“Reciprocal Link Cloaking”, SEO “Experts” and why you need to be very careful
Kevin O’Keefe calls Search Engine Optimization “crack for lawyers.” In the past 3 months, I’ve seen more and more SEO “consultants”, “experts” and self-anointed “guru’s” peddling SEO rock to the legal industry. Caveat emptor – SEO has become the wild wild west of the web and it is all to easy to get burned by small consultants and large firms alike. Remember the Findlaw link selling blow up?
To wit – we recently received a very kind email from “Melissa” at Toronto Real Estate Direct that said: “. . . I am trying to add as many informative websites as possible to my site. Which in turn will benefit my users . . .”. She wanted to know if that was OK with us. Something Smells Fishy Alert #1: What do Toronto Real Estate users have in common with American users looking for a lawyer? Something Smells Fishy Alert #2, female name along with an image signature in loopy junior-high-school girl letters – the only thing missing was a heart dotting the “i”.
When I clicked through on the link in her email, there was a link to Avvo right on their PR 5 homepage as promised. Something Smells Fishy Alert #3: there was a code that looked like a CMS page ID on the end of the link to their homepage.
I get emails like this regularly, but few end with “let me know if the link I have placed suits your needs. Also if you would like a custom Title for it just send me a email and I will get it updated.” I swallow the I’ll-optimize-your-anchor-text bait and email her back requesting a change in anchor text. A very polite email returned saying “I have set up something so you can change your title at any time that you want just go to http://www.torontorealestatedirect.com/change-title/ and use this password . . . “ Wait – I control the anchor text on your site at will! Awesome. Yet, Something Smells Fishy #4: the “password” was the same as the code at the end of the click through link in her email. I use her link and associated password and successfully optimize the anchor text:
At the bottom of her email there is a polite, unpushy request for a link exchange “if you would be able to add [a link to my site] to your site as well? If you have an available spot on your home page that would be really great . . . “ Something Smells Fishy #5: I don’t like link exchanges.
Why is this PR 5 Toronto Real Estate site linking from their homepage to us? Time for some sleuthing. Something Smells Fishy #6: using the SEOmoz Linkscape Tool, I do a back-link check on www.torontorealestatedirect.com and find a large number of back-links that don’t seem to belong.
-
VisitInlandSpain.com
meadowlarklog.com (Meadowlark Amish Log Homes)
bsale.com (Business for sale in Australia)
WroughtIronDesigner.com
Plastic-pants.com (not sure, I didn’t click through on my work computer)
NYRentClub.com
This doesn’t seem right. On a whim, we decide to visit the domain using proxify to hide our IP address . . . and boom, our link is gone. Looks like Toronto Real Estate Direct logged our IP when we clicked on their link in the email and is serving up our link to us, but only us. Reciprocal Link Cloaking anyone?
For any lawyers still reading this . . . my point here is not to warn you against link exchanges with Toronto Real Estate Direct, but to encourage you to be very very careful when selecting an SEO consultant. This can be a highly confusing, technical game and there are some dirty players out there. It can be very difficult to identify a reputable, cutting edge consultant.
And finally to “Melissa” – I suspect your name is really Milton, Dwayne or Carl and you watch Battlestar Galactica every night. When you are in Seattle for SMX in June, I’ll buy you a microbrew for the ingenuity and sheer temerity. Just don’t let Matt Cutts see us hanging out.
Update: Looks like this is cookie based, NOT IP based as I had originally thought.
Tags: Reciprocal Link Cloaking
March 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
There are lots of very respectable SEOs who would never do this kind of thing. Like me for example, which you can see by the fact that I tweeted about this exact same thing 12 hours ago at http://twitter.com/DazzlinDonna/status/1334802321 . I got a similar email, although it wasn’t for real estate – it was health related – but it was the exact same scenario. Don’t just warn about bad SEOs, because certainly that email is evidence of them, but make sure your lawyer readers know that there are lots of ethical SEOs out there too.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Got an identical email but with a different name and site:
http://www.colonclarify.com/
I notice my link was served and the code appended specifically for me, when I clicked from the email and the link was there. When I checked it through a proxy just now the link was gone, crafty!
March 16th, 2009 at 10:08 am
This was brought to my attention by John Honeck last month – see his post at: http://www.jlh-design.com/2009/02/torontorealestatedirect/ It’s devious but I strangely admire the implementation of the deviousness.
I’m pretty sure that if this proves successful for Toronto Real Estate we’ll see a lot more link exchange requests like this.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I got the same request form Melissa on March 10th. She claimed to be adding many links to the site, but I only saw four links and my site was one of them.
thanks for sleuthing this!
March 16th, 2009 at 10:19 am
OMG thanks for this one – I’ve gotten fairly good at sniffing out the BS, and try to insist that my client site owners email me every time they get a “link” opportunity so I can be sure it won’t harm them.
