Does Google really care about cheaters?

[jefftracey]

In analysing my competitors website I have discovered that they have over 600 fake pages that appear to have been created by some sort of internal search engine software, all pages are exactly alike except for the keyword and the words "no results found" on every page. I have discovered, elsewhere, that their duplicate content is abnormally high, and that their pages are stuffed with keywords.(in on page grader)

I come out top in every section in Moz open site explorer, except internal links and total links.

Yet they sit at number 1, while my site is number 2,

I believe that copying their antics would surely make me fall foul of Google, and certainly would never risk it.

but with the keyword only getting 30 searches a month, are google bothered about them doing this, should I resign myself to not being number 1

and is there anyone on this Forum who believes that I should use the same tactics, to get above them.

[MattAntonino]

The post that drew me into Moz and kept me here was Wil Reynolds classic "How Google Makes Liars out of the Good Guys in SEO"

As far back as 2012 Wil was concerned he was doing the right stuff and being beaten by cheaters, much like your post above. Spam won in 2012. It won in 2013. It can still win in 2015. But it's a LOT better. Penguin & Panda have cleaned up a great deal of spam.

I suppose the question is like buying a property that has a lake in the middle of your 4 acres. You start to dry up the lake and you make great progress.  One day 6 years from now you step in a bit of a puddle, your shoe gets ruined and you think "should I just move?!"  Don't move yet.

You have to do what makes your business successful within the bounds of what you feel is ethical & morally right. If you're asking for our permission, go for it. Do whatever you wish.

[RyanPurkey]

You'll come across some sites that rank well despite themselves. Still, it's hard to believe that pages like those will do anything for the users visiting them, plus their bounce rate is going to be incredibly high. Chances are you're going to be getting some--if not all--of the visitors that try their page as a #1 result, don't find anything worthwhile, then go to your page.

Matt offers you some excellent long term advice on the best path to take. I'd only add that you can emphasize your competition's lack of content all the more by offering content/services/products/usability that blows them out of the water. Cheers!

[DirkC]

I think every SEO struggles with this question from time to time. It's frustrating to see competitors rank high with shady techniques. On the long run, I remain convinced that "clean" SEO and putting your customer/visitor experience first remains the winning strategy. And yes, sometimes Google does confirm it. With the Panda update in May last year I saw a lot of our shady competitors take a plunge in rankings, while our sites increased both rankings & search traffic (in some cases +60% in search traffic). So be patient, Google becomes better and better at fighting spam.

[max.favilli]

In theory a spam report should be the thing to do, but usually it doesn't change anything.

I remember seeing a video of either Cutts or Muller saying that a spam report is not going to produce any direct effect, they just use the information to improve their algo on next update.

I know for sure that in certain cases they take immediate action, because months ago a news site with DA90+ here in Italy started selling do-follow links in their articles (by the way for a small fee of 15k euro per month!), I reported that, and few others did, and within one month they got a manual action in their gwt account and they stopped doing it.

But in many other cases where both I and colleagues in the business did spam report for much smaller sites, nothing happen, and after years I can say they are still happily enjoying good ranking for very obvious black hat tricks.

SEO and democracy doesn't seems to get along well.

[jefftracey]

Thank you all for your excellent answers

I was definitely not asking for permission. I guess I was expressing frustration and looking for answers.

I have an advantage over my competitors in that I own the copyright to everything I do so i can create content for every client, that can include, the audio track I produce for them, the lyrics of their song, possibly video, and the text telling their story. The main reason for doing this is to enable them to share it with friends and family, but I am aware that I should get an SEO bonus from it too.

The other site created another 170 fake search engine pages this month. It isn't that they don't have content at the front end of their site, but I think people will read the home page, and if they like what they see  get the phone number or fill in the contact form. I think that approach will effect their bounce rate.

My approach has been to encourage the visitors to watch a video to see a fully personalized singing telegram n action but more importantly the reactions of the people's faces. The plan is that they will stay on the site longer, and that that will eventually improve my site in Google's eyes..

I don't want to take the cheater route, even if it got me to number one.

Thanks for your replies. Much appreciated

[DonnaDuncan]

Stick with it Richard Collins. We all empathize.