.: Could Time Warner be using Black Hat SEO to Help Search Rankings? - Rewritten
Category:Home / Internet Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
This is an exclusive story, researched and written by Eric Van Buskirk
Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc, who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner.
If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.
An image map tells the browser how to display an image. That is it’s only purpose. However, some of the pages on timeinc.net have links hidden to viewers next to the image maps. If one views the source of sub domains such as img.timeinc.net or i.timeinc.net, it is apparent there are four links to other TimeWarner properties:
<MAP NAME="brandsmap">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="0,0,69,27" HREF="http://www.time.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="71,0,141,27" HREF="http://www.money.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="144,0,213,27" HREF="http://people.aol.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="215,0,287,27" HREF="http://www.fortune.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="288,0,357,27" HREF="http://www.ew.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="360,0,429,27" HREF="http://www.parenting.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="432,0,501,27" HREF="http://www.instyle.com/">
<AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="504,0,573,27" HREF="http://www.onmagazine.com/">
</MAP>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Did MarkMonitor,inc, a huge company and a true leader in “defending brand names” online buy this domain, redirect the traffic to Time.com and find places to hide links to other Time websites out of pure altruism? It’s possible, but hard to believe. It should be noted that there are very important subscription pages on other sub domains of timeinc. This is not a domain that was cast away and has no value for linking.
If MarkMonitor purposefully hid links as it would seem, altruism towards Time seems an unlikely motive.
There is an increasingly fine line with what is acceptable and what is not for search engine optimization. At ClickStream, we believe the last group that needs to employ sneaky techniques to rank high are fortune 500 companies. In essence, these companies are the ones that have whole “rings” of websites. Yet, search engines will ban individuals that create multiple sites for the purpose of linking to each other and creating a link circle.
Time should be able to link in a circle with its various media companies. That may seem an unfair advantage, but they are separate entities that have the same parent company. What certainly seems unfair is for them to take further advantage of the circular linking by hiding links that only the search engines can see.
The recent storm has just passed over the BMW being removed from the Google search engine pages. BMW’s German site was found using “doorway pages” to build traffic and rank for their site. Google was able to document that BMW's German website used the search results to get a top ranking if people searched for "used car.” Searching for BMW Germany will bring no results. BMW.ge was well ranked but it dropped completely out of the Google index in a matter of 2 days.
Article keywords: SEO, search engine, links, ranking
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Eric Van Buskirk is the President of ClickStream, a Web design and development company that helps small to medium size businesses navigate the tricky waters of offshore web design and development. You may also want to visit Eric's own web site at Border Crossing.
.: New Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). How to Improve Search Engine Ranking
Powerful 4-step process to improve search engine ranking
2). How to Make Websites that Search Engines Love
How you can apply the fundamental basics to create a website that the search engines will love to spider.
3). Articles Are Seeds of Knowledge - A Biblical Look at Duplicate Content
Article Marketing compared to the successful distributon of the Christian Bible.
The Christian Bible is the Worlds most successful publication, with over 6 billion copies printed, similar to the total World Population.
4). Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide!
One of the fastest way to minimise your chances of web business success is to use a Content Management System (CMS).
5). Importance of Search Engine Marketing Firms
Literally speaking, there is no business in todays world of World Wide Web, which doesnt have online business. To reach ever growing population of internet all across the world it is mandatory to have a good online presence for any business. Moreover, meeting customers online is the cheapest possible way.
6). Internet Search Engines, Important Details Everybody Should Know
Internet Search Engines see something totally different than what we see when we look at a webpage. It is all in the webpage code. Have you ever seen webpage code? Place one of your webpages into your browser.
7). Why Websites Get Banned From Search Engines
These are methods and techniques that end up getting websites banned from Google and other search engines.
.: Top Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). SEO Contests: Good or Bad?
As a webmaster you probably already know what a SEO Contest is or you surely came across some of them or even participated in. Some of the major SEO contests organized are the v7ndotcom elursrebmem (by v7n.com), Ambachdotcom, Carcasherdotcom, and more recently the Cpayscom2 Online Casino where the winner gets $10,000 for ranking number one on MSN. Now the big question is whether it is good or bad to organize SEO Contests.
2). High Paying Lateral Keywords
If you run AdSense on your site you know that some words pay more than others, much more in fact. More than likely you have also learned that terms like "structured settlements" and "mesothelioma" can produce incredibly high PPC revenue, if they show up on your site at all. Unfortunately hundreds of thousands of other webmasters are "on" to this practice judging by the number of sites created regularly to capitalize on the phenomenom.
3). Is Your Website Invisible? The Google Sandbox Solution
What is the Google Sandbox? How Do You Know if You’re Stuck in the Sandbox? Does the Sandbox Really Exist, or is it Just the Google Algorithm? Why Do You Get Sandboxed? Is There a Way to Trick the Sandbox Filter?
4). An SEO Glossary - Common SEO Terms Defined
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become an essential weapon in the arsenal of every online business. Unfortunately, for most business owners and marketing managers (and even many webmasters), it's also somewhat of an enigma. This is partly due to the fact that it's such a new and rapidly changing field, and partly due to the fact that SEO practitioners tend to speak in a language all of their own which, without translation, is virtually impenetrable to the layperson.
5). Creating Sitemaps For Google, MSN AND Yahoo! - The Easy Way
If you own or maintain a website or intend to own one, wouldn’t it be great if you get frequent visitors who find satisfaction in getting exactly the information they need from your page?
While that satisfaction largely depends on the contents of your website, how you get to be accessed by website users is the most critical factor of website development.
6). How to Make a Sitemap For Your Website In Five Steps.
A website's sitemap can be compared to the table of contents of a book. The sitemap is important because it guides visitors to the parts of the website in which they are interested. The sitemap allows surfers to reach their destination without wasting time.
Sitemaps are also important from the point of view of search engines. If the search engine finds a sitemap it is much more likely that your page will be fully visited (spidered) and indexed; allowing web surfers to find your pages in their searches.
7). 301 Redirect - The SEO way to rename or move files or folders
In this article I will discuss page redirection techniques, what works and what to avoid.
What is page redirection and why would you want to use it?
Let’s say you rename a page on your website, for whatever reason. Perhaps you decided to revamp your entire naming convention, perhaps you decided to restructure your site and need to move pages into different folders, or you just realized that you are missing valuable keywords.