Fused Nation - UK SEO Blog

Following on from my post last month about Jobsite.co.uk spamming my forums I thought I would do a little homework on the subject.  Some may consider this a pointless exercise, and to a certain extent it is - it won’t change anything - I won’t get back the time I spent deleting their spam and it doesn’t look like their SEOs are willing to ‘fess up and apologise (which is probably too much to ask anyway).

But I thought this might be a useful little exercise that would serve as an example for anyone reading this - you might be able to take some ideas away that could help you in the future.

What you can take from this post:

• Some ideas on how to research competitors.
• Some tips on how not to manage your online public relations!

  

Follow the paper trail of SEO services

The first port of call is a Google search for the name / URL and some additional keyword qualifiers like “SEO”.  Here: “Jobsite.co.uk + SEO“.

Only a couple thousand results so naturally my first post on the subject is there up top.  A quick browse through the first few pages reveals some information:

• Listings on “SEO directories” (i.e. directories that really have no traffic value and are only used for SEO purposes)
• A Webmasterworld thread from back in 2001, which leads to
• The Wayback machine page from 2001 - very interesting - spammy doorway page!

This all took no more than 10 minutes to find out just now (and yeh, I should have probably done it a few weeks ago when the subject was active).

  

Lesson learned - don’t claim to be clean if you have been naughty in the past!

Let’s not tar Jobsite with the spam brush because they were spamming back in 2001.  If anything, some credit is due there for being at the forefront of emerging technologies which is a hell of a lot more than most companies say.

Also, for most companies, worrying about past attempts at spamming doesn’t really need to be a public relations issue - it was 6 years ago - no need to be concerned about that.

But, if you are going to come out with public statements like:

Both the agency and ourselves take an ethical approach to our search marketing and by no means condone spamming. We have been adamant about this throughout our 12 years in search.

…then perhaps you should be sure you haven’t actually spammed in the past.  It’s not an “ethical” issue - it’s just about sending out a clear message when it comes to PR.  Given this part of the statement from Jobsite is technically wrong, I think it leads to the conclusion that the rest of the statement could be questionable.

Not a big deal - the point is that there’s a lot of stuff that can be traced back through search engines so if you are going to try and solve a situation with a definitive statement, you should be reasonably sure that what you are saying can’t be contradicted.

  

On the trail of Jobsite’s SEO agency…

This will be a tougher nut to crack.  Chances are there is no obvious paper trail between Jobsite and the SEO agency they are using.  A lot of agencies will circulate press releases announcing relationships with new clients which is an easy way to make the connection, but it isn’t always the case as some clients don’t want this exposure.

Starting this search, there are a few assumptions that can be made:

• Chances are the agency is using the same or similar link building methods for their own site as for their clients.
• This may include the same directory submissions, article distribution, PR distribution or deep linking to key pages on the site.
• Chances are the agency is UK based.

While these are unlikely to give us a definitive answer, I can use these assumptions to narrow my search a little and see what I find.

I don’t really have time to do all this just now, but I’ll will be doing it at some point and will probably post back with some details.  I thought it was worth putting this down on a post for reference.

Researching websites can be a time consuming affair, but if you do take the time you can reap plenty of rewards and it is a very useful skill for an SEO to have.  For example, a clever use of search can help you:

• Research competitors (i.e. who’s linking to them, what marketing activities are they using)
• Out spammers (i.e. find past examples of spam)
• Locate problems with new client sites (i.e. fix spam)
• Identify problematic forum members (i.e. competitors trolling your boards)
• Research new acquisitions (i.e. if you are buying a new site - does it have a history of dirty competition?)

Still waiting on the apology from your SEO, Jobsite!