Search Engine Traffic Scam?

[Dzinerbear]

Hey all,

I could use some advice about a situation that's just popped up.

I've discovered that a guy that I've been trying to work with on a reciprocal arrangement is pulling some weird stuff.

I was in Google today and I did an allinurl:www.universal-bear.com to see if some new pages I've putting up have been indexed.

I see this there as well: http://www.hairystudsvideo.com/hairy...ersal-bear-com For some reason the URL isn't displaying properly here: the /hairy/hairy/ is directly followed by www-universal-bear-com


When you click the link, you go to his site's entry page, not a page about Universal Bear. Well actually, there's not even a page in that URL, it's just a directory.

All of this leads me to believe the guy is just trying to scam traffic from people typing Universal Bear into Google. Am I off base?

Is this likely to cause me any problems with Google?

I've asked him to stop, but obviously I'm at his mercy.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Opinions?
Dzinerbear

[Lee]

Well if this does become an issue for you (and i dont see why it should so far as the SE's go) ever hear the saying 'paybacks a mother fucker' ?

Last time i looked Paypal wasnt accepting payments for 'adult' goods and services

Regards,

Lee

[BDBionic]

he's using a combination of CSS and header (h tag) effects to have literally hundreds of "links"... "hidden" on that page. literally... hundreeeeeeeedddddddddsssssssss. of all kiiiiiiiiinds of sites. Yours included.

And the intent is to get search engine traffic off of their respective domain name searches.

Yours included.

But it shouldn't really reach the point where he outranks you.

But yes, the intent definitely is to try and get SE traffic off of searches run for other peoples' domain names.

Whereas it is illegal to use trademarked terms in metatags and code in an effort to capitalize off of that other company's success/brand/name it's a difficult thing to address, especially if you both have a business relationship and his intent can't be necessarily verified. And of course that's assuming you have the term trademarked.

But I'm gettin' ahead of myself.
To answer the original question... yes. He's tryin' to get your SE traffic.

[Dzinerbear]

Thanks guys.

And thanks BD. Well, we don't have a business relationship yet. He was going to give me some content and I was going to promote his site on mine. Thankfully, we were still in the talking stages and nothing was solidified.

What a world.

Thanks guys
Michael

[Chilihost]

sounds like we are both being hit with the same type of thing! Its the reason I started my thread about how a s.e. sees a webpage.

stoopid google! I hope they learn and fix their algorythm to catch buggers like these guys.


cheers,
Luke

[Dzinerbear]

Oh well, I guess we can take it as a compliment that we're both good at what we do. Still, I feel violated and so powerless. Oh well, I've learned that the scammers always get caught in the end.

Sheez
Dzinerbear