SEO Footprints
June 27, 2008 By: Justin | 9 commentsIf you’re serious about SEO, Internet Marketing, or Making Money Online; you need to spend some time learning about footprints, how to not leave them, and how to detect them. I’m making this post because recently I discovered someone’s entire network by discovering a couple of footprints they were leaving. And since I don’t like the person, I documented the entire network, made a list of the sites, noted the search I used to find them, and sent it on to Google =P I’m not some almighty white hat, but it pays to be smart and hide your tracks (especially if you’re in an ultra competative niche or walk around ticking people off).
What Is A Footprint?
An online footprint is the imprint you leave on the internet that can be used to trace your activity through various sites. It can be used to locate multiple accounts and multiple sites you own. If you’re an SEO, this is important. A footprint is an obvious sign of search engine manipulation and can be used to by Google or competition to rip apart your network.
So How Are Footprints Created?
Basically, not enough variety. No creativity. Being lazy.
Do you use the same theme on several sites you own? Do you have the same link in the footer on every site? Use the same anchor text or wording on every site? Do you get links in the same places for all of your sites? All of your sites on the same server? All sites have open whois?
Starting to get the point? All of that kind of stuff can be detected by a smart SEO. I backtrack your links and notice you’re getting sitewide links on 20 different sites with the SAME anchor text. I check them out and they’re all BANS or all wordpress or all directories. A quick IP check shows that they’re on the same server. I check out the whois and they have the same owner … And I’ve busted their network. I look for a pattern they use, then do a search on that pattern. If I can do this, you can bet Google can too, especially if they’re tipped off.
How Can You Find Footprints?
Lets say you’re interested in Make Money Online and want to research your competition.
Find You Competition’s Links
Go to Yahoo
linkdomain:site.com -site:site.com
Find Backlinks for Given Keyword
linkdomain:site.com “make money online” -site:site.com
Find Backlinks from Footprinted Software
linkdomain:site.com “Powered by Build A Niche Store” -site:site.com
Find Backlinks from .info Domains
linkdomain:site.com +site:.info -site:.com -site:site.com
Find Backlinks from .info with Keyword
linkdomain:site.com “make money online” +site:.info -site:.com -site:site.com
Find Back Links From .info with Footprinted Software
linkdomain:site.com “Powered by Build A Niche Store” +site:.info -site:.com -site:site.com
So, those are just a couple of searches that can be used to locate and track your competition’s footprint. You can use a variety of combinations and keywords to location various sites your competition is using to get links.
What Are You Looking For?
All of the above searches return hundreds of links, but what are you looking for. You’re looking for links that do not appear natural. These may be footer or sidebar links. These may be tons of links with the same anchor text. This could be a lack of variation in themes. Once you find this, you can check out the IP and whois information to determine the owner.
Once you’ve found a few footprints your competition uses, you can locate sites on their network. Then continue the process on their network sites to find even more sites. They might be link laundering and layering their network sites to hide them. Its possible to work your way back pretty far if they don’t make effort to mask their footprint.
I’ll make another post soon with ways to hide you footprint on the internet.
Filed Under Link Building, Online Success, SEO, Search Engines, Sneaky |
Tagged With footprint, link laundering, link spam, linkfarm, search spam, SEO
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To be honest, surely it’s a little harsh? Or is SEO as competitive as it sounds?
Well, I know it’s competitive, but I didn’t realize people would go to such lengths, I guess is what I am saying.
Yeah, It was a little harsh to report them. I normally wouldn’t unless their shady tactics were preventing my site from ranking.
In this case, it was mainly a person thing.
Part of out ranking other sites though is studying their links. Its important to know if you’re up against 100% legit site or someone who is manipulating their own links.
How about the wordpress themes that we creating for distributed freely? I mean the reason for getting more backlinks from it?
Yeah, I think releasing your own theme is fine. Google is use to seeing stuff like that. They can also check the whois and ip information to see that the site is on another server with the same owner. Its just when people set up 30 blogs of their own, for the purpose of manipulating links.
I’m not saying blog farm is “bad”, just showing ways to find them.
Hi Justin,
I followed your methods above and found for a keyword I am targeting at, the no.1 ranked website had links to several websites where there are only links to more sites.
What are these websites and how did the sites get listed on them?
Btw, the site I invited you to visit on the other post I had to do a major overhaul. The plugin I used was creating dofollow links. Also, once I deleted the expired auction posts google couldn’t find them and I had many 404s error…this will affect SERP?
This could effect serps. One way to prevent this is to 301 the URL to the homepage when your delete a page. 301 redirects pass link juice, but the link juice of a delete page is kind of lost. You’ll lose any links pointing to it.
There are some redirection plugins for wordpress that will 301 and URL changes or 404’s. If you can’t find one, let me know, and I’ll hunt it down.
Hi Justin,
Thanks for the kind offer of help. I have over a 1000s 404s’ and my site is now buried in google’s serp..it is also an aged domain and there were some previous urls (but not many)
Now there are visitors only from Yahoo and MSN.
I had downloaded the dead links, and uploaded them to my .htaccess and tested that the 301s redirection was working.
I also noticed that the no. of 404s from webmaster tools had decreased a little and I hope this means I am doing it right.
Thanks again.
Btw, I think I will never reveal my sites again as people just go copying and guess what,sometimes it’s the people who you think you can trust.
I had the idea that it was stupid to reveal but I did anyway to some people I fee I can trust. But guess where it went eventually….
how about using SEO elite. DOesn’t it do all the job you mentioned here, spying on your competition?