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Thursday, February 16, 2006 

SEO dirty little tricks - The things people will do to put you out of business.


Ahhh...business it is wonderful, isn't it? It's great to know that you can make money online without owning a storefront. Despite the low overhead most online businesses enjoy, there are certainly down sides as well. Instead of competing with other providers of goods and services in your immediate area as storefront businesses must do, yo are competing with everyone in the world. Still, it can be easy to make money on the Internet but even easier to have your business sabotaged. Sabotaged, you ask? Yes, sabotaged! In fact, sabotage is not as uncommon as you might think. Before I go any further, I want to make sure you are aware that some of the things I will be discussing in this article are illegal. I shouldn't have to tell you that anyone who uses this information to harm another could (and should) face prosecution. This article is intended to help web owners spot potential threats and stop them before they get out of hand. With that said, let's move on.

Early in Google Adsense's not so distant history, there was a substantial amount of pay-per-click fraud going on. People were paying others in 3rd world countries to click ads on their sites. That's a common example of someone trying to make money in an underhanded and illegal way. Now read what underhanded and illegal things people will do to put their competition out of business.

Pay-Per-Click fraud can be devastating. It's a sad world when your competitor will click on your ads to deplete your advertising budget. This is not as big problem as it once was, but you can bet your money it's still going on. People have simply become more ruthless and put more effort into their trickery. What can you do about this? Not a whole lot. The best advice I have is to keep an eye on you PPC campaigns. If you average 30 hits a day and it all of a sudden you double or triple that a few days in a row, you may want to contact the search engine you advertise with and have them look into it. Better to be safe than sorry.

This type of sabotage isn't unique. There are also those who will hurt you by helping you make money, at least initially. Earlier in this article I mentioned people having others click on their Adsence ads to make money. It now seems people are clicking on their competitor's google ads in hopes of getting them in trouble with Google and other publishers. These people are more concerned with getting a competitor's site banned than the fact that their actions could get someone locked up or paying a hefty fine. As I stated before with the PPC fraud, keep an eye on your Adsence ads. If they jump higher than normal, look into it. Check your stats to see if there are hits from the same IP and how long the IP stays on your site. If you suspect something, contact Google or which ever search engine you're using to place ads on your site.


I have also come across some tactics that go beyond belief. People have actually created doorway sites for their competition and then reported the sites to Google. Oh yes, it has been done. How to stop that isn't as easy as it sounds. Many hosting sites allow the domain owner to remain incognito. How do you prove you don't own something?

I wanted to make readers aware of some of the negative things that are going on in the SE world. Chances are, none of these will happen to you. Still, knowledge is power, so use it to fine tune your senses. I don't want to inspire paranoia, but there are a lot of bad elements on the net and caution is often necessary. If everyone conducted business with the golden rule in mind, we would never have to worry about these things. Unfortunately, the net is just like the real world...there are always going to be those that want to better their situation at the expense of someone else's.


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I have had this problem.
I had people at school clicking wildly on my ads, I told them to stop but it still went on a little, google gave me a warning email and I cleared it up with them.

Moral of the story-
It pays to tell google, or theyll find out themselves.

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  • I'm Mr-SEO
  • From WA
  • Greg Gaskill is the owner and president of Mr-SEO.com, a professional online marketing company specializing in search engine marketing and optimization of business websites. Since their inception in 2004 Mr-SEO.com has built a reputation as an industry pioneer and expert in online business development. You can learn more about their services at the company website www.Mr-SEO.com or read articles and news events on their blog at www.Mr-SEO.com/Blog
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