Authority Spam - Are you sick of it?

Was in another thread about MSN search, and came across some comments about amazon listing in Google (thanks gchaney) taking up so many listings that users could not find what they were looking for. Basically its when sites like Amazon, Bizrate, Superpages, Yellowpages, eBay, Switchboard, Barnes and Noble take up the first 5-10 listings of a particular search. The results are so unsatisfactory that you skip to the next page or do a search all over again. I have several local SEO clients that I trade services with that are bitterly complaining about this. While a bit biased, they are essentially the ideal searcher to give feedback information about the quality of a search that pertains to their area. Have you seen this and wished you could zap a search listing forever:




I know this has been discussed in the past (I think), but wanted to see what others thought, and most importantly solutions SEO wize to counteract - authority spam. I have found its relatively not difficult at all, but for more competitive stuff it gets expensive to maintain or rank above. My biggest problem is when sites that actually deserve to be in the top (those business that pertain locally to a search or a product) are on page 4 without a clue. What works for you?

Whilst I'm not pleased when I find the whole "front page" covered with amazon or e-bay listing, I can't see how this can be a bad thing from the point of view of the "commercial site". It does, after all, show that commercial sites are well treated in Google, no?

For me it says that a commercial site will rank better than a non-commercial site for any given search phrase.

So, the big sites are at the top - they have more resources to pour into getting those positions, but commercial sites shouldn't complain about other commercial sites being ahead of them. They've just go to work harder.

Having said this, yes, I get Amazon turining up in positions 1, 2 and 3 for some searches where I wouldn't expect them to. But this doesn't surprise me - just imagine the breadth of Amazon's keyword coverage. Astounding - fits perfectly to the Google model.

Maybe I should just exclude "amazon" from my search results...?

Good Point jz32300,

While it is somewhat annoying - especially being in the position of being hired by a company to come up tops and above these 'authority spammers' - I believe amazon and the rest are fully entitled to be there where they should be. I run a few commercial sites and heck i'd be glad if my sites came up like amazon do. I'm afraid its just a reality we have to deal with and compete against in the SERPs

I agree, but they said the same about Wal-mart and it killed a lot of small businesses in town and areas across the nation. Instead of money funneling into mom and pop operations it goes into the corporate pot then back out. But that a whole nother issue in itself.



What are you doing to top these 'authority spammers'?

Yeah for sure they do have more than enough power to kill off the smaller guys. One of which i am. I'll admit that fighting these guys off is not easy.

One thing ive noticed is that their product pages are often stand alone and a product of a 'click here for more info on X' link on a catalog page of sorts. Essentially they are being referenced or linked to from one location. A Variety of inward links (main pages, blogs, subcategory pages etc) with the appropriate SEO should help boost these product's pages up a few steps further.

From personal experience I find that I can outrank some big sites on some product names which include the original manufacturer's site (product description / shop) and some of my own larger competitors by having a small variety of inward links to that one product without becoming any sort of link spammer myself.

I have to agree that in part, Amazon, eBay and the likes have earned a position on top. However, this model has been exploited most recently by many of the screen scraper type sites. I have seen more of this in my industry than the Ama-ebay (mmm sounds like Ama Ebi - the big shrimp sushi with the fried shrimp heads . . . )

Anyway, the point is that many are combating and exploiting the value of directory style authority sites by creating scraped versions of DMOZ and various SERPS, displaying Adsense ads and clever links back to their sites. These are showing up all over the place. This is what gets me going, the authority fakers that seem to be popping up all over ggl.

Yep, amazon and EBAY are getting up there... here's what I have done...

1) Keep working hard at getting your site up because if it isn't amazon or ebay kicking your butt it will be somebody else. Actually they are some of my lesser worries - its the .gov and .edu sites that i am competing with.

2) Buy their common stock... I have some amazon but it has not performed as well as I would like to see. One of these days they will get their act together and that with their SE results will shoot the stock price up. I also run adwords and get a stream of traffic from amazon that way.

3) Open an ebay store. I have a PR6 ebay store that I have backdoor optimized for many keywords and it makes first page of the SERPs on lots of pretty good terms. My main site beats it but maybe my main site is up there because it enjoys a bunch of PR6 backlinks from my "about me" page at ebay. I also own some ebay stock and it is doing dandy! You don't have to beat 'em in the SERPs to make money.

I look at it a bit differently: my primary competitors are Amazon, .edu, and .gov sites. We took them on and are beating them in the SERPs.

