Black Hat SEO dominating in the SERPs, take action please!

[WCD Admin]

The amount of blackhat SEO is now reaching a stage of ridiculousness. Here is a term I rank for: 'online casino directory' -- google it. it makes sense that I rank here. but one by one, I've watched my competitors get eaten up by this ridiculous list of blackhat sites. Until finally I'm the only one ranking under that term, CasinoCity is the last one that disappeared.

Today I reported feedback to google on this stuff.

If you care about your rankings or the rankings of other sites, I highly suggest doing the same. I've not reported sites in a long time (and I only report blatant black hat sites), but I did this time, you do it by clicking "Feedback" at the bottom of the SERP in google. it has a nice interface where you can tell them whats wrong with the page (SERP) and then a highlight tool to show them what is fishy looking.

If your terms are beginning to be eaten alive by black hatters I highly recommend using this feature before they get YOU, too. Hopefully Google will do something soon, because honest outfits are now seriously being victimized.

 

[Ukjeff]

Yes i agree totally WCD & hope G wakes up, try searching for "online pokies" a site comes up always at the top adaptfunrun.org it then redirects to livecasinoadvisor.com
have been reporting these types of sites for a while but the more affs that do same the more i think it might change for the better.

 

[AussieDave]

Agree with WCD and others.

Google has made it clear (numerous times) on its opinion about affiliates. Cutts came out in 2012/13 and made mention about poker and casinos. Visit the G webmaster forums and a similar dislike toward affiliates, an even worse opinion is held toward gambling affiliates. I've submitted countless webspam reports, so to have other whitehat affiliates but nothing changes.

When Cutts made mention to poker and casinos, there was speculation Google's decision was to turn its back on policing the gambling verticles. Which the OP, myself and others are seeing in rampant proportions. If one is to believe Cutts on the Panda, Penguin et al alog changes and their payloads, then by virtue, these blackhat sites should be getting kicked back to the stone-age. However instead of these sites diminishing, they contine to flourish.

There was also speculation, that Google's intention not to police the gambling verticles, was a plow to totally f#ckup the index so badly, that serious webmasters would then take out Google advertising by the way of Adwords etc etc. This move and current index status of the gambling verticles, seems to coincide with the USA now licensing and moiving toward embracing online gambling.

Given the evidence and the lack of interest by the Google webspam team to clean up the gambling verticles index, the later seems highly plausable.

try searching for "online pokies" a site comes up always at the top adaptfunrun.org it then redirects to livecasinoadvisor.com

I posted this thread about those two sites (clearly gaming the google alog):
https:/ /www. affiliateguarddog. com/forums/napier-limited-aka-digimedia-using-bogus-casino-affiliate-portal-t7045.html

Addition
Food for thought to the digimedia owned portal. Why would they be promoting other casinos outside of their brand portfolio... Is there any connection between this relationship and the amount of spam FL players (myself included) are receiving in relation to Winner.com etc etc. livecasinoadvisor.com isn't the only bogus affiliate site in operation. With the AU results being as stuffed as the OP posts about google.com, there are other sites all using identical tricks and promoting the same mix of brands. Too many clone type simularites to be cast off as not related.

.au domains are being obtained. Not with legitimate trademarks but bogus and illegal means, the dodgy .au domains all point back to a QLD drop box.

My opinion, they (a % of casino groups) are systematically targeting all of the player rich search terms, with sites made to look like affiliate portals. Eventually, if it hasn't commenced already for some affiliates, by the end of this, all we will be doing in picking up the crumbs, if we're not driven out of business in the meantime.

I can't find it BUT webzcas posed about this blackhat topic sometime last year (2013). He made direct reference (with proof) to the Casino Groups involved. It was at the time when a LOT of site hacking was going on and these site hacks werew being redirected or injected with the casinos from these groups. Maybe these latest blackhat ventures are a more refine approach, with longer lasting effect

 

[slotplayer]

The amount of blackhat SEO is now reaching a stage of ridiculousness. Here is a term I rank for: 'online casino directory' -- google it. it makes sense that I rank here. but one by one, I've watched my competitors get eaten up by this ridiculous list of blackhat sites. Until finally I'm the only one ranking under that term, CasinoCity is the last one that disappeared.

Today I reported feedback to google on this stuff.

If you care about your rankings or the rankings of other sites, I highly suggest doing the same. I've not reported sites in a long time (and I only report blatant black hat sites), but I did this time, you do it by clicking "Feedback" at the bottom of the SERP in google. it has a nice interface where you can tell them whats wrong with the page (SERP) and then a highlight tool to show them what is fishy looking.

If your terms are beginning to be eaten alive by black hatters I highly recommend using this feature before they get YOU, too. Hopefully Google will do something soon, because honest outfits are now seriously being victimized.

I see casino city at #3, the first two are your site.

 

[AussieDave]

This is what I'm seeing in google.com for the OP search term. Page 1 is littered with blackhatters. CasinoCity is in spot #20 on page two. Between CC and spot #1 the rest are either .ch or .de tld's and all are blackhat, with a high % of the page url being "best-online-casino-directory". I'm sure this is one person

 

[slotplayer]

must be the data center,

this is what I see using a chrome incog window, same results with ff.