Great that you mentioned Findlaw. One of my top clients (100k a year in optimization and PPC management fees) is a law firm. When they came to us in 06 they were on the 15th page of Google even though they had a site built by findlaw and were sold all sorts of bills of goods re: SEO from findlaw… OMG. It took three months of effort to just get them out of the basement on Google…
This is also a great example of why I think emphasis on links is a blight on our industry.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
If you’re working in a geo-niche, stay within your own extended link directory of sites that you alone establish — and dump any solicitations for link exchanges.
Nice catch though — great write-up — enjoyed it!
John Barremore
Houston, TX
March 16th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Great post. No question that you have to be careful when choosing SEO consultants. Along the same lines as above, watch out for guarantees of any position at all. Also, service fees should not be tied to rank guarantees or, on the ppc side, ad spend. The unfortunate thing for most lawyers is that SEO is simply not in their vocabulary. Just like everything else, the best way to combat fraud is due diligence. Anything automated (i.e. emails, automated link exchanges, etc.) should raise red flags.
On the other hand, there are “white hat” folks out there who can prove return on your SEO and PPC investments. In the end, no “black hat” SEO wizard can hide behind bad ROI (as long as you are measuring it).
March 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Reciprocal link trading with off topic sites is amateurish at best. Please don’t tell me that people are still falling for this tactic, present on the web for more than 10 years now…
Just focus on adding legitimate value to your Web presence: information and assistance for those on the Web and your SEO will do just fine.
~ Mark
March 16th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Also see http://www.jlh-design.com/2009/02/torontorealestatedirect/
She has a sly auto responder script also if you pop her a mail.
Would you buy a home from someone with scruples such as these?
March 16th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
In reply to gyi tsakalakis above:
I DISAGREE that cost for SEO services shouldn’t be dependent upon performance. If you bought a car, wouldn’t you want assurances that it would be delivered as advertised?
While of course positioning itself cannot be absolutely guaranteed, you can certainly — and IMO you should — guarantee that the client doesn’t pay for SEO unless you deliver the ranking results as promised.
John Barremore
Houston, TX
March 16th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
That “Melissa” person is slick, but I’m glad you caught on that it was a trick. I would have fell for it because it looks genuine. I personally don’t believe in link exchanges either. If I think the link is very important, I would write about it inside a post, but I wouldn’t put the link on the sidebars. After reading this post, I’m going to be very cautious when something like this come up in the future for me. Thank you for the post.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Clients should pay commesurate of what they get out of it. Way to many knuckleheads are going into deals requiring a certain amount up front & monthly for upkeep, for the bigger players they may need this to staff properly, but for smaller SEO & SEM agencies, this is not the best way to geenrate business. Land & expand deals in my mind are where its at, get your foot in the door with minimal risk to teh client, impress the sh*t out of them, then boost spend/retainer fee. There are TONS of so-called experts out there who simply go out and do the stuff outlined in this article, they get sniffed out pretty quick.
Word.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I truly have to agree with the opening comments of the post. It seems like there are hundreds of “self proclaimed” experts in the field. While there still is no national certification for SEO or Internet Marketing (SEM) , what we can do is align ourselves with the best practices – white hat SEO.
Know and understand the black hat techniques as to identify this elaborate rouse with these reciprocal link cloaks and learn how to protect yourself and your site.
If it were easy… everyone would do it!
Great Post!!!
March 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Clever. Link cloaking, clever.
However link exchange SEO is mickey mouse, if your site is good and relevant enough people will link to you.
Work on your code, work on monetizing and optimizing your site, work on promoting your site through things within YOUR control, don’t waste your time with reciprocal links. (ok they do give some relevance, but isn’t it better when people naturally link to you?!)
Thats classic NOOB SEO BS – if an SEO harps on about links, links, links it shows to me their lack of technical knowledge, and probably don’t know the 1st thing about SEO other than links and spamming directories, so HTML, CSS etc would be total nonsense to them.
March 16th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Unfortunately, this type of BS has been around for a long time. Gives all link builders a bad name. Even the legitimate ones. #sigh
March 16th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Woe, very nasty and tricky stuff. Glad you were able to follow-thru and expose them.
Thanks and forewarned is forearmed.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Classic combo of black and pink hat seo techniques……..Thanks for sharing
March 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I just got the same email today from ColonClarify.com. So, do I just ignore it or write a no-thank you note? I would appreciate any advice
Thanks!
March 17th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
[...] in most cases, found algorithmic methods of reducing their impact. As new spam systems (like this new reciprocal link cloaking scheme uncovered by Avvo Marketing Manager Conrad Saam) emerge, engineers will continue to fight them with [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Yes, there are bad SEOs about, which is exactly why I started the SEO Self Regulation Community (see my website). But just because there are a few bad SEOs about doesn’t mean to say we should all be tarred with the same brush.
There are bad lawyers about too, but would you say everyone needs to be protected from lawyers because of the bad ones? Didn’t think so.
