Friday, February 17, 2006

SEO -- And Dirty Little Tricks

SEO is one important element to your website's health. So, it is always wise to be aware of some of the dirty tricks that may cause you some harm. It may not happen to you -- but then again -- who knows who your competition is. It is always wise to be informed, and to know how to proceed when things go wrong.




SEO Dirty Little Tricks - The Things People Will Do To Put You Out Of Business

Ahhh...business it is wonderful, isn't it? It's great to know
that you can make money online without owning a storefront.
Despite the low overhead most online businesses enjoy, there
are certainly down sides as well. Instead of competing with other
providers of goods and services in your immediate area as
storefront businesses must do, yo are competing with everyone
in the world. Still, it can be easy to make money on the Internet
but even easier to have your business sabotaged. Sabotaged,
you ask? Yes, sabotaged! In fact, sabotage is not as uncommon
as you might think. Before I go any further, I want to make sure
you are aware that some of the things I will be discussing in this
article are illegal. I shouldn't have to tell you that anyone who
uses this information to harm another could (and should) face
prosecution. This article is intended to help web owners spot
potential threats and stop them before they get out of hand.
With that said, let's move on.

Early in Google Adsense's not so distant history, there was a
substantial amount of pay-per-click fraud going on. People
were paying others in 3rd world countries to click ads on their
sites. That's a common example of someone trying to make
money in an underhanded and illegal way. Now read what
underhanded and illegal things people will do to put their
competition out of business.

Pay-Per-Click fraud can be devastating. It's a sad world
when your competitor will click on your ads to deplete
your advertising budget. This is not as big problem as
it once was, but you can bet your money it's still going on.
People have simply become more ruthless and put more
effort into their trickery. What can you do about this?
Not a whole lot. The best advice I have is to keep an eye
on you PPC campaigns. If you average 30 hits a day and it
all of a sudden you double or triple that a few days in a
row, you may want to contact the search engine you
advertise with and have them look into it. Better to be
safe than sorry.

This type of sabotage isn't unique. There are also those
who will hurt you by helping you make money, at least
initially. Earlier in this article I mentioned people having
others click on their Adsence ads to make money. It now
seems people are clicking on their competitor's google ads
in hopes of getting them in trouble with Google and other
publishers. These people are more concerned with getting
a competitor's site banned than the fact that their actions
could get someone locked up or paying a hefty fine. As I
stated before with the PPC fraud, keep an eye on your
Adsence ads. If they jump higher than normal, look into it.
Check your stats to see if there are hits from the same IP
and how long the IP stays on your site. If you suspect something,
contact Google or which ever search engine you're using to place
ads on your site.

I have also come across some tactics that go beyond belief.
People have actually created doorway sites for their competition
and then reported the sites to Google. Oh yes, it has been done.
How to stop that isn't as easy as it sounds. Many hosting sites
allow the domain owner to remain incognito. How do you prove
you don't own something?

I wanted to make readers aware of some of the negative things
that are going on in the SE world. Chances are, none of these
will happen to you. Still, knowledge is power, so use it to fine
tune your senses. I don't want to inspire paranoia, but there
are a lot of bad elements on the net and caution is often
necessary. If everyone conducted business with the golden
rule in mind, we would never have to worry about these
things. Unfortunately, the net is just like the real world...there
are always going to be those that want to better their
situation at the expense of someone else's.

Author: Submit your article to www.articleuniversity.com
To get a free seo evaluation, purchase SEO services, listen
to a podcast on SEO or read articles on SEO visit Mr-seo.com

No comments:

Post a Comment