About Mass Hacking Sites to get backlinks (Link Injection)

Google Spam Team has been successfully fighting Search Ranking Manipulations (through backlinks) for 4 years now. They have tackled most of the link farms, paid blog review farms and alike. Spam Teams’ effort has ultimately helped Google Top 10 results to be of a higher quality. It became very expensive to get backlinks as you would have to generate high quality content and get others to link back to you. Such high quality backlinks are hard to get and very expensive. Yet, Web Spam Team did one more thing – it made all the online gambling, online pharmacy and alike businesses (where AdWords are prohibited) to go on search for new “cheap, quick, easy” methods.
The latest technique is “Hacking Sites” for backlinks.

 

If issue is not addressed by Google – millions of sites will be hacked for links

Google Web Spam team must act and must act now! With hacking sites for backlinks being so effective – more and more sites are being hacked for links and gateway page injections! This can cause a real mess as this black-hat method becomes more and more popular. Last year (late 2014 – early 2015 ) we saw infrequent sites with 10-30 hacked backlinks. At that time we thought it would not be a big deal for Google and Web Spam Team would find a solution with the new (updated) Penguin Algo run. You can not see a single site to have over 20 000+ hacked backlinks, comfortably taking Googles top 3 positions within their niches.

Hacking sites to get back links: 2015-2016 Trend!

There are many hackers out there and there are many vulnerable sites as well. What if you find 10 000 high quality sites that have exploits which you can use to place a small, tiny contextual link? Well – this will get you 10 000 strong backlinks that will top you in search results if anchor text is not over spamed!
Chances are the webmaster will not even notice new “hacked” contextual link on some secondary, inner page. This is a real problem for Google now as it is very hard to 100% identify such links as “hacked links”. There is no common denominator as you can use different exploits (backdoors) and hacked sites are not connected to one another unlike a link farm would be…

How far can Hackers go?

The sad reality is that we have seen Page Injections, link injections, Code injections and more. We have seen an IBM site’s inner page being hacked and replaced with a casino page (doorway) that would land you onto a casino partner site. With some of the hacked sites being Top Level / High Authority sites – such hacked inner pages would top 10 Google search results just though the relevant page Title and Description… All this makes a legit SEO efforts useless for the time being. Hacked back-links are now used / common in most web industries.

Are Hacked Links Expensive?

Unfortunately, they are very inexpensive and the only reason businesses go for them is because it is 10 to 100 times cheaper, faster and easier to place hacked links compared to placing a high quality thematic article through legit site’s webmaster.
All you need is a script that will scan sites for known exploits and then inject the vulnerable sites with a link or a code.

What is the problem with such methods?

There are many problems. It is very hard for legit “white hat” SEO Companies to compete with sites who have mass hacked backlinks. Second – most of top 10 sites who are there because of hacked backlinks are usually of a very low quality (hacking for backlinks cannot be a great long term strategy). Third – someone’s site is being hacked and link is being placed without webmaster’s consent or knowledge. Hacking sites like that is borderline criminal in our opinion.
For $9 you can easily purchase a Page Rank 3 (PR) hacked site’s link. Same link if an article is placed through the sites’ webmaster will cost you around $100 USD. There is a Russian forum where you can buy around 1000 such links right now. Sites PR 0-2 will cost you as low as $0.5 USD….Other advanced companies would write their own scrips to hack for link injection…

What to do if you think your site was hacked for backlinks?

You will need to fix the exploits by updating your site’s platform (CMS) to a newer version, scanning your site for security issues or by seeking custom programming help. After you did your best – delete those hacked links and re-check your entire site in a few weeks for new outbound links. If no new suspicious outbound links are placed by “third party” – then you are most likely good for the next little while.

In Conclusion

Hacked backlinks work. Hacked links are fast, cheap, easy to get and effective. They will most likely work well for a very long time or until Google will start taking this issue a bit more seriously. There is a way to fight this trend but it will require some real man-hours from Google Web Spam Team. Until then, we advise you to check your site for outbound backlinks every 4 weeks to make sure your site was not “hacked”. With Google being silent – more and more innocent sites are being hacked with a purpose of manipulating Google’s organic search results.

It`s been 4 years since Google anti-spam team has launched Google Penguin algorythm, the main aim of which was fighting against driving up positions of low quality sites through semi-automatic paid links.

Usually, Google would pessimize websites for using links from low quality sites and for anchor text abuse in order to reach high positions quickly.
Most owners of small businesses are not ready to spend serious amount of money for qualified link building campaigns or to create high-quality content, which will lure the traffic and linking smoothly.