 

[muffincrumbs]

I believe this is the start to a large shakeup or update in the spam filters. Maybe something named after a more impressive bird than a hummingbird, or something soft like the Google kitten update

It is known that the possessing power to continuously update filters is just not worth implementing by google. That is why they update the spam algorithms in segments.

Then it would also make sense that during the time it is processing, it would be lax in applying itself to new sites while under heavy load. I think that is what you are seeing here, as I have seen the same for many keywords in our industry over the last 3 weeks.

I like gambling and making silly bets, and on this one I would say putting your money on a change in the next week may be a long shot, but one I would still take up.

 

[AussieDave]

I believe this is the start to a large shakeup or update in the spam filters. Maybe something named after a more impressive bird than a hummingbird, or something soft like the Google kitten update

It is known that the possessing power to continuously update filters is just not worth implementing by google. That is why they update the spam algorithms in segments.

Then it would also make sense that during the time it is processing, it would be lax in applying itself to new sites while under heavy load. I think that is what you are seeing here, as I have seen the same for many keywords in our industry over the last 3 weeks.

I like gambling and making silly bets, and on this one I would say putting your money on a change in the next week may be a long shot, but one I would still take up.

You raise some valid points mate!

I'm just getting extremely frustrated sticking to the Google best practices guidelines, only to watch as my hard work and whitehat protocols, get beaten up by blackhatters spamming the index. My flagship site has a heap of helpful information/guides and the site itself promotes a limited # of casinos. Apart from a rotational global head banners, a fair few other pages don't have any other promotional material, not even links. It's responsive, loads fast etc etc but all that amounts to jack when I'm getting hammered by blackhatters spamming the index.

 

[Vladi]

A while ago Google changed things so that you had to be logged in with a Google account to submit a spam complaint. That turned me off doing it for fear that my details could be inadvertently passed on to the black hatters.

 

[inspiration]

A while ago Google changed things so that you had to be logged in with a Google account to submit a spam complaint. That turned me off doing it for fear that my details could be inadvertently passed on to the black hatters.

It takes more than a month for google to respond if you submit a DMCA complaint (google with low caps as it aint (a) God)

Content heavy sites get attacked by scrapers just fill their blogs with your content and their ads.

(if you think I have checked copyscape and I am fine you are wrong as they select a few lines here and there and change 2-3 words and that usually is enough to get unnoticed)

Atm I do not see the point to create more content sites.

 

[3joker]

It's worse then ever in my opinion. Since it's this bad a fix must be coming soon for sure. However, it's almost tempting to get into black hat when you see the results. I would recommend to sit tight and just wait.

 

[WCD Admin]

Reporting is working. Those SERPs have been corrected. Make sure you are reporting these guys.

 

[WCD Admin]

A while ago Google changed things so that you had to be logged in with a Google account to submit a spam complaint. That turned me off doing it for fear that my details could be inadvertently passed on to the black hatters.

For reporting scrapers check out Matt Cutts post Feb 27th here:

Matt Cutts ‏<s>@</s>mattcutts <small class="time"> Feb 27 </small> If you see a scraper URL outranking the original source of content in Google, please tell us about it.

http://docs.google.com/a/google.com/forms/d/1Pw1KVOVRyr4a7ezj_6SHghnX1Y6bp1SOVmy60QjkF0Y/viewform
A lot of the scrapers are just taking the first sentence of your sites now, btw, so to find them try searching for just the first sentence of your site to find those guys.

 

[Vladi]

Reporting is working. Those SERPs have been corrected. Make sure you are reporting these guys.

Not where I am searching from. Your site is #3 and the other 9 of the top 10 are the blackhatters on mainly .ch and .de domains. Actually make that 19 of the top 20.

Casinocity is ranked #30, though with its annoying popup messages and continual pumping of rogue casinos that is no bad thing IMHO. eg "Places we love ... Slots of Vegas" /pukes.

 

[WCD Admin]

Where are you searching from? I'm in California at the moment. All cleaned up here. I'd rather see my competitors listed here than 50 sites listing the same five brands using black-hat techniques.

Not where I am searching from. Your site is #3 and the other 9 of the top 10 are the blackhatters on mainly .ch and .de domains. Actually make that 19 of the top 20.

Casinocity is ranked #30, though with its annoying popup messages and continual pumping of rogue casinos that is no bad thing IMHO. eg "Places we love ... Slots of Vegas" /pukes.

 

[Vladi]

I'm in Australia. Hopefully its only because we are a bit slow on the uptake and the changes should roll out soon! I'm still seeing the spammers btw.

 

[Ukjeff]

Affactive appear to be big players in this black hat stuff at the moment, many hacked sites & redirects appear with all their casinos listed & no ones else's, whats the odds on a hacker only promoting one aff program? As the OP said please report them all. Click the "Feedback" at the bottom of the SERP in google, highlight the black hat & give your comments.

 

[honestgaz]

Uk google serps are the same.. full of those same sites. ???

someone is making a fortune, I know that.

 

[Vladi]

Yes they never disappeared from the results here. Still there.

 

[Simmo!]

Click the "Feedback" at the bottom of the SERP in google, highlight the black hat & give your comments.

The best way to do it is to use the "Report A Spam Result" via WMT: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en