are you targeted?

[universal4]

I have noticed some serious issues this past week. I have had some pages rank ok for a few terms that have suddenly disappeared recently so I have been trying to figure out what happened.

On some of the terms, I have noticed that some of my friends here have disappeared along with me...so I am not the only person affected here.

On doing some of my research I decided to look for specific page names to see if that could help me determine what happened, and I have come up with some scary results.

Below, I will list some html page names which I currently use in a few places, but have had some serious damage done to them this past week or so. In some cases these page names are not very unique and I feel should return results in the 100's if not in the 1000's.

In one particular case, google returned a single result. In most cases my page names are .htm instead of .html It's obvious that html would return more results, but there are enough webmasters using htm that the results should NOT be as slanted as they are.

One pattern I have seen, is that on those searches that returned 15-50 results....many many of the results returned are listed as "supplemental" which means google considers them spammy. (this I believe to be a result of the problem...not the cause)

One thing for sure is that I found a specific website that has targeted some of us. In fact this jerk has singled out one of my sites and is using some of my page descriptions etc in his campaign.

In each case this jerk is using crappy subdomains (that mean nothing) are more than likely completely machine generated, and got to a search site that uses one of a few different templated designs.

In each case the sites are pulling links from the same IP. (To determine this right click on the link after following the result and you will see that same ip)

The searches are:
gamblingfederationcasinos.htm
rtgcasinos.htm
microgamingcasinos.htm
nodepositcasinos.htm
onlineroulette.htm
onlinecraps.htm

The offending ip is
xxhttp://64.111.196.117/

Pay special attention to the gamblingfederationcasinos.htm search. I am 1000% positive I am not the ONLY WEBMASTER IN THE WORLD to use that page name!! (MSN returns only 1 also and Yahoo returned 37)

For those that understand the implications of what is happening here, a quick spam report at Google would be appreciated and may help the industry out a bit if Google would go ahead and dump a few of these sites this loser is putting up.

I am seriously considering blocking this IP in my firewall, but would like to know if anyone else sees this IP either in their logs or they also have seen this show in results of sites that have been scrapped as well.

Rick
Universal4

The majority of the results from the above searches have 50 or lest results.

[igami]

I agree this is a very serious issue. I also agree that it should not be overlooked; as the technique is currently causing and until it is solved will continue to cause issues for several affiliates.

We have received dozens of complaints regarding these mass produced sites and have filed complaints with each search engine/directories where the sites were listed. A few months ago nearly every search was turning up dozens of these sites for most keywords.

Most of the sites show what appear to be SERPs; which redirect to PPC listings offered by the likes of Go Click, and mamma.com. At the bottom of the pages they display scraped SERPs which all redirect to another of the hundreds of sites this/these unethical scabs are operating. Below that you usually will find extensive keyword stuffing.

The sites have promoted the likes of 888, Golden Palace, Nobel Poker via banners, and most recently it appears that they might be running a click fraud scheme. The links at the top redirect to PPC listings offered by the likes of Go Click, and mamma.com. Thus a complaint sent to each redirect service might be in order as well.

Google has taken steps to reduce the presence of these sites but if and when you discover sites such as these you should file a complaint with the search engine. Working together we can and will make a positive difference.

==== edit

We have received word from both mamma and goclick that they are looking into these sites.

[pgaming]

Couldn't agree more I am finding huge results for what is being said. The links redirecting to "PPC listings offered by the likes of Go Click, and mamma.com" I find most interesting. I am certain there are some honest skunks and more than greets the eye in those links.

Take a good hard look at some of them and you will know what I mean.
greek39

Morality and business can certainly coexist!