In 90% of all cases they end up ordering either “promises” (when they are provided with work pretense), or cheap services, where they are promised to get 300-1000 backlinks and take the site to the top of Google in a few months.

Results of such campaigns are usually end up in placement of hundreds of links on shady websites, which are impossible to control or delete in the future. In fact, paying for such services is alike ordering negative SEO. In some cases, you are being ripped off while getting your website penalized at the same time.

Very unfortunate to see established sites being penalized by Google just because they have gone with a bad SEO company.

It can take up to 3 years for those toxic links to die-off on their own (you cannot remove them manually)! Thus you can potentially get a 3-year long Google penalty.
We have found a workaround on how to win in this negative SEO lottery! It is extremely simple and effective. Your primary domain will remain safe and secure.

Technology:

• 1) 123USAmovers.com — your Primary domain, which is 15 years old and widely known in the region.
• 2) You want to try a new SEO company in order to expand but you do not want to risk.
• 3) Purchase a new domain – “USAmovers123.com”
• 4) Set up identical site and 301 permanent redirect your main site on to the new one – USAmovers123.com
• 5) Within a month your new site (USAmovers123.com) will get your original site’s rankings and authority
• 6) Now you can feel free to order as much link building on the new domain USAmovers123.com as you wish.

Because of the 301 redirect your new domain will get the same positions as your main website. Thus when your new site gets a Google penalty – you can take the redirect off and “roll back” to your initial positions with no worries at all having your old site work for you again “worry-free”.

This is a small RECAP on the Google Search Quality Evaluation Guidelines 2015.

Search Quality Evaluating Guidelines 2015(PDF)

This 160 pages Guide is made for human raters so that they rate the quality of certain webpages. Google will later use real human search quality ratings against Search Algorithm with a purpose of adjusting it. This guide on the other hand directly correlates to how the Google Search Ranking algorithm works. The following info will not only help you rank better in Google but also help you better address your online audience. The following info will help you optimize or design a more SEO friendly webpage or website.

What SEOs needs to know: in that Guide – Google addresses 3 major issues:

• Strongest Quality Rating Signals
• Mobile Search Engine Results Relevancy
• GEO Targeted Local Results.

We will cover only one yet the most important aspect: What Google bot needs to find on / about your site / page in order to rank it the Highest. What Google is looking for when Ranks the Pages?

Strongest Quality Rating Signals:

– Page Content (MC – main content) must be sufficiently long enough and satisfy the searchers needs. This will include not only the sufficient amount of text but also pictures and videos.

– The website must have expertise and authoritative within the given topic. Ex: moving services website is not an expert in Stem Cell Research…

– Website reputation within the topic: reviews, links, social activity, number of followers, likes and so on.

In addition, your site must have:

– Satisfying Amount of Website Information: About, Contact, Address, Phone #, e-mail…

– Supplementary Content (SC) that will help address the searchers initial intent: Q&A’s, FAQ’s, Reviews….

– Functional web-design that will focus searchers attention on Main Content, still having Supplementary Content available to further address the searchers intent. Functional web-design must address mobile users as well.

– Up to date and well-maintained website (no glitches, malware, hacks and so on…).

Here is a citation from the Guide itself (5.0 Highest Quality Pages):

“What makes a page Highest quality? We require at least one of the following:

• Very high or highest quality MC, with demonstrated expertise, talent, and/or skill.
• Very high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (page and website) on the topic of the page.
• Very good reputation (website or author) on the topic of the page.”

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Here are a few quick thoughts on Yahoo’s missed opportunities and not so distant future core business sale.

Considering the overall rapidly growing Internet Landscape throughout the decade – Yahoo has managed to stay afloat yet has not managed to fix the core issues.

Although Yahoo is a huge business, there are core processes that were not addressed well:

• -Yahoo as a search engine
• -Yahoo as a news site (entertainment)
• -Yahoo as profit generator through ads
• -Yahoo as a brand

Yahoo as a search engine

As a search engine Yahoo has failed to innovate, has failed to lead, has even failed to follow. Yahoo has managed to stay afloat yet only due to the world wide web users growth:

Yahoo has tried to join the search as well as info/news landing page user experience. As a result – Yahoo’s search was not innovated and was not prioritized. This later lead to another huge mistake – outsourcing search to the second best – Bing. If you have noted your failure to deliver a great web search experience and have decided to outsource the process – go for the best, do not go for any other option. As the result – Yahoo’s search experience was still, even under Bing’s algorithms – mediocre.

As a search engine Yahoo had a given growth considering the number of domains, content and web pages almost doubling with every year.

Can anyone tell if their Yahoo experience has changed since early 2000’s?

Yahoo as a news site (entertainment)

That brand’s divided specialization has been defeating it’s own purpose for the longest time. Why try to unite all those services under one brand?

