I was shocked today to see how incredibly effective parasite hosting has become. If you're not familiar with the concept, parasite hosting refers to a spammer's creation of a keyword targeted page on a strong, legitimate domain. The idea here is that if they can control that page's content, they can rank for searches and re-direct the traffic to whatever site/page they choose. For example, I just ran a search for "buy viagra" at Google:
There are 8/10 results that are hosted on university web pages and re-direct visitors to sites selling Viagra. What's nice is that you get a relatively good user experience - those pages you reach do sell Viagra (though I've not tried to buy and so can't speculate on how the customer service might be). What's interesting is the ability of those parasite pages to rank. Try searches like "cheap cialis" or "generic celebrex" and you'll see the same thing.
Parasite hosting isn't a completely new tactic, but it takes advantage of one of Google's favoritism for old, strong domains. It's one great example of how subject-specific popularity really is taking a backseat to domain trust. Ironically, Google's move to more trusted domains ranking content well is a response to spammers gaming subject-focused popularity algos several years ago and I'm guessing the pendulum will continue to swing.
As a generally white-hat marketer, how does this information benefit you?
It provides strategy. It tells you that in the current SEO world, you've got two choices - become an authority domain with the power to rank for a multitude of searches OR play the parasite hosting game legitimately and buy/rent space on domains to help you accomplish you ranking goals. We've been dipping our toes in both sides of this equation for a while and my personal strong preference is to build an authority yourself and owe your success to no one. However, we've bought "full-page" style ads on sites for clients before and probably will in the future - it's not a tactic to rule out.
Personally, search spam fascinates me and I have a feeling that if I knew a lot more about it, I'd be an even better white hat.
BTW - As I was doing some searches to try and find more good examples, I came across this search - mesothelioma attorney new york - which I remembered used to have tons of good spam. At first I thought the first result was just doing a great job, but when I ran a link search and looked deeper, I saw a phenomenal system of link farms, playing like it's 2003 (NOTE: I'm not accusing them of neccessarily buying those links, as they could be from a competitor trying to make them take a hit). Also, you gotta love this. Classic.
p.s. Matt & Vanessa & Aaron & Greg (actually, Greg's probably reading more Polish blogs these days) - Avert your eyes! I don't want to get any of these guys in trouble just because they happened to be ranking well when I was doing searches :)
For the record, Forbes definitely knows the pages are there. And it's been going on for quite awhile.
https://google.webguerrilla.com/forbes-handjob/
(from rand - lived up that link for you, Greg)
Best. Title. Ever.
Great title except for the "Now" part. This has been an issue for quite some time. I mentioned this here earlier this year, but have been seeing this for some time.
Also, I think the title should specify "Google" because Yahoo isn't having the same level of issues with parasite hosting and it seems to be more of a Google problem.
It would be even better if you housed that article on the Forbes site.
I see a few paid links in there, but I wouldn't want what is being seen there to be confused with normal link buys through one of the larger link networks.
That is one huge, self generated, link farm. If you dig deep you will find traces that they are all owned by the person pushing the main domain up. They aren't bought.
Jeremy, great catch - it's amazing that the whole network was literally built by that one company for their own purposes. Very impressive. It's either that or someone really wants to get them banned :)
Gotta love it - I admire that kind of dedication but hey - It is as a result of the weighting Google places on links in
Given Google's war against spam, I can't believe that they still lend such credit to all academic sites when every idiot on campus can acquire a .edu/~username type page. Yes, some of these pages are run by professors and TAs who know their subject matter and are posting good content. Many are sophomore English project throwbacks to 1998. Others are the spam described above.
Come on, Google. You know this!
The problem is that the search reps keep telling us that content relevance is key, but that's completely subverted if they grant authority on a domain-wide basis. Why should we bother improving our content when so many people are still gaming the system? It's a bad message, frankly.
Yes, it frustrates me a lot and makes me wonder what to believe.
Frustrating though it may be, one can easily see the dilemma. In a university with thousands of students, professors, administrators, etc. creating pages, it is, to say the least, difficult to determine what the 'subject specific' material would be. So granting a .edu leeway in subject matter made sense on the surface.
But, of course, opportunity always finds a path. I wonder how many student pages with spam results are tuition-and-living-expenses-paying projects for the student/owner and how many are merely rented space, thereby providing a few beers for said students.
I expect google is grappling with the concept of domain-wide authority blessings as we type.
I wonder the same thing. Clearly not all .edu pages are of the same quality and should not be trusted equally. You could easily argue that not all educational institutions should be trusted equally.
