Comment Spam Ranking for Car Insurance
Google often uses Universal Search to add a few blog search results at the bottom of the main search results. As we saw during the Olympics more people than you might think are happy to click on the blog results even thought they are right at the bottom of the page.
Google seems to be doing something new today (or maybe I’ve just never noticed) and linking through to the blog comments rather than the actual blog posts. Because the blog comments were spam ones about car insurance they have been deleted by the blog owner and now the links just point to the main blog post which was nothing to do with car insurance.
I can see how linking to blog posts adds value to the search results but where is the value in linking to blog comments?
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Nice find. I used to work for an agency that spent £50k a day just on that keyword to appear at the top of the rankings.
I notice how you’re already displaying on the term even though you only posted less than hour ago. Let us know what the traffic surge is like.
I think perhaps if I’d have entitled the post “cheap car insurance” or “buy uk car insurance” then more people might have clicked on it. Having the word “spam” in the title isn’t exactly click friendly.
Good spot patrick, not really sure why G are doing this as the main info is usually in the post
Patrick,
Is it not possible that in these blogs with bad practice in the blog sidebar the comments are linked instead of blog post (with Get Recent Comments plugin e.g.) and this is the reason of the result?
£50K a day for SEO sounds a bit insane. Are you sure that is right?
I have a friend who spends £50K a day on AdWords PPC, but that represents about 15% of their daily web site income, so it works out well for them. You get a pretty attentive AdWords account manager at Google if you have a spend like that
Good spot. Any ideas on the volumes on Blog Search. Does it drive any amount of meaningful traffic?
Hi, good post. I have been thinking about this issue,so thanks for sharing. I will definitely be coming back to your blog.I’d have entitled the post “cheap car insurance†or “buy uk car insurance†then more people might have clicked on it. Having the word “spam†in the title isn’t exactly click friendly.