Google Spamming

Have you ever heard the term "Google spamming"? Perhaps you've seen it spelled "Googlespamming". Or, if you haven't heard of it, you may have experienced it.
Here's a quick test: Have you ever done a search on Google only to find things that are completely unrelated show up in your search results? Have you ever found pages that had absolutely nothing to do with your search terms on the first page of your Google results? Or, have you seen pages that looked like they might have been related, based on the title or excerpt, only to find that they are pages of links to other sites? Those are all examples of Google spamming. How do I know? Because I was a victim of Google spamming the first week of June, 2004.
Here's my story....
(If you'd like to skip right to how to fight Google spamming, just click the link.)

If you look at my resume, you can see that I have bounced around a lot in the computer industry. Well, back in the Spring of 2000, I was working a bankruptcy and had a lot of time, but not a lot of job prospects. So, I spent a considerable effort to optimize my website and resume for the search engines. This was no small feat, as one might imagine. But, I was dedicated to achieving the best result I could and, as I mentioned, I had time.
I started by reading several books, which are now somewhat out of date, and quickly progressed to every piece of free information that I could find on-line about website optimization. My goal was to spend as little money as possible but get the highest result in the engines that I could manage. Some of the things I did included the following: I carefully chose keywords and other metatags to alert the web crawlers of my page contents, I reinforced those keywords on the pages themselves through the use of natural language, and I made pages optimized for the web crawlers so that they could find all my links and pages. Then, I started to advertise my pages. I posted links every place I could think of, even some that might not have always been all that related to my business. Finally, I submitted my pages to the search engines. All of the search engines! In fact, I submitted them on a regular basis until I was listed.
Of course, this process took months to accomplish, but it paid off! By the Fall of 2000, I was on the first page of the Google rankings for the search terms "CNE Resume". But, I wasn't at the number one spot, so I looked for more ways to increase my rank. One way, I found, was to join webrings. So, I found a ring that was for CNEs with their resumes on the web. Unfortunately, there was something wrong with that ring and I could never actually join. I think the original owner found a job and didn't feel like they needed to promote their resume any more and, therefore, abandoned the ring. So, I made my own webring, the CNE Resume Webring. It's not a very big ring, which surprises me, frankly, but it helped. By the Spring of 2001, I was the number one hit on a Google search for "CNE Resume"!
Flash forward, now, to the first week of June in 2004. I have been telling people to simply do a search on Google for "CNE Resume" and click "I'm feeling lucky" to find my site for literally years now. But, I still check it once in awhile, just to make sure. Guess what I found? Yep, I was the victim of Googlespamming! Some "marketer", and I use the term very, very loosely, had snaked my home page and resume. He gutted the page, keeping only the keywords and other meta tags, and transformed them into a horror of unethical behavior. He had used all my hard work for his own capital gains! When I found his page, it was titled with "Jim Hoffman's CNE Resume" in the meta tags, but read:

Backup

backup-freeware.net

Backup Research

Ever wonder how to gather together all the best information about "backup" from the web? Well, we did some research and pulled out the top 600 searches on the subject then we compiled data from the best websites on each keyword phrase. The results were very interesting.

We started with this keyword cluster (determined by old-fashioned brain-storming): backup, online backup, backup software, laptop backup, tape backup, dvd backup, data recovery, nat storage, remote storage, veritas, ftp storage, lan storage, network storage

We sorted the results under the main keywords actually used by people searching. Scan through the list, if you see a keyword you would like to search on, click it to see information about the top sites in that area.

The thing that really got me was the following statement at the bottom of his page:
backup-freeware.net domain and site content Copyright © 2003-2004
Trademarks in "backup-freeware.net" pages retained by their respective owners. All non-article content in "backup-freeware.net" is original. Text of "backup-freeware.net" and artwork may not be duplicated without written consent of the author. Illegal copying of "backup-freeware.net" content or artwork will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Isn't that a scream? After stealing graphics and content from my site, he has the audacity to threaten anyone who might do the same to him!
Well, the first thing I did was get really, really mad! Then, I went to my blog, Diary of a Network Geek, and ranted about it. Then, after I had a chance to calm down, I thought about my options. First, this "person" had clearly violated U.S. Copyright law by duplicating my ex-wife's artwork without permission and stealing significant portions of my own pages. So, I sent him a "Cease and Desist" e-mail. He said that he would stop reposting our work, which was awfully nice of him considering that doing so in the first place was breaking the law. Then, however, he had the temerity to tell me in that e-mail that I would come to regret asking him to take away the link! His claim was, of course, that his page was ranked so much higher than mine in Google that he was actually driving traffic to my page! I pretty much laughed that off, considering that he had gone so far as to break the law to try and capitalize on my own success at ranking my pages in the search engines.

So, what can you do to combat Googlespamming? A couple of things.
First, you can complain to Goole when you get inappropriate pages in your search. When you do a search, at the bottom of the first page, there is a link that is labelled "Dissatisfied? Help us improve". If you click on that link, you'll be taken to a feedback page that's specific to your search.
Second, you can Report a Spam Result directly to Google. I really encourage everyone to do just that. I think this is a huge problem that Google really cares about and wants to address.
Third, you can complain to marketers who use this very unethical and deceptive practice.

I hope that you were brought to this page via my aggressive re-marketing campaign to regain my lost Googlerank and not because you had personal problems with Googlespamming. However, if you have been the victim of a nasty Googlespammer, take heart. You can fight back. Indeed, you must fight back! We cannot allow these unethical "business" people to continue to manipulate the system for their own financial gain.

Thank you for your attention.
Jim Hoffman, CNE, CompTIA Linux+
Owner/Operator of Ryumaou.com, Ryumaou.net, Ryumaou.org, HavePalmWillTravel.com, HavePalmWillTravel.net, HavePalmWillTravel.org and Fantasist.net

Update:

As of 6-14-2004, I'm the number one hit again! That " Report a Spam Result" link on Google must really work! Unfortunately, my ex-wife tells me that there are still people taking advantage of my hard work. So, obviously, this is going to be an on-going process.

Second Update:

Well, it's been about two months since The Incident and I'm still the number one hit for "CNE Resume" on Google. But, I still check on our pal the Googlespammer every now and then. He doesn't seem to be pursuing his old "marketing plan", as far as I can tell. At least, I don't seem to show up in conjunction with his site on Google anymore. And, what's more, neither do the other victims of this particular Googlespammer. Of course, the fact that I alerted several of the more well-known victims to his dark deed may have helped. You know, folks like the webmaster over at Forbes and Novell and Computer Associates. Not to mention Network Computing Magazine and Hewlett-Packard. I would imagine that their legal departments had a word or three with the lad and got things straightened out.
The funny thing is, when this all came down, he sent me an e-mail that said, among other things,
"Obviously you are just beginning to learn the game of webmastering. I suggest that (after you struggle for six months or so to get a little traffic and learn the ropes of linking) you then take a moment to remember the day when you wrote to the webmaster of a PR8 site insisting that he remove links to your website. You will have a good laugh."
Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm having the last laugh, since the last time I checked his pages were all pagerank 0 and mine were all pagerank 3 or 4. Gee, I guess he didn't understand how searchengines, or the Internet, really worked after all! If he had, he would have realized that a Network Geek would have worked twice as hard to beat him at this game than I did to get the top spot in the first place!! So, if there's a lesson to be learned here, it's this: Take it from your Uncle Jim, kids, don't mess around with professional geeks that have time on their hands and a stubborn, mean streak a mile wide. It just doesn't pay.

(Since you made it this far, why not look at my resume or my blog?)

© June 2004 by J. K. Hoffman, All Rights Reserved