

Sequoia-Backed Chinese E-Commerce Company's Black-Hat SEO - byrneseyeview
http://www.digitalduediligenceadvisors.com/seqouia-fails-to-spot-milanoos-black-hat-tactics/
Yeah, from the folks who brought you that JC Penney story, and as seen on TC.<p>Happy to answer any questions from HNers on this.
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randfish
I think if folks here (or the public in general) knew how common this was,
they'd be shocked and outraged. I can say with quite a bit of conviction,
experience and data that this is incredibly common - even overwhelmingly so.

My conservative guess is that for 50-100K+ keyword searches where substantive
commercial value exists in ranking well, 50%+ of the top 10 ranking pages have
engaged in manipulative link practices. They're not usually this blatant
(though plenty are), but penalization is rare and link spam is on the rise.

My sense is that rather than try to write algorithms to compensate, Google's
webspam team has been focused on finding less manipulatable signals like
social data (which is currently relatively clean), user+usage data (through
Chrome, GG toolbar, GG analytics, etc) and more sophisticated citation
analysis.

Still, it's hard to preach white hat SEO when black hat works so frequently
and so well (and from outward appearances, Google rewards it).

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calbear81
Actually, Google does care deeply about paid link spam. A very relevant
example is the exposure of JCPenney a few months ago when the NYTimes
investigated how they were getting so much traffic from Google
(<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html>). Subsequently,
Google penalized their rankings.

@fleitz - I agree that it's not "illegal" but unethical, probably. I disagree
regarding "why would Sequoia care?". If they are earning a significant amount
of their revenue and growth by relying on Google, then once they get caught
their growth will slow and if due diligence in this arena wasn't done, Sequoia
may have invested with an inflated valuation. Of course, if I were a VC,
during due diligence something like "Google drives 75% of our inbound traffic
+ revenue" would set off all types of alarms and require further digging.

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powertower
Historically, Google has made little effort to combat any type of spam _which
generated revenue_.

When I used AdWords, I would say that 30% of the clicks where fraudulent and
90% of those came from Google "content" partners who where nothing more than
link farm pages.

This has existed for the last 8+ years and Google has absolutely done nothing
about it, except for odd case here and there.

They even went so far as setting up their own domain parking service (Google
Domain Parking) to allow this type of behavior (and monetize it).

For the most part, Google only penalizes those who make Google look stupid...
JCPenney.

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yannickmahe
It's a Chinese company. Google backlash isn't dangerous, I'm guessing they are
aiming more towards Baidu optimization than Google optmization. I'm pretty
sure Baidu isn't that regarding of black hat SEO.

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andrenotgiant
Wow, can't wait to see how this develops! Someone's about to lose their spot
at the teat.

I know Matt Cutts checks up on Hacker News...

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richcollins
I wonder if Google has a harder time with spam that isn't in English.

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ChuckMcM
Its pretty egregious.

I've heard folks say "C'mon, whats the harm the system is there to be gamed
and they just play it better than others." Which I can't really argue with, I
mean there isn't really a barrier to entry other than cash and willingness.
And its a whole industry in its own right. But still it does leave one with a
poor impression.

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fleitz
If Google doesn't want this kind of behavior they can always change their
algorithm. There's nothing illegal about most 'black hat' SEO tactics so why
would Sequoia care?

Everyone takes the same risk that Google will change their algorithms, black
hat SEO just ensures they'll stay at the top rather than artificially limiting
the techniques they use to gain ranking to those that Matt Cutts approves of.

Google itself engages in 'black hat' SEO as defined by Matt Cutts which is why
his team needed to change the algorithms and/or make them not apply to
Google's own properties such as Google Local after the panda update.

I think this is possibly the best indication that black hat SEO works.

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karamazov
The issue is that Google is (or at least appears to be) actively pursuing this
type of black hat SEO and trying to remove it from its search results. That's
an uncomfortably high risk margin, especially since it seems that this
company's business is highly dependent on those search results.

(Certainly, I wouldn't want to invest in a company that relies so heavily on
black hat SEO, whether my own or someone else's.)

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SideSwipe
This post makes it sound like it never happens, but I know that a competitor
of my company that is VC funded has played around with doing exactly the same
thing -- buying links. I'm not sure that VCs even know how to do due diligence
on such a thing.

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davidw
> I'm not sure that VCs even know how to do due diligence on such a thing.

There is a nice consulting gig for someone.

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MenaMena123
White or black SEO? Where are the lines, nothing wrong about what they are
doing. SEO is just what you can get away with. it is that tipping point, some
push it to the limit and others don't.

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gojomo
Google doesn't like link-buying, and it's within their rights to weight or
punish that however they'd like.

However, the term 'black hat SEO' should be reserved for dishonest/unethical
practices – not just those that don't meet one company's preferences.

