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Great tip Tim!  You were right on the money.  Thank you so much

We did find Russian bots with awful user experience hitting our site starting in April.  My webmaster is looking in how to handle this.  Any suggestions to get him started?

8Deil9D

I don't believe they are clicking on my site and providing Google data that I have a bad user experience.

Instead, I think they may be providing an artificially good experience for their site and others that don't directly sell our product.  As a result, my user experience is lowered relative to the others.

Once again, it's just a theory based on their prior behavior and what is actually showing in the SERPS, but something I am concerned about.  If I'm right, I don't believe I'll be able to detect, nor do anything about it short of having my own click bot, which I won't do.

I guess that's the problem...there are thousands of reasons of why the rankings are what they are and there is no way to determine if a click bot is being used.  Is there?

Even if one is being used, I suppose the only thing I could do, is use one myself to counteract it, which I don't like the sound of.

Thanks for the reply Patrick

If we had 100% proof, we would have reported to Google and the FBI.  Unfortunately, like most DoS attacks, it could not be traced back to anyone.

We rank well for every other industry term.  The fact that sites that don't even directly sell the product make me question if something weird is going on here.  My dream scenario (as is theirs I'm sure) would be to be on the first page, as the lone website that actually sells my product directly.  The other sites don't rank well for any other keyword in our industry...just the biggest volume keyword.

I sent you a private message with our URL and the keyword.

I am questioning whether one of our competitors is using a click bot to do negative SEO on our CTR for our industry's main term.

Is there any way to detect this activity?

Background:

We've previously been hit by DoS attacks from this competitor, so I'm sure their ethics/morals wouldn't prevent them from doing negative SEO.

We sell an insurance product that is only offered through broker networks (insurance agents) not directly by the insurance carriers themselves.  However, our suspect competitor (another agency) and insurance carriers are the only ones who rank on the 1st page for our biggest term.  I don't think the carrier sites would do very well since they don't even sell the product directly (they have pages w/ info only)

Our site and one other agency site pops onto the bottom of page one periodically, only to be bumped back to page 2.  I fear they are using a click bot that continuously bounces us out of page 1...then we do well relatively to the other pages on page 2 and naturally earn our way back to page 1, only to be pushed back to page 2 by the negative click seo...is my theory.

Is there anything I can do to research whether my theory is right or if I'm just being paranoid?

Thanks all...Much appreciated!

Looking at the examples below, does anyone think this move could result in a negative effect?

**From: **http://www.xyzwidgets.com/widgets/commercial-widgets/small_blue_widget.htm

**To: **https://www.xyzwidgets.com/small-blue-widget

**From: **http://www.xyzwidgets.com/info/videos/general/what-are-widgets.htm

**To: **https://www.xyzwidgets.com.com/edu/what-are-widgets

My thinking is that the potential for increase in CTR in the SERPS can have a greater affect than the potential 301 harm.

I notice many of you are still waiting for the jury to be a bit more conclusive on whether to move to HTTPS.  However, if I'm redirecting all pages using Moz's bes practice, shouldn't I just take the HTTPS plunge at the same time?  Is there any reason not to?

Our URLs are not following a lot of the best practices found here: http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls

We have also been waiting to implement HTTPS.

I think it might be time to take the plunge on re-writing the URLs and converting to a fully secure site, but I am concerned about ranking dips from the lost link juice from the 301s.  Many of our URLs are very old, with a decent amount of quality links.

Are we better off leaving as is or taking the plunge?

Thanks for the insight Erica!

Thanks for the response. I would guess doing this isn't an issue, but wanted to make sure. Does anyone have any info with a source stating using the same Google+ 1's site wide is ok to do?

Hello Moz!

We currently have the number of Google +1's for our homepage displaying on all pages of our website. Could this be viewed as black hat/manipulative by Google, and result in harming our website?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks Farky.

I suppose since it's cached, we can say with certainty that Google can see it.  However, the only link I can find to the pdf is here: http://www.sba.gov/offices/district/fl/jacksonville/resources/list-surety-bond-agencies-florida.  Looking at the source, it is no-followed.

Since it is no-followed, I suppose there is no value other than the referrals we'd receive from people viewing it (which have little value to us).

The following pdf is cached by google: http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/REFERRAL%20LIST%20OF%20BOND%20AGENCIES_Florida.pdf

However, OpenSiteExplorer is not listing any of the links as found in it.

With such an authoritative site, I would think Google would value this, right?  None of the sites listed rank well though and OpenSiteExplorer's inability to see the links makes me wonder if Google provides these sites any value at all.

Is there any link juice or brand mention value here for Google?

Thanks Chris.  I think this is the best route for us to take.  I'll look into this further

Thanks for the input guys.  I asked because the idea wasn't sitting right.  I guess I could have listened to my gut!

Another option is for me to have every page on my site 'like' the homepage rather than the specific URL.  This would create the increased 'like' effect for all pages since any 'like' button clicked would increase the counter.  This is what my competitor did.

I was curious if anyone ever considered buying Facebook likes to increase visitor trust.  Our homepage has only 75 likes even though we are a leader within our industry.  A smaller competitor has over 1,000.  If all else is equal, I question whether this helps to influence trust amongst visitors and whether there is any value in doing some Fiverr deals to buy FB likes.

My concern would be to be in Google's bad graces by them thinking we are doing this strictly for ranking.  However, now that Google has declared that social signals are not a ranking factor, I feel this is less black hat and maybe something that Google won't care about.

Thoughts?

Bump

All sell the same insurance products.  All are white hat going forward, but here is a summary of their basic history.

Site A:

• 12 years old
• Penguin algorithmic penalty (disavowed in January, waiting for update)

Site B:

• 6 years old
• Penguin algorithmic penalty (disavowed in January, waiting for update)
• Manual link penalty last summer (since lifted)

Site

• 3 years old
• No penalties

The companies have common interests, but different ownership.

My fear is that Google would think we are all the same and decide to rank 1 of the 3 sites for each keyword even though the content is unique and written by different people.

We have 3 domains in the same industry, but unique content on each site.  The whois info is private, but the domains are all under the same owner registrant info.

In terms of rankings, does it matter if we move them all into the same RackSpace cloud account?  Will Google know the relationship somehow and if they do, will they care?

I'm surprised as well.

I was thinking that creating PR release about how "I can't give away $25K" might get the fire started.