Also how much should you trust a link to a site about particle physics on a page from the English dept or a link to a site about Dostievsy from the Physics dept.
Why not use more topical authority instead of general domain authority?
Very nice post.
Simply do a search for "reqdpost.htm" and you'll come across a wealth of old .edu domains using this Frontpage discussion boards script.
Check out this page which is functional-
https://orgs.indianatech.edu/bsa/reqdpost.htm
Make a post, then add comments to your post, and you've got yourself an instant spamlink from an established .EDU domain. GENIUS!
Join the thousands of others who have followed my advice at https://orgs.indianatech.edu/bsa/reqdtoc.htm
Oh you better believe that parasite hosting works. What interests me though, is not the fact within itself, but more the content-related "wiki" effect side.
It's simple and obvious proof that not only does content on the page matter, but that it doesn't matter too much in relation to the overall theme of the site. Hence the massive proliference of Wikipedia results in SERPs these days.
Google should just remove value for all URLs that contain: _reqdis
I remember I used to create automated script that returned google results for popular shoutbox scripts and post to them.
Ahhh, the good ole blackhat days before I became a corporate yuppie.
And the problem isn't only with Google. Yahoo seems to have adapted global domain authority.
Basketball Picks
I have built some great relationships with webmasters by searching for hacked meta descriptions and letting them know. Even if it doesn't lead to a link it generates good feeling about you and your brand.
Yes, it truly is amazing that it's Google in the year 2007 and we are still seeing results like this. I wonder if those university sites will lose any trust for this. I hope my alma mater is not a victim :)
intereting article !!
i think we should try to authority domain ...
I have noticed a bunch of Squidoo lenses being used this way... Not sure if anyone else has seen this or not.
Is this site involved:
https://www.iwebtool.com/link_market/view/2778/
It seems they are selling a link from miami.edu which I find very unlikely. Are there legitimate edu sites selling links, or should they all be avoided as spam and black-hat parasite schemes?
I also noticed an .edu site on your partner Text-Link Brokers site. Are those legitimate. I'm confused as to which are real and which are being hijacked.
Depends on what you call "real".
Yes, the pages are real, no they are not authorized by management, yes they are student pages, no they are used for spam.
Do they work?
YES, point some extra links at the newly bought student .edu pages and the authorithy of your site goes up, rankings improve, no more supplementals, etc.
Only some domains are notorious for delivering spam. Don't remember all of them but miami.edu was on the list. The list came from a group of researchers at MSN investigating spam. Have been trying to find the link for the last 15 min, but alas, can't find it anymore...
So I wouldn't buy a link from miami.edu, but in general I have been very happy with .edu pages!
Damn, my memory is not what it used to be...
The domain miami.edu isn't even on the list!
Anyway, here is the link to the .pdf file https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~hchen/paper/www07.pdf
They can't deal with the spam lol, makes me lol
But don't you still have to send links to your parasite page to get it ranked?
https://www.metacafe.com/watch/2579262/west_coast_vinyl/
yes of course
yap, you have to. but as these parasite sites tend to be authoritive, the links generate a better impact on the ranking.
Yer you only need a few links to rank it due to the domain's strength. It looks like a lot of it has been cleared up now. Clicking on Rands link shows 1/10 .edu sites...but there are still a couple of sites there that look fishy. 'viagra' is such a great search term to explore!
I heard long time ago, google already punished websites with 302 redirect.
Do most universities offer
students/alumni .edu sub domains?
At mine its offered by the different colleges, so for example the CS department lets every student have one, but not many of the other colleges do. But mine is a private university, perhaps state U's are more free with their URLS?
Very interesting. I wasn't aware that parasite hosting was that prevelent. It's good to know the influence of both sides of the force. Even the most white hatter should understand the black hat side. Something I am personally trying to learn and understand...but not fully utilize.
Thanks TF. I read the pdf and found it very informative, although much of it affects my sites, and the lack of a solution despite all the research is frustrating.
Are we basically saying that though these edu sites are likely spam, the results are beneficial regardless?
Great observation Rand. I noticed that some of those top-ranked pages have been taken down since your post.
Another type of parasite hosting that I've heard of: Unethical web hosting companies that create subdomains on clients' sites and fill them up with spammy pages of sold links. I've heard of a lot of stories of this happening with one particular host.
Wow, I need to go back to ASU
Playing like it's 2003... ah, those were the days... I think... I can hardly remember them for the caffene-haze I was in.. and I was 4 years younger which is a good thing...
