Hi Everyone,
What does everyone do about your online competitors that are slowly encroaching on your internet space and taking away your traffic ... what are somethings as a SEO you do to help better your site(s) in search results ... any advice or tips would be great. Thanks
What To Do About Competitors Encroaching On Your Space .....
Started by MainStreet228, Apr 16 2011 05:01 PM
7 replies to this topic
#2
EGOL
-
- Moderators
-
- 4603 posts
Eyes Like Hawk Moderator
Posted 16 April 2011 - 06:21 PM
I try to do battle with content.....
For an information site I would improve the content on the pages that are being defeated. Produce content that is best-on-the-web for your topic and that can attract links that will lift you in the rankings. Promote those pages to all relevant traffic on your site with the hope of collecting some links, "likes", tweets, etc.
For a retail site... I would create useful and informative content that is best-on-the-web related to my product pages that are being defeated and link to those product pages from that content. The hope is that your great content will attract links, "likes", tweets, etc. Also, your page of useful and information might pull in some traffic and that traffic might follow the link to your sales page.
If your content is really good it might be successful on sites such as digg, stumbleupon, slashdot or reddit. That can earn links and lots of visitors.
You can also try to recruit links to your best content from sites that already link out to great content in your niche.
For especially valuable turf, and where my site is strong enough, I don't hesitate to create two or three pages that compete for the same keyword. If you can get one of your pages to #1 and a second page to #10 then the second page will be listed beneath your first page and you can have #1 and #2 for that keyword. I have seen Google award up to four positions to a website for a single keyword. That can really push your competitors down below the fold.
For an information site I would improve the content on the pages that are being defeated. Produce content that is best-on-the-web for your topic and that can attract links that will lift you in the rankings. Promote those pages to all relevant traffic on your site with the hope of collecting some links, "likes", tweets, etc.
For a retail site... I would create useful and informative content that is best-on-the-web related to my product pages that are being defeated and link to those product pages from that content. The hope is that your great content will attract links, "likes", tweets, etc. Also, your page of useful and information might pull in some traffic and that traffic might follow the link to your sales page.
If your content is really good it might be successful on sites such as digg, stumbleupon, slashdot or reddit. That can earn links and lots of visitors.
You can also try to recruit links to your best content from sites that already link out to great content in your niche.
For especially valuable turf, and where my site is strong enough, I don't hesitate to create two or three pages that compete for the same keyword. If you can get one of your pages to #1 and a second page to #10 then the second page will be listed beneath your first page and you can have #1 and #2 for that keyword. I have seen Google award up to four positions to a website for a single keyword. That can really push your competitors down below the fold.
Edited by EGOL, 16 April 2011 - 07:56 PM.
#3
MainStreet228
-
- Members
- 468 posts
Mach 1 Member
Posted 17 April 2011 - 12:05 PM
Thanks Egol,
I'm just dealing with a lot of spam sites. Sites that have the same content on each page but they change a few words around and make a different page. It's very frustrating. I'll try what you said and see how it goes. Thanks again.
I'm just dealing with a lot of spam sites. Sites that have the same content on each page but they change a few words around and make a different page. It's very frustrating. I'll try what you said and see how it goes. Thanks again.
#5
iamlost
-
- Admin - Top Level
-
- 4049 posts
The Wind Master
Posted 17 April 2011 - 02:33 PM
Because scraper sites are constantly 'updating' they tend to see a higher crawl rate than most so what they have often gets indexed ahead of the original. Long standing unmitigated pita Google behaviour.
Note: what works best for long established or large sites may not work as well with young or small sites.
While I agree with EGOL: "battle with content", in some niches and with some scrapers behaviourial and technical changes on your part may be beneficial.
First: many/most scrapers take the easy route - they scrape your RSS feed. Some defences include:
* delay RSS publishing until after G has crawled the new page.
* only publish a partial RSS feed.
* combine the above: partial feed until G has crawled and then go to full feed if that is your preference.
