Can A Competitor Manipulate Your Ranking in Google Search?

[PhoneMistress]

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.