[Sussex] Microsoft Accused of Black Hat SEO

[Angelo Servini]

I couldn't discover how to get the link, so I cut and pasted the text itself
from the WebProWorld News site.

Angelo.

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The use of doorway pages and cloaked websites is a popular search engine
"optimization" technique where users attempt to trick search engines by
creating pages designed solely for the purpose of gaining top SERP
placement. Search engines frown upon these techniques and will usually ban
sites employing these types of "black-hat" SEO methods.

Should Microsoft be banned because of search engine spam?

Thanks to a thread started by bhartzer on WebProWorld, the SEO world has
learned of an apparent attempt to spam the search engines conducted by none
other than Microsoft. According to bhartzer's post:

"...someone at Microsoft has created these spammy doorway pages so that they
rank well in Google... the pages in question rank at the top of the search
results for the particular terms that they're targeting. When a human visits
the page, the page loads a javascript file that redirects the visitor to
another web page. Specifically, this search at Google should bring up the
pages in question. When a search engine robot visits the page, the robot
doesn't execute the javascript code which includes the redirect - it just
sees the optimized nonsense text, which results in a top search engine
ranking."

Essentially, Microsoft has created a number of what appears to be doorway
pages that appear in SERPs when certain keywords are queried. Once one of
the links are clicked, visitors are redirected, via a JavaScript command, to
another Microsoft-created webpage that is stuffed full of potential
keywords.

As news of MS potentially spamming search engines spread, reactions on many
of the SEO forums was quick and in many cases, quite negative. Most were
wondering if Microsoft's site was going to be banned by search engines, or
are they (search engines) only going to ban the doorway pages, etc.

A couple of posts, however, looked past the potential ban that Microsoft may
or may not receive and noticed a potentially bigger problem. Bragadocchio, a
site administrator for the Cre8asite forums said, "This isn't so much about
doorway pages and javascript redirects as it is about a company purposefully
taking action that places its competitor in a very precarious position, and
can have a serious impact upon the services that the competitor provides."
Which is a valid point that doesn't yet have a valid explanation.

PhilC, a poster at WebProWorld, had this observation, "I looked at one of
the doorway pages and it's amazing that Microsoft have allowed it to happen
- even in a regional Microsoft." With this in mind, some questions need
answering. Is Microsoft purposely making doorway pages for search engine
ranking benefits? Or are they testing out their new search engine spider to
see how it handles spam? Since these doorway pages are indeed from
Microsoft's site, albeit a regional version, it's hard to believe that they
would go through all of this trouble (potential banning, bad publicity among
the SEO crowd) just to test-drive their spider; although, many disagree with
the testing theory. WPW MVP ronniethedodger had these thoughts concerning
the spider test:

"While you have an interesting thought there, I do not buy into the
reasoning that they are using them for testing. Some of those terms are
highly competitive and it is done with deliberate purpose."

Ronnie's thoughts seem to reflect the consensus. These doorway pages don't
appear to have been created to test search engines. They do, however, fit
the description of spam. Because this seems to be the case, many wondered
what the search engines, specifically Google, would do to Microsoft's site?
Will they ban the biggest software company ever? Or will they just remove
the pages that violated the rules?

WebProWorld moderator had some interesting thoughts concerning Microsoft
being removed from search engine indexes: "a search engine that doesn't have
Microsoft.com in their index is a second-rate search engine. They're just
too big." flood suggested that Google and others could simply remove the
offending pages and not ban Microsoft from their index.

Jill Whalen, posting at Cre8asite under the screen-name Advisor, also agreed
with pulling the doorway pages from the index. However, she is concerned by
Microsoft's actions:

"I can't imagine that Google would ever think for one minute that they
should not do anything about these pages just because they're Microsoft.
It's not like they have to dump all the normal MS pages, simply the doorway
pages like they would for any site.

This isn't a Google issue. The bigger issue (in my mind at least) is what
the heck is MS thinking?"

Chris Richardson + The WebProNews Team

===================================


Amazing innit? just when you think they couldn't get dirtier.

-- 
Angelo Servini
Programmer/Analyst
Claybrook Computing Ltd
Sutherland House
Russell Way
Crawley
West Sussex.  RH10 1UH
* 01293 604955
* 01293 604099 (Fax)
* angelo.servini at claybrook.co.uk



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