How are Composite Door Shop number 1 for "composite doors"?!!

[KarlBantleman]

I have a client who competes with Composite Door Shop for "composite doors" and when doing a back link profile analysis it makes me wonder if Google is cramping down on EMD's (I know they have, I'm just frustrated!!) and how on earth they are number 1!!

http://stereogum.com/49561/new_u2_video_get_on_your_boots/video/ and http://www.seo-writer.com/writers/index.php/2008/08/29/ghost-writers-need-to-eat-too/, both comments in blogs are their highest authority links!! Frustrating doesn't even cover it!! Is anyone else see that competitors have terrible back links?

[TomRayner]

It's terribly frustrating Karl and I've seen it countless times.

The thing to keep reminding ourselves is: the whole reason why Google is going after link spam is precisely because it still works.

When you see blog comments helping to rank, you can see that Google is still unable to "devalue" comment links itself.  Exact match anchor text is still, arguably, the strongest signal to Google and its PageRank algorithm what a site is about and will still rank your website is accordingly.

What we've seen with penalties and algorithmic updates like Penguin is that Google can, and will, severely penalise you if it finds you manipulating your rankings.  Having poor quality links like blog comments on high outbound link pages and a disproportionately high number of exact match anchor text will do just that.

It's one way to do business for sure - but surely not a sustainable way to do business.  Abusing an algorithm and the guidelines and constantly wondering if/when you'll get penalised is not something that I want to be in, never mind those I work with.

Like I said, it's very frustrating but we need to show a bit of faith in Google that they will be penalised accordingly.

Not much consolation but I hope this helps.

[KarlBantleman]

Hi Tom,

I know, we always make sure that we are doing ethical link building and to ensure the quality is high then you get some cowboy SEO-ers doing this and getting rewarded for it!! I guess I just have to put my hopes in Google and the fact that they'll (one day!) figure them out and all will be well!! I can hope anyway!