Seo: `trust And Reputation Help To Reduce Spam`

By Author: Daniel O`Connor
Total Articles: 14
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I was browsing through the search engine results for the word `copywriter` recently and came across a site
ranked more highly than mine. `Great!` I thought, `What can I model from this site to make mine better?`

I looked at it, though, and couldn`t figure out how it got such a good result. It seemed to be just a
one-page site, albeit that one page was a long one. Not much content, no real sign as to why the search
engine (Google, in this case) rated it. And then I clicked on the `copywriting links` button at the bottom
of the page. That`s when I knew what the guy running the site had done.

The `copywriting links` consisted of several hundred links to sites that had nothing to do with his
business. Kayak holidays in New Zealand. Real estate in Florida. These are not links you`d associate
with copywriting, right? So why was he doing it?

This is how the system works:

- He joins a website links chain.
- There are thousands of websites in the chain, all doing the same thing as him.
- He puts up several hundred links to sites in the chain, regardless ...
... of whether they have anything
to do with his business or not.
- The sites he links to don`t link back to him (reciprocal linking is not greatly liked by the search engines).
- Instead, several hundred other sites in the chain that he hasn`t linked to put links to him. It`s a circle, you see?
- In this way, he gets hundreds of one-way links.
- Search engines love one-way links and see them as votes of confidence in your site.
- They reward sites with those links appropriately and give them good rankings.
- And that`s how he ended up above me!

So, no problem, right? What`s wrong with that? If I`m serious about SEO, isn`t this something I should consider?

Well. No. To me, this is just another version of black hat (meaning `evil`) SEO. It`s spam. Why on earth
would I want to see a link to Florida real estate when I`m looking for a copywriter? It`s irrelevant.

But can I say that he did the wrong thing? He got a better position than me, didn`t he? Isn`t it just a case of
swallowing my principles and doing it, because `it`s what everyone else does`? I can`t honestly say.

All self-righteousness aside, my feeling is that although these tactics will get you a good results position
(assuming the search engines don`t notice what you`ve done and punish you for it), more often than not
the people who come to your site will take one look, think `huh?` and click away. More relevant, content-rich
sites will, in the end, get the rewards they deserve. In other words, the good guys win.

As a Google spokesperson recently said, `Trust and reputation help to reduce spam`.