Things that make you go hmmmm: #2 result on Google for ’buy Viagra’ is a profile page for a Reddit user....
15 Comments
15 Comments
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Comments
Eeek! It’s the same result here in UK and topix are third. I think there’s a general problem with search results and forum profiles ranking highly.
Yep Andrew - topix is actually #4 & 5 here in NY...
Ah, you do have to feel sorry for Google. I mean, looks like they’ve finally wiped out all the .edu sites getting in for that terms. So what floats up? Reddit, Topix (twice! .com and .net). They can’t win for losing. Over at Yahoo, still some edus and general garbage, Microsoft is great for giving me IBM (ibm.com/links? viagrabest.info, someone’s doing something funny), leaving Ask looking about the best (and there’s still plenty odd there). Seriously, at this point why not hard code any search for buy viagra to viagra, since they seem to watch those searches more.
Danny - those two Google results (groups and translate pages) that Yahoo gives are fun too (with some nice redirects on ’em)...
#9 http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=buy+cheap+viagra+online is www.mattcutts.com/blog/...
@sebastion be interesting to know if there’s any external linkage boosting that one or if it’s sheer domain authority/trust
@Graywolf That’s from 2 blog posts, perhaps more since it got sphinned. IIRC Matt didn’t rank on the first SERP for [buy cheap viagra online] until ge got linked with that anchor text. http://sebastianx.blogspot.com/2007/07/buying-cheap-viagra-algorithmically.html
I saw a Netscape post ranking pretty high for it the other day, reported it to Netscape straight away, they are pretty good a deleting spam when you report it.
It’s funny how Matt Cutts alma mater (uky.edu) ranks 33rd: http://www.google.com/search?q=buy+viagra&start=30 ( www.uky.edu/CampusGuide/ ) and 197th: http://www.google.com/search?q=buy+viagra&start=190 ( www.mc.uky.edu/pharmacy/news_archive.asp?id=238 ) Both are hacked pages, with stuff like this (although in the first one it checks for search engine referring, and it’s hidden in the navbar js file: www.uky.edu/CampusGuide/uk_navbar.js SCRIPT document.write(’�74123P101N 123’+’T’+’131114105=’+/**/’�42’+’144151s’+’160154a171:n157156145�73’+/**/’�42�76’);CHEAP VIAGRA! Buy Viagra (Generic) Online! Sale Anyone who watches the dark side of seo knows these techniques pretty well. Digg used to rank #1 two weeks ago: http://www.syndk8.net/forum/index.php?topic=12078
DIGG is #2 for "health insurance" on Google...
Lots of BS links from other forums and blogs are pointing to that Reddit profile, increasing its value: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Freddit.com%2Fuser%2Fbuy_viagra_online%2F&bwm=i&bwms=p So, this is not just social media profiles getting the big placements, but inlink supercharged profiles :)
All the new links to the profile itself, due to this story, are only helping further this. It might be back to number one soon.
@graywolf See my iniatial test @ http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/trust-keywords-link-good-ranking/. It’s purely an authority/ trust thing.
@Wiep IIRC Matt didn’t rank well before you linked him to the viagra stuff ... judging from my tests and yours it’s quite easy to get a page on a trusted domain ranking for particular search terms just by creative use of anchor text.
Dear Andrew, Andrew, I posted a very similar story on here about two days before this one - I think you might enjoy it in case you hadn’t seen it already: http://sphinn.com/story/740 http://www.copybrighter.com/blog/a-quick-look-at-social-media-spam-and-parasite-hosting http://reddit.com/info/28glo/comments cheers, Brett