Our web site designer claims that he creates “replicated spider page web sites” to encourage search engines to find us and optimize placement. He has made a list of 4000 key phrases in the style of “Springfield homes”. I’m wondering just how this works and how useful this scheme is. Anyone have a clue to what a “spider page” really is?
I know how search engines “spider” sites, following links, etc. and have a rough idea of how Google does page ranking. But I’m wondering if the monthly fee we pay this dude ($400) is worth it.
We think that these pages are a replication of ones already on our web site (he’s posted them on another domain as well) and that only search engines see this. So if we discontinued his services, wouldn’t search engines still index our site anyway? We’re not sure why these extra pages are an advantage.
Any suggestions on the most cost-effective way to drive users to our web site thru search engines? Are we being fed a line of bull to drive up his price?
Almost certainly. These kind of shenanigans occasionally worked in the past, but the major indexers, and Google especially, frown on this behavior and have very smart algorithms for detecting link farms and punishing your page rank in return.
If that $400 per month is for SEO then yes, you are paying through the nose. There’s a ton of information out there on SEO, the implementation of most of which will not (or should not) cost you a dime.
The pages actually have some useful information (geographic descriptions of nearby areas, composition of towns), but the designer says “no one will read them, they’re just for the search engines.” Sounds like a link farm, eh?
I’m a web designer and have done TONS of research on search engine optimization and friedo is exactly right. This is a scummy technique and highly frowned upon, and can actually lower your rankings when Google red-flags you due to this. The best SEO techniques are all above-board… this is scammy, and I cannot believe you’re paying him $400 a month!!!
I’ve heard many tales