Low quality websites with spammy EMDs still ranking higher than genuine websites?

[Webrevolve]

Hey guys,

I've just been doing some searching and couldn't quite contemplate how heavily low-quality and spammy EMDs are still running some Google searches.

Just take "cheap kitchens", for instance.

Here are a list of URLs that appeared;

http://kitchenunitsdoors.co.uk/

http://www.kitchenunits9.co.uk/

http://www.aboutkitchenunits.co.uk/

http://www.cheapkitchenunits1.co.uk/

http://www.cheapkitchensonline.com/

http://www.buycheapkitchens.com/

http://www.cheapkitchenscheapkitchen.co.uk/

http://www.cheapkitchensforsale1.co.uk/

http://cheapkitchensaberdeen.co.uk/

http://www.kitchensderby1.co.uk/

http://www.cheapcheapkitchens.co.uk/

http://kitchen-cheap.co.uk/

http://www.cheapestkitchensinbritain.co.uk/

http://www.cheapkitchenss.co.uk/

http://www.cheaperthanmfi.com/

http://cheapkitchenuk.co.uk/

As you can see, none of them appear to be genuine retailers and are setup purely to influence Google rankings. I'm amazed that Google is still giving so much weight to these types of sites - especially considering how search is meant to be better than it ever was before!

Any insights into why this is?

[will2112]

I see the same pattern in Google.  Are these sites scraping RSS feeds and publishing another person's content?

[Jonathan1979]

Yep, no. 1 in one of my niche is a one page EMD with 7000 backlinks (low quality comment spam), of which 98% are nofollow.

Its stupid.

[Webrevolve]

After a bit of research I've discovered that all but four of those domains are owned by the same person.

Incredible.

[Webrevolve]

Just found this...

http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/08712000410/15

[Chris.Menke]

It's as though Google's  saying "Let's leave the low quality queries to be filled by the low quality sites." I mean really... the only people who take a search like that seriously are the marketers who are trying to get their sites to rank for them-- people actually looking for kitchen remodeling contractors are searching with other terms.  Wouldn't you say?

[Webrevolve]

No, I definitely wouldn't say that. If I wanted a kitchen and I wanted it cheap then I'd say there's a good chance I'd be searching "cheap kitchens".

[Jonathan1979]

I agree matthew, but the intention with these sites is not just to rank for that one keyword.

Many black hats will bombard them with 100's if not 1000's of backlinks with varied anchor texts covering all the long tail words \ phrases which helps rank those sites for a whole range of things.

In fact there are tools out there that will find all the longtails, and even though adwords may show zero search volume, collectively they will bring in alot of long tail traffic that no-one has optimised for.

[EGOL]

From what I have seen, these types of website are only successful when competition is really easy.  So working to boost the strength of your site will usually get you above these bottom fishers.

[Webrevolve]

No offence but that is a proper generic answer.

[zoicaremus]

Hi Matthew,

If there are so many problems and so obvious, why don't you submit a report to Google. They clearly state this in their quality guidelines for webmasters:

If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please let us know by filing a spam report. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. While we may not take manual action in response to every report, spam reports are prioritized based on user impact, and in some cases may lead to complete removal of a spammy site from Google's search results. Not all manual actions result in removal, however. Even in cases where we take action on a reported site, the effects of these actions may not be obvious.

More details here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769

Why not do it? You got nothing to loose!

[KeriMorgret]

Backed by quite a bit of real-life experience on EGOL's part.