GoCompare penalised again

Yeah that does seem a bit unfortunate for them. I didn’t bother to go through their links but they don’t have millions like some other domains in that niche (moneyexpert).
I did notice they were using some slightly questionably techniques via this post: http://yossarian.co.uk/seo/gocompare-link-spamming-again/28
But to be fair that sounds less spammy than most other companies

I concur with the opinions expressed so far – I see no reason to penalise one brand over another – if bad practices are detectdthe penalties should be dished out across the board.

Steve

Oh dear GoCompare, does anyone know which agency they use at the moment?

I haven’t checked out their backlink profile, so I can’t say if the post at Redcardinal caused the ban, but if it did, I’d find it very strange. The tactic that they’re using isn’t against the guidelines imo, it’s a bit grayish at most. They’re not offering money, and they aren’t (very) deceptive. There are lots of others using way darker techniques, so if that post has caused the ban, I’d find it odd…

Im sorry but Google just seem to pick out sites at random.

Look at “poker” and pick out the top 10 sites, there pretty much all at it but there still there.
Theres no consistency whatsoever in their methods.

I agree with penalising sites that buy links but they need to be doing it more to put people off.

Hey Patrick, Did you notice that this post was #4

So it was my post that some of you are discussing. I don’t particularly care about the tactics being used by players in that niche. I do ‘get’ it, and have a very good knowledge of what goes on to rank there. My concern is purely for the site owners who fall for this publish the content, and then find themselves falling foul of Google. I’m one of the contributors on Google Support Group and you get sites arriving over there all the time after receiving penalties. Most warranted, but I’ve no doubt that human reviewers checking this type of content would conclude that they were looking at paid links. Would anyone here disagree with that?

I think people are focusing on GoCompare and forgetting about the collateral damage that these campaigns could cause to publishers who derive little or no benefit from that content.

Philippe I don’t think anybody will know why it happened until Matt Cutts speaks about it (if he does).

I wish Google was more even handed, but I know from speaking to people over there the issue is often scale. Obviously if everyone in a niche breaks the rules it’s hard for Google to take even action, and so they likely make examples from time to time. I’ve no idea why Google penalised GoCompare, but in my opinion this stuff is clearly outside TOS. Maybe Google want to send a message?

My view is that hosted content is a very serious threat – more difficult to detect algorithmically. And I’d say we’ll be seeing a lot more of these penalties when it’s clear-cut that sites are using these tactics. Maybe my post was the evidence needed. I don’t know. I’d care about the impact on GoCompare if it wasn’t for the disregard they showed to sites they get to carry this “free” content.

Like I said my concern here is for the small site owner who publishes this, gets a penalty, and then turns up asking why on Google’s support group. Do you think they’ll be able to badger an Adwords account exec to get something done? (not that that makes any difference in this case…)

Well noticed again Patrick. I’m glad in a sense that big companies like this are being penalised, they are blatantly ignoring the guidelines and buying links at will. I see the same in other niches such as ‘make money online’ where the number 1 site has just bought thousands of links and it annoys me in a way.

Why have they online picked on GoCompare? To be honest I have no idea, and it’s nothing more than a guess but maybe they are trying their ‘tweaks’ on a few sites at a time before they try to ‘doctor’ the results more heavily.

Cheers,
Glen

Google confirmed that JohnChow.com got a penalty and that site has exactly the same behaviour as this – doesn’t rank for it’s own name until you add the .com at the end.

No, can’t remember where it happened.

lol just read that eMail and the RedCardinal post – could someone please tell me where GoCompare offer to part with money in exchange for putting a link in an article THEY supply?

Ultimately the eMail is completely genuine – providing unique valuable additions to another website is perfectly legit, and what is wrong exactly with placing a link back to an equally relevant website that may also be of value to the visitor reading the article?

Richard mentions above:
“My concern is purely for the site owners who fall for this publish the content, and then find themselves falling foul of Google….you get sites arriving over there all the time after receiving penalties. I’ve no doubt that human reviewers …would conclude that they were looking at paid links”

(I’ve posted a long response with new info re Vodafone on Richards’ own blog)

Could Richard / anyone else please explain to me how a relevant content-rich 3rd party site could possibly “fall foul of Google or receive a penalty” for having a high
quality article with good content on their site containing a keyword-rich link to a well-known site?

How about if the link in the content didn’t have a keyword-rich link but was done instead to improve the deep link ratio?

“I’d say we’ll be seeing a lot more of these penalties when it’s clear-cut that sites are using these tactics”

That’s the whole point. If done well, this tactic is 100% absolutely not “clear-cut”. It is unprovable that it’s been done for SEO manipulation purposes – unlike paid footer links for instance….

John Ring

What ever the system is they use to send those automated emails it’s either an agencies in house software or it’s somthing you can buy off the shelf.

I managed to find the same email template being used for link request for broadband-expert.co.uk:

Page: http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk/bbexpert/broadband-expert-link-partners.html
Your Access Code: 20090316112416UOSEC

@Dan
Yeah I have been seeing lots of them access code style emails. Probably getting a few per day from various sites. Quite a few well known sites too

Patrick, yesterday on Twitter you said:

“GoCompare is going to suffer much more this year than last year – Google allows trademark bidding now so leakage will be huge.”

I think you’ll find that GoCompare didn’t have their brand terms trademarked at the time they were penalised last year, so their position is unchanged.

It’s irresponsible to put information out there as if it were fact when in reality it clearly isn’t. Lack of research is the quick way to lack of credibility!

King.

interesting stuff there… and you are now showing no1 for gocompare!
keep up the good work

Looks like GoCompare are back for brand terms

NEWSFLASH

As of just before 10AM GMT this morning, GoCompare has begun to re-appear at #1 in the Google SERPs for its brand name. It appears to be ranking for some other terms as well. This isn’t totally consistent as yet because it takes a while to replicate around data centres so you may see it jump in and out of the results. Given that the drop in rankings for this site originally sparked this debate, I thought you would appreciate the update.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&num=100&q=go+compare&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB

Best regards – Simon :-)
Simon Snelling BSc(Hons) MBCS CEng CITP
Partner and Co-Founder
Content Now LLP

So unless it can be proved that anything has actually changed at GoCompare to return their brand ranking back to normal, I’d say there’s no reason to assume this was a penalty at all, wouldn’t you agree?

Seeing GoCompare at 16th for “car insurance” too. Can I just point you all back to the first sentence of my first comment ;)

I get dozens of emails every week asking me to place an article on my sites with a link in because it’ll do my site good. Well I don’t bother replying to them as 99% of them are clearly so badly matched content wise it would be madness!
There are a few which would probably make good content matching but they’re written in the very same style requiring me to go to a page and log in and jump through some hoops and I just don’t have the time or inclination.

apologies for the lighthearted approach – perhaps they new what TV advertising campaign was coming?

great article im getting sick of go compare