March 18th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Very well spotted. I suspect i’ve had such emails, but have never bothered to investigate the real reason behind it. If it’s a completely non-related site, with a decent PR, I always smell a rat, and it’ll either be a poor 3 way/triangular. Nice write up though, and as I say, well spotted.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:42 am
it is not easy for a client to detect the games of a seo agency or consultant. but the impact can be horrible for a client
March 19th, 2009 at 3:52 am
I get one of these a day. I agree with Mark, I can’t believe that people still fall for this one. But then again people still fall for the Nigerian scam too.
I disagree with the visible dentist. First off, any good SEO should NEVER guarantee specific results. PERIOD. How can you possibly guarantee a PR result for a site? The SE can change their ranking criteria in the blink of an eye and your site could disappear. Then what? Or a specific number increase in traffic?
Also tying compensation to measurable results might be OK if you are independently wealthy and can wait 2 – 3 or months to get paid or are doing SEO as a sideline, but if you want to keep your home and feed your family you still need to be paid for the work you do. What about the hours of keyword research? Creating reports? Isn’t your time valuable? I find it ironic these comments are on a Law blog. After all, aren’t lawyers notorious for charging for phone calls and photocopies? So why should our services to results? Tying compensation to results is a recipe for disaster as you are just setting yourself up to fail.
I charge by the hour. I’ve been at this long enough to know how much time each phase of an SEO campaign will take me and I gauge it accordingly. I also add in some padding for contingency. I then give the client an ESTIMATE based on these numbers. I ask the client to pay me in three installments. One third up front, one third at a mutually agreed upon mid point and the final third at the end of the final phase. I also tell the client that the final payment will be adjusted to ACTUAL hours within the estimate. I usually end up a few hours shy of the original estimate saving the client money and looking like a hero because I came in under the estimate.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
We were taken in by the same scam by “Melissa”. Thanks for alerting us to this practice, and we’ll be MUCH more circumspect in future.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
In reply to newmediaMike
Mike while I respect your opinion, FYI I’m not guaranteeing results. Quite the contrary, I guarantee the client doesn’t pay me until I achieve a given result. BIG difference.
And since I have a 100% success rate and clients who are all quite happy, it appears your theory of bad vs good SEO is lacking insight.
But don’t fret — you’re in like-minded company. I get this same critique all the time; lot’s of guys pretending to be skilled SEO’s justify their creative billing techniques by harping, “even Google says beware of SEOs guaranteeing ranking; no one can guarantee positions.”
If the SEO doesn’t have enough confidence in their own ability to position a website and guarantee that they can and will, you are pretty much just a con artist selling empty promises. An established starting point and a clear goal in mind AND a performance guarantee is the hallmark of the professional.
John Barremore
Houston, TX
March 24th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Ok, but the question is, why would you even consider getting into link exchange when they are useless? I have many sites #1 in google without one single link exchange or 3way linking.
Just create a lot of….hmmmm you guys are all experts and already know how to make a site #1 in Google, I am sure…
March 30th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Sneaky. It just reinforces my own policy of ignoring unsolicited link exchange invites, even from related sites.
Like other commenters here I get one or two a week, and have even reported one or two as spam in the past. With dirty tactics like this, that’s probably the best way to hurt their “SEO” efforts, even if it’s being done by an unscrupulous company working on their behalf, just send the email to SpamCop.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Another scammer technique that seems to be popular with Chinese when posting to directories is to post a link that is not cloaked, but is completely orphaned with no way for bots to find it. When you check the link it looks fine, but when you google that page you find it is not indexed and never will be.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Incredibly sleuth, setting a cookie to cloak their link into their site to *trick* you into thinking your getting a link. SEO tactics have definitely come a long way, and ill have to watch out for these underhanded methods in my work.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Wow, thanks for this post. I recently followed a referral link from our log file and saw a site linking to use on their home page. This turned out to be another clever tactics they also use.
They leave you with lots of fake referral links and when you follow it, you see your link on their home page – what a sneaky trick.
One has to keep learning everyday I guess.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Woe, very nasty and tricky stuff. Glad you were able to follow-thru and expose them.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:05 pm
[...] [Hat Tip] [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 am
[...] [Hat Tip] [...]
August 16th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Wow, I did fall for this before. Thanks for the explanation! Sneaky crap. I hate it.
September 25th, 2009 at 11:10 am
[...] [Hat Tip] [...]
November 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
[...] [Hat Tip] [...]
January 26th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Never pay for links or do link exchanges. Search engine are much smarter than that. Spend time building keyword targeted content on a daily basis and you will get links and traffic. Both resulting in much better search engine rankings.
Thanks
James
March 27th, 2010 at 11:23 am
[...] [Hat Tip] [...]
May 18th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Thanks for bringing this to the table, I didn’t even thought it was possible to act like this. I guess you can anly judge a SEO company on results. Thanks again
August 11th, 2010 at 7:39 am
Do you think that this occurs, not only with lawyers, but dentists as well? I suppose that with any avenue scammers exist… Thanks for the warning!