Second: many/most scrapers do not always cleanse scraped links.
* add to RSS feed (footer is common) something such as: 'This is a post from [link to your site, perhaps the about page, with your name as anchor text], [link to your home page with domain name as anchor text].
Note: thanks to Joost de Valk from whom I learned this one.
* add copyright notice to RSS Feed, I like two of them: one plain text, one linked in different sections of the feed.
* use only absolute URLs, never relative URLs, so that links will work wherever they are published. One can get a surprising number of usually crappy backlinks courtesy of scrapers.
Third: as an increasing number of scrapers are 'reformulating, i.e. spinning, scraped content it can be impossible to prove copyright infringement.
Note: can you say content farm?
* add one or more tags to all content (sorry, but I will not be more specific, it is a war out there) that identifies it as yours.
Note: not all types of tags survive all types of cleansing, reformulating.
Fourth: build bot defences in depth including reverse DNS and blocking. Bouncing bots before they can scrape is a good thing.
Note: the second most common scraper source, after RSS feeds, is the Google public cache of your pages. You may want to consider adding meta noarchive to your pages.
Fifth: attack:
* create boilerplate templates for demanding site owners or hosts remove infringing content, auto-fill and email; whois is a great resource.
* for egregious or repeat offenders DMCA to hosts and SEs.
* if (almost always) the scraper site is showing AdSense one can complain through them, How do I make a complaint to Adsense regarding a scraper blog
There is no one answer that is best for everyone's situation, temperament or capabilities. However, one doesn't have to simply lay there and be trampled.
There is a new danger::opportunity out there as well: curation sites. At best they work much as a directory if usually at a more granular level, at worst they are neo-link farms.
Note: what works best for long established or large sites may not work as well with young or small sites.
While I agree with EGOL: "battle with content", in some niches and with some scrapers behaviourial and technical changes on your part may be beneficial.
First: many/most scrapers take the easy route - they scrape your RSS feed. Some defences include:
* delay RSS publishing until after G has crawled the new page.
* only publish a partial RSS feed.
* combine the above: partial feed until G has crawled and then go to full feed if that is your preference.
Second: many/most scrapers do not always cleanse scraped links.
* add to RSS feed (footer is common) something such as: 'This is a post from [link to your site, perhaps the about page, with your name as anchor text], [link to your home page with domain name as anchor text].
Note: thanks to Joost de Valk from whom I learned this one.
* add copyright notice to RSS Feed, I like two of them: one plain text, one linked in different sections of the feed.
* use only absolute URLs, never relative URLs, so that links will work wherever they are published. One can get a surprising number of usually crappy backlinks courtesy of scrapers.
Third: as an increasing number of scrapers are 'reformulating, i.e. spinning, scraped content it can be impossible to prove copyright infringement.
Note: can you say content farm?
* add one or more tags to all content (sorry, but I will not be more specific, it is a war out there) that identifies it as yours.
Note: not all types of tags survive all types of cleansing, reformulating.
Fourth: build bot defences in depth including reverse DNS and blocking. Bouncing bots before they can scrape is a good thing.
Note: the second most common scraper source, after RSS feeds, is the Google public cache of your pages. You may want to consider adding meta noarchive to your pages.
Fifth: attack:
* create boilerplate templates for demanding site owners or hosts remove infringing content, auto-fill and email; whois is a great resource.
* for egregious or repeat offenders DMCA to hosts and SEs.
* if (almost always) the scraper site is showing AdSense one can complain through them, How do I make a complaint to Adsense regarding a scraper blog
There is no one answer that is best for everyone's situation, temperament or capabilities. However, one doesn't have to simply lay there and be trampled.
There is a new danger::opportunity out there as well: curation sites. At best they work much as a directory if usually at a more granular level, at worst they are neo-link farms.
Edited by iamlost, 17 April 2011 - 02:37 PM.
Reply to this topic
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