There are better news sites out there with greater specialization: tech sites, science, shopping etc…There are better search engines…

It is much safer to address the users by giving them the searching tools rather than compete for content withing millions of niches trying to satisfy billions of INDIVIDUALS. Search – is freedom to find and chose content. Search retention is off the charts as well. Users tend to return to websites through search as they memorize how they found the content (site) through search by “associating” keywords to the search query and then the search results. Keep users coming back to find news, not to read news…

Yahoo as profit generator through ads

Well, Yahoo has managed to outsource that as well. No innovation here just riding the brand and the internet growth wave on the point break.

Now Yahoo’s only wish is to have been sold back in 2008 for 45 Billion rather than now for 5-10 Billion. It is most likely that Microsoft will acquire it and re-power it with Bing. Yet, is there much reason for Microsoft to buy it? Is it too late to turn the brand around? What is Yahoo’s brand anyways? For some it was simply a stepping stone search engine of the pre-Google era.

WillBeCoded

When your Project is hit by Google Panda…
This post will address the following questions:

• What Google Panda Pessimization Penalty does?
• How much traffic can you lose?
• What does Google Panda Penalty look like?
• What needs to be done to recover?
• How fast does Google Panda recovery take?
• Why weren’t You informed by Google of the Penalty arrival?
• Website X Recovery

What Google Panda Penalty Does?

Google Panda scores your content and boosts your site up or drags it down in Search Engine Ranking Positions. In some cases you may even find pages of your site entirely out of index. A Panda Penalty can easily stop your project from growing or even put it out of business. For businesses that reply on content of their webpages – it is critical to be prepared for Panda.

Real Life Panda Example from WillBeCoded.ca SEO Practice:

Here is a real example form our practice of a 15 000 pages e-commerce web project being penalized by Google Panda Update (we will call it “website X” for confidentiality reasons).You may have a question why didn’t WillBeCoded’s SEO Team fix this project in the first place? Here is why:

Project X was advised to be optimized as it did not have a well thought-through structure (SEO friendly architecture). Yet, our Client never let us touch the architecture of website X as that project was growing by 200% – 250% on yearly basis through 2013, 2014 and till mid of 2015.

How much traffic can you lose?

In July 2015 website X was hit by Panda. By September 2015 it was evident that the site had lost 40% of it’s organic Google traffic. Considering that sites content has grown by 4 000 new webpage – compared to the previous year – losing over 40% of organic traffic was a clear sign of Google Panda Pessimization Penalty! 40% traffic loss = no more 200% growth or steady project maturity downfall. That was our final call to action and a solid ground to advocate the major website architecture redesign / optimization.
What does Google Panda Penalty look like?

Here is the same chart compared to the previous year stats (2015 vs 2014)

What needs to be done to recover?

• Get rid of useless pages
• Get rid of duplicate content
• Keep important pages one click away from your main page
• Revise your content
• Do not inner link to a product page through an empty and useless page

In other words you need to hire a SEO expert to draw a plan and apply the needed changes. In some cases we have even changed the domain name to facilitate the fast recovery times.

How fast does Google Panda recovery take?

Formula is simple: the bigger the website – the longer it takes. It takes time for Google to re crawl the whole site and the bigger the site the longer it takes. A 15 000 pages site will take anywhere from 1 to 2 months to recover assuming that critical issues have been addressed.

Projects with 100 000+ web pages could take up to half a year to recover. A great option for 100K+ projects is change of the domain – this will ensure almost instant traffic recovery. This is a fairly safe practice although potentially a very uncomfortable for the business owner. Yet, it can be as simple as changing “.com” to “.org”.
Great news is that Panda recovery takes a lot less time than Penguin Recovery (at present – 2015).

Why weren’t You informed by Google of the Penalty arrival?

It is very important for Google to update their index faster, real time thus informing you of a potential problem is not really their job. It is rather your job to maintain your webpages and site’s info structure in best shape possible in order to be useful, helpful, high quality and on the point for the end user!

As the matter of the fact Google is doing 0 to notify you about a potential Panda issue. You will have to find that out the hard way. We think that it would be very helpful for Google Webmaster Tools Console to alert Webmasters of a “hard case” Panda penalty (hard case = that would affect over 35% of organic traffic).

Website X Recovery

To be continued…

April 6, 2016:

We had to wait for 2 months with no luck and in January (time was a factor for our client) we have permanently moved the X.com domain to X.org (switching domains has always been beneficial in such and alike practices for us). Traffic recovered within 2-3 weeks and surpassed the pre Panda traffic by 70% just from Google alone:

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We are ready to help you.