What you have to remember is that most likely those sites are NOT what your searcher is looking for. For example, if you are number 8 in the SERPs but almost all above you are .gov or .edu sites with an Amazon thrown in... what is your effective placement? Much higher than 8th place I would think. There is a chance of being lost in the "noise" of spam, but is that better than being in 8th place behind true competitors? Strive to place above the "noise", but realize those sites will likely not receive the traffic.

Good point. I have a client with a term that is the name of a drug. They provide services to get people off the drug, while the other 9 listings are online pharmacys. I guarantee you we get better click throughs than www.buy-some-drug-online.info and www.buy-more-drugs-here.biz

The problem is most of these gigantic sites have learned they can just do a small article on any keyword and rank high under that keyword. Even though 99.999% of their site has nothing to do with the keyword the sheer size of the site ranks them high under the keyword they now spam. No way to compete with that without doing 20 times the work of the larger corporate maintained site. Plus since these sites obtain rankings so easily they spend more time selling their own advertising space than investing in adwords, which is ideal for them.

I’ve pretty well had to abandon three lucrative keywords in my area because I can’t generate 75,000+ back links or umphteen pages to compete. I enjoy running businesses but constantly engaging in SEO just to maintain rank to sell is getting old. Plus management at Google said a year ago no site should become dependant on revenue from Google. What the heck do they mean when they generate millions off of us. I took it to mean, and aptly so, that they would jumble the results daily as time progressed. Add to this the screen scraper sites and Adsense spammers who generate their revenue off the backs of others and it is getting difficult to compete.

It's not a matter of beating the competition. Any site can be toppled. My mention of this was primarily as a searcher rather than SEO/Site owner. I am fortunate to not have to deal with them ranking so high for the majority of my targeted terms.

Amazon is basically a book seller. Now, I can undertand them showing up for an author or anything using book. The problem as I see it, authority sites have begun exploiting this status for the purpose of monoplizing (sic) serp results in non relevent fashions. Its a blatent effort to steal traffic in the hopes that a searcher for "widget" might decide to buy a book about "widget" before buying the actual "widget". If they are that intent, then maybe Google should move them to a special search section...lol

No offense to SEO Guy, as He most certainly has earned his status, it is no different. SEO Guy bragged and proved to be able to build a page not relevent to his "Authority" topic and rank highly. If SEO Guy choose to he could (and very well may be doing this), exploit this advantage in areas well beyond the "Authority" established for his site.

This is, IMHO, more of serp issue for Google than Joe Blow small shop that actually sells a "widget" trying to rank in the "widget" market. It is abusing a unique position granted by a search engine. I have no doubt with the number of pages Amazon now has they have a page for every key word and phrase you or I could ever imagine.

Now this is complete abuse of a system designed to award Authority sites and we are going to see this continue to be duplicated, because it works, until Google makes an example out of one of these majors and says "No, your authority is Books, not Ketchup". Let me ever get an "Authority" site status and see how fast I take advantage of it...as I'm certain many of us would in some degree...lol

Why I made the comment was the fact it is refreshing to consistently do a search on MSN and not have an Amazon Book stop shoved in my face at position #3. ;)

Cheers

I like your reasoning SEO AM but the truth is most people abandon the search when they see the same old clutter. Normally when I'm not hitting the target early on the first page I abandon the search and start another.

Even though people primarily find my site through 2-4 keyword phrases I believe most people buy off the lowest common denominator. I came back briefly under a one word keyword and business went through the roof. Even though I have 100's of 2-4 word phrases ranking top 5, until the searcher becomes more sophisticated the one word money phrases rule the revenue.

Prior to 2/2, you could beat those pages easily with some nice content and a few focused backlinks.

Now, I'm not so sure. Google used to serve up information about a subject, now they just list 25 book reviews. The results are truly baffling. And does Google make money referring millions of people to Amazon?

>Now this is complete abuse of a system designed to award Authority sites and we are going to see this continue to be duplicated, because it works, until Google makes an example out of one of these majors and says "No, your authority is Books, not Ketchup".

That's completely what i'm getting at. Amazon though is the least of most people's worries because they can argue they have a book on any subject. Many of the authority sites in my area have totally reconized they can exploit every major keyword and Google allows them too. You add two dozen newspapers, a few tv networks, and twenty universities and you won't rank in the top forty under dozens of keywords.