*winks*
Funny thing is I just told someone how I would game their site if they went wiki (which she was all keen to do) - I can't believe how companies leave their systems open *still*
But buying links/ads is nothing new - it's been done before and I really don't see the issue with it. If someone has an authority site/magazine why should they not sell ad space?
Once too much is sold and readership plumits, they'll know to pull it back. If they have a non-spammy list they may even be able to win back lost readers. If not, they sink from being too greedy or become a fashion magazine ;)
I don't see anything wrong with buying and selling links/ads either. What's the difference between that and selling ad space in a magazine or a commercial on the Super Bowl. If anything it's another way where search marketing is getting closer to offline marketing.
I do think Google places a little too much emphasis on authority though.
I agree on the link authority issue - too much weight.
Judith is carrying around too much weight too but she can drop a few pounds if she stops eating doughnuts for brekkie (*giggles*)
mmmmm....donuts. d'oh.
it is easier to buy or rens space on a authority domain and be a spammer, than to build authority... if you want the results fast!
But is even easier to have an adwords account!
"But is even easier to have an adwords account!"
But nowhere near as effective or profitable...
This highlights a couple of very interesting effects - both the power of a mighty domain and the continuing ownership of many big money searches by the black hats.
A bit like your 'online poker' ranking challenge Rand - 'buy viagra' would be a similar level of challenge to a white hat, I would have thought...
I always find it amusing that none of us black hats ever try and use white hat stuff to rank for the normally black hat terms. I don't know whether it's because we just find it easier (probably) or don't think white hat could work... It'd be interesting to poll.
Personally, I don't because it's quicker to do black hat for that kinda stuff. I just can't be arsed with setting up a white hat site for those kinds of things.
But don't you feel bad explaining what you do to your mum?
:)
Nah, I just tell her I play with websites :)
That sounds vaguely pornographic
So so wrong. On so many levels
How much has somebody paid for that Forbes page? And why would Forbes be selling pages on their site? Do they normally do this?
They haven't. It's been put up without them knowing.
They would sell adverts - why not pages on their site - like full page ads...?
Somehow I can't see them doing this intentionally. It'd be too much of a reputation risk. It's one thing to advertise Nike or Sony or whatever, it's quite another to advertise any PPC (pills, porn and casinos) style stuff.
Well, to be fair the Forbes page is a law firm ad and not a PPC but it is pretty close to the same thing. I can assure you that Forbes is aware of it and are being paid for it.
I don't understand. How can someone put up a page on their site and they not know about it? Do you mean that the webmaster is doing this on the side w/o the owners knowing?
There's several ways to do it, but no, I doubt it's being done by a sneaky webmaster on the side. It's more likely to be an advanced form of 302 hijack, or something similar.
Does this mean we can use myspace as parasite hosting as that's pretty authoritative!? lol
Yep, seems like everyone is doing it. They don't have the greatest authority due to the way their links are structured with the long infested URLs, but yes, "in theory" this works.
I would like to know more about the Forbes page. Did they just pay Forbes for that page?
Very interesting.
David,
The Forbes page is a very old phenomenon. For a while it worked quite well in a variety of sectors, but then began to lose trust temporarily -- I saw an uptick in the effectiveness of presell pages and hosted spam around the time of the googlebombing "fix".
"Buy viagra" is one of the serps I keep an eye on too, due to the free-for-all that it generally is; one can learn a lot about where search has been and where it is going by looking at such result sets.
Rand - you should title this post
Acquire your own linkfarm for $7000 a year
this would be the cost of tuition at a public university.
Also, think about nofollowing that forbes link, no reason to give them more link weight.
Hmmm. That's cheap tuition and it's still on the pricey side. Perhaps universities could offer their graduates personal pages as well. They should. It would improve student loan pay-back rates.
From my own experience, I have used this strategy on my own webpages to test products. Having a reputable domain linked to a page not only helps your SEO in the long run, but I find that it provides me with lower bid rates on Google Adwords as well. Still, I like to keep things white-hat and spamming is not my thing. But if you have well-established domains, you might as well use it.
I've noticed that the vast majority of my blog spammers are posting parasitic links, usually on college/university student forums or personal pages. It also makes it hard to report or retaliate against them, because you'd effectively be punishing an innocent bystander (if, for example, I auto-initiated a remote DoS attack on their IP, which, of course, I would never do).
It looks that universities actually do provide something of value, its about time I logged back into my uni accounts and create some pages. No reason not to use the services I have already paid hard earned cash for right?
So you CAN get a page as a grad! Too easy - the days of domain-wide authority blessing are numbered.
Remembering the days where I would look for PR6+ Guestbooks for link drops...nice:.)
Time to go befriend some college kids...