Well...what you've stated is true and blacklisting is to be avoided at all costs...that being said, there's a different perspective that can be taken on using the "Flash Forwarding" approach.
I believe you're writing from the perspective is that the method we're describing would utilize a page of content that is irrelevant to the actual site. If so, then, you're right...however... I do SEO for clients and think that the method can be used well, if the page that the bots are scanning, but the people can't read, does contain only relevant information. I do organic SEO as much as possible for clients as well as PPC, but it's difficult to work in a keyword/phrase the recommended 5-7 times on a page without offending the sensibilities of the reader. And, if you put every keyword/phrase 5-7 times for which you want to appear on search engines, you end up with really thick, mechanical copy. However, if you're writing copy only for the bots, they couldn't care less about whether or not the copy reads smoothly...they just check for the existence of keywords/phrases. So, the actual copy on the page that the person visiting the site doesn't read, but the bots do, can be heavy with repeated keywords/phrases that are completely relevant to the site content. I don't consider this approach unethical at all. I *would* consider any attempt to abuse keywords/phrases to bring traffic to a site which has nothing to do with the keywords/phrases a visitor actually uses to be completely unethical, whether the site had adult content or content about lawnmower maintenance. I don't see how Google could consider "Flash Forwarding" method to be inappropriate under any circumstances. It amounts to the same thing as having a Site Map on a page which simply contains links to various parts of the site based on keywords/phrases that searchers are using, such as: Hinesville Real Estate Hinesville GA Real Estate Hinesville Georgia Real Estate Fort Stewart Real Estate Fort Stewart GA Real Estate Fort Stewart Georgia Real Estate While such an approach may not seem to make a lot of sense to a viewer who is unaware of why these variations would be on a page, which is to appeal to bots, I don't see how it would be considered unethical to include those variations on site map. Any thoughts on this? Rick -----Original Message----- From: Scott Barnes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 6:08 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Search engine question This concerns me the most, you can trick the bots until you have a total monopoly on keywords. Yet, if someone reports you to google (and it happens) for hijacking traffic (only have to look at your competitors) and they then find you're hacking the bots, they blacklist you. Ontop of that, do you really want to trick your customers into going to a site thats of no relivance. What about if the flash swf fails or they can't load it? then what... I used to work for *one* of the worlds adult content providers, my job was to farm adult sites out to reap search engine / ecommerce rewards. Our strategy was like a solider based system, where we would create lots of this annoying crappy little websites all over the shop using geocities, anglefire and all that crap to link back to first tier domains, which were upsell sites. We would then populate these tier domains with more established content and so on until it went back to key / rich content based sites where the actual cc transactions would begin. I've seen some talented folk use tricks that have me giving mass-golf-claps as to how well they counter-acted it - yet i've seen yahoo / google pounce on them fast. Google prides itself on being a fairly clean / noiseless search engine so that if my kids search for "Dallas" they get results based on the city - not - DEBBIE DOES DALLAS FOR 98th time. Actualy relivant key words returning such results. any h00t be mindfull of who your traffic will be, and what risks you take in tricking bots. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:201109 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
