How is this obvious black hat technique working in Google?

[DanDeceuster]

Get ready to have your minds blown. Try a search in Google for any of these:

proform tour de france

tour de france trainer

tour de france exercise bike

proform tour de france bike

In each instance you will notice that Proform.com, the maker of the bike, is not #1. In fact, the same guy is #1 every time, and this is the URL:

www.indoorcycleinstructor.com/tour-de-france-indoor-cycling-bike

Here's the fun part. Click on that result and guess where you go? Yup, Proform.com. The exact same page ranking right behind it in fact. Actually, this URL first redirects to an affiliate link and that affiliate link redirects to Proform.com.

I want to know two things. First, how on earth did they do this? They got to #1 ahead of Proform's own page. How was it done? But the second question is, how have they not been caught? Are they cloaking? How does Google rank a double 301 redirect in the top spot whose end destination is the #2 result?

PS- I have a site in this industry and this is how I caught it and why it is of particular interest. Just can't figure out how it was done or why they have not been caught. Not because I plan to copy them, but because I plan to report them to Google but want to have some ammo.

[RyanKent]

Hi Daniel,

I am trying to follow along and I am not seeing what you shared. I am searching in Google.com for "proform tour de france". The first two results I see are from the www.indoorcycleinstructor.com website. The problems I am having are:

1. When I click on the first result I consistently receive a 404 not found error from a site called cmtcr.com. Clearly this is a redirect and the result will be removed from Google if it is not promptly fixed.

2. When I click the second result the URL is as follows:http://www.indoorcycleinstructor.com/icipro-instructor-resources/certification-continuing-ed/indoor-cycling-bikes/pro-form-tdf-indoor-bike/pro-form-le-tour-de-france-indoor-cycling-bike-with-power/

The web page is on the indoorcycleinstructor.com domain, it appears to be a unique page. The content isn't that great but the page title, header and content support the keyword.

3. This page is clearly not on the proform.com site nor made to appear as it is was on the site.

I tried searching next for "tour de france trainer" and the #1 result again is a 404 error page from cmtcr.com. I do not see proform.com site listed for either query in the top 10 results.

It seems the redirect is not working and I can't offer any other feedback without it.

[DanDeceuster]

Sorry, I can explain. I informed the affiliate manager (we use the same affiliate links through cmtcr.com) and they suspended the account for deceptive practices. That first URL was redirecting to a cmtcr.com link, which is an affiliate link, which then redirected to the advertiser, proform.com.

Because the account was suspended, the first redirect of the URL to cmtcr.com still works, but the affiliate link is not redirecting to the advertiser because the account is suspended. But it formerly went to proform.com. It should get removed promptly at this point, but the question is how did it get there and why did it take their account and redirect being suspended to get caught?

[RyanKent]

You have broken the #1 rule of forensic seo: you tampered with the crime scene evidence

We are left to wild speculation. I would guess the site ranked for the phrase, then performed the redirect through the affiliate site. I would expect even if you did not get involved Google would have cleaned up the listing.

[DanDeceuster]

Thing is the page came out of nowhere. Wasn't on the radar and then suddenly a few days ago was #1 for almost every way there is to search for this exercise bike. I've never dealt with black hatters in my own industry, so I wasn't sure how to determine if they are cloaking or what they are doing. They definitely did not get the ranking naturally and once they had it they redirected the page through an affiliate link. I just know something black hat is involved, I am just not sure what.

[EGOL]

The most dangerous competitors are the ones who have yet to arrive.