sites (Technorati)
> Google's New Over-Optimization Penalty: Is Your Site at Risk? (Bloomberg)
> Google's Penguin Makes Waves in Industry - Business Must Adapt (iBusinessTimes)
> Google's New Over-Optimization Penalty: Is Your Site at Risk? (Sacramento Bee)
> The New Over-Optimization Penalty: The List (Search Engine Watch)
> Google's New Penalty - Just To Sell Adwords? (Shoemoney, an opinion blog with the last sentence conclusion I agree with)

[John K.]

Re: How do they get away with it?

Thanks Vasilli. This looks like good information to catch up on, and it seems reassuring.

I don't want to sound like a crybaby, but this market I am in is over here in Thailand where plagiarism and cutting corners is the rule of the day. Over-optimization is putting it lightly here, and when I read your comments, I chuckled.

With that in mind, do you or anyone else have an idea or information where this is going to hit and how hard; For example, Internet wide, or in different international locations and in segments, or what? Just curious, because when ranking and recognition in one's market matters down to the smallest currency, it's nice to know that naughty web masters and SEO people will get their nails clipped... but when?

Thanks again. I can't wait for this to happen. I'll read these and get my new site uploaded soon and begin combing through it until it's dialed in just right.