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It's hard to know if it's a real problem because when people are caught, it's hard to know if they're lying about how a competitor did it to screw them over. A

It's hard to know if it's a real problem because when people are caught, it's hard to know if they're lying about how a competitor did it to screw them over. Anyway, here's what someone should do: Buy a bunch of spam links on fivver for keyword "matt cutts" and point it to his domain www.mattcutts.com. (He's one of the few people on Earth with plausible deniability regarding Google manipulation.) If you successfully remove his domain from spot one on Google, this is potentially a real problem.

OGinparadise 14y ago
His name probably has immunity, just as most large brands do. Small/er sites are fried. Deep fried.
- RBerenguel 14y ago
  Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm. But of course, there's inertia. Big brands have a huge inertia: you can think of a big brand as having thousands or millions of small links that push its ranking up. That is very hard to overcome with these tactics, it's like stopping the sea with a teaspoon.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic nonsense as they lose visitors update after update.
    - codeka 14y ago
      Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?
      - arbuge 14y ago
        It makes sense there would be some kind of immunity. "Immunity" is probably the wrong word - I'd call it common sense. I would think Google has a simple lookup table which always places results like "bmw.com" #1 for query "bmw", "wikipedia.org" #1 for query "wikipedia", etc. irrespective of backlink profiles.
        RBerenguel 14y ago
        But there's no need to. Such big sources have huge anchor links with this tag, backlinks supporting them and whatnot. It should work organically without even needing a lookup table
      - OGinparadise 14y ago
        Do you have anything to back that claim up? Yeah, lots of things. Things I mentioned in the comment. You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation? T-R-U-T-H is a great motivator.
      - charliepinglass 14y ago
        Not the guy you're asking, but thought I'd answer. This may not be referring to true "immunity", but Matt Cutts did say this around the time Panda was first released: "And we actually came up with a classifier to say, okay, IRS or Wikipedia or New York Times is over on this side, and the low-quality sites are over on this side." http://www.wired.com/business/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/2/ http://www.wired.com/business/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-f... So there is something that is specifically recorded for well-known sites that likely prevents them from receiving the same treatment as other, smaller sites. And anyone who works in SEO can tell you that not since Vince has it been just about links.
        codeka 14y ago
        He's referring to a classifier that can tell the "quality" of a site, not the size of the brand.
  - Uchikoma 14y ago
    Exhibit A: How fast Digg came back into the index, a smaller site would never have come back as fast.
thejosh 14y ago
Difference between matt cutts and everyone else is that he probably has thousands of sites (maybe hundreds of thousands, plus Google links) already pointing to the site. Comparing a "big" site like that to a small business who might have $10-20 spent against them to negative SEO doesn't really compare. It's like comparing McDonalds to a local burger joint.

OGinparadise 14y ago

His name probably has immunity, just as most large brands do. Small/er sites are fried. Deep fried.

RBerenguel 14y ago
Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm. But of course, there's inertia. Big brands have a huge inertia: you can think of a big brand as having thousands or millions of small links that push its ranking up. That is very hard to overcome with these tactics, it's like stopping the sea with a teaspoon.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic nonsense as they lose visitors update after update.
  - codeka 14y ago
    Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?
    - arbuge 14y ago
      It makes sense there would be some kind of immunity. "Immunity" is probably the wrong word - I'd call it common sense. I would think Google has a simple lookup table which always places results like "bmw.com" #1 for query "bmw", "wikipedia.org" #1 for query "wikipedia", etc. irrespective of backlink profiles.
      - RBerenguel 14y ago
        But there's no need to. Such big sources have huge anchor links with this tag, backlinks supporting them and whatnot. It should work organically without even needing a lookup table
    - OGinparadise 14y ago
      Do you have anything to back that claim up? Yeah, lots of things. Things I mentioned in the comment. You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation? T-R-U-T-H is a great motivator.
    - charliepinglass 14y ago
      Not the guy you're asking, but thought I'd answer. This may not be referring to true "immunity", but Matt Cutts did say this around the time Panda was first released: "And we actually came up with a classifier to say, okay, IRS or Wikipedia or New York Times is over on this side, and the low-quality sites are over on this side." http://www.wired.com/business/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/2/ http://www.wired.com/business/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-f... So there is something that is specifically recorded for well-known sites that likely prevents them from receiving the same treatment as other, smaller sites. And anyone who works in SEO can tell you that not since Vince has it been just about links.
      - codeka 14y ago
        He's referring to a classifier that can tell the "quality" of a site, not the size of the brand.
- Uchikoma 14y ago
  Exhibit A: How fast Digg came back into the index, a smaller site would never have come back as fast.

thejosh 14y ago

Difference between matt cutts and everyone else is that he probably has thousands of sites (maybe hundreds of thousands, plus Google links) already pointing to the site. Comparing a "big" site like that to a small business who might have $10-20 spent against them to negative SEO doesn't really compare. It's like comparing McDonalds to a local burger joint.