Can A Competitor Manipulate Your Ranking in Google Search?
 

I have a problem. I am mentioning it today because it has happened twice in the last four (4) years. Since none of the webmaster non-adult message boards will touch my URL let alone review it, I thought I would air my situation here.

Four (4) years ago someone linked to my root domain about 8000 times (I am not exaggerating) using half a dozen to a dozen different domains. The anchor text for the links included obscene/illegal terms. I think you can guess my meaning. At the same time I lost my number one listing in Google and Yahoo. I was out of the Google index for months and only recently (this year) got back in Yahoo.

Last week my ranking dropped again. After doing some research I see through Webmaster Central that I have over 800 links from about five domains. All of the links are to my root domain the majority of which are sans the “www”. Creating I believe a canonical issue. Thus dropping my site for goodness knows how long.

In 2006 I wrote a letter to Google, received a response and all was right with the world. Meaning I wrote it off as a lucky fluke on the part of the perpetrator (it was intentional) and waited it out. Now I’m not so sure. Other sites can’t fuck with your ranking, right? Any one have something similar happen to them or seen stuff like this? After the George Bush prank, I thought they fixed whatever this technique is. Here the anchor text isn't important but the fact they linked the wrong version of the domain.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks.

If it's a cononical issue, learn about and use the cononical tag - http://www.canonicaltag.com/

The latest theory I've heard is that inbound links can only help, not hurt your site as you are not responsible for those that link to you.

I don't buy that theory but it is the one I hear most quoted. Logically, it just seems that too many inbound links from bad neighborhoods would have to affect you.

That many inbound links from that few of sources might be triggering some kind of flag as an attempt to manipulate the SERPS but I'm not an expert.

Not sure if this applies or not, but if you're seeing duplicate results in google due to w & w/out the www. you can set up a google webmaster account & specify which you want (and then the rest just vanish)

Thanks for the quick replies.

Right. I did that on the 23rd. Under settings you check the preferred domain which in my case is “www.” Keep in mind you have to add the non-www first.

But yet I am.

My site is 10 years old. The 301 redirect was set in 2002 or before. Every link on my site is uniform which includes “www”. This canonical issue is not something having to do with my site or server. It has to do entirely with how an unknown site linked to my root. I no longer buy the search engine screed that a competitor can not screw with your rankings. I have had the number one listing for my search term for about 8 years. So maybe that makes me a target. I am satisfied in my research to say (in my case) that if the preferred domain isn’t checked in Webmaster Central, then another site can create enough links to your landing page that will not only confuse “the Google” but also undo all of your hard work.

For 10 years I never had a canonical issue until last week when this Romanian webmaster’s nearly 1K shady links (which are about 30 days old) to my root were picked up.

If you have not set your preferred domain, do it now.

I saw something recently at webmasterworld about competitors poisoning links.
I think it was under Google-SEO

Add the cononical tag to your pages, it also tells Google which you prefer to use. In theory it does exactly what webmaster tools is supposed to do.

But if you've already done the 301 redirect, redirecting the non www urls to the www url and you've done the google webmaster setup AND YOU DO THE CONONICAL TAG, then you've done everything possible and conical url's are not your problem. Any one of those three things should resolve any conical URL issue but the cononical tag is the latest thing added to resolve these types of issues.

800 inbound links from 5 sites is a lot of inbound links, especially from so few of sources. I can easily believe that google would see that as an attempt to spoof the SERPS. Especially since it's an algorithm that only knows certain rules to follow

Ok, I had to do a little follow-up and send out a few letters documenting my site’s problems.

Matt Cutt’s explanation of the canonical tag is perfect. Around the 5-minute mark he explains things that effect your site and what to do to prevent a canonical situation:

1. Normalize URLs
2. Link consistently on the site
3. Implement 301 redirects
4. Set preferred domain
5. Include standardized URLs in sitemap
6. Include canonical attribute

Before my situation I had done 1,2,3 and 5. I have since completed 4 and 6.

Yes, in most cases this is true because usually webmasters are not that "dirty" to mess with their competitors ranking, but you were unlucky because you have found a dirty webmaster. Inbound links can help a lot to increase the ranking and PR of your sites HOWEVER even if they can only help to increase your PR (yes, inbound links from "dirty"/illegal sites can help to increase your PR) the anchor text used is very important because if Google finds out that the link's anchor text is irrelevant to the website content your ranking may drop. (and this happened for you)

There is nothing much you can do, besides to contacting Google several times because they respond very hard but they are the only one who can help you. Ask them to ban the website from Google so the inbound links will not count.

With rel="canonical" syntax, we can prevent search engines to assume we have duplicated content.

Google will deem it as a duplicate content.

To prevent it, you can use rel="canonical" syntax in the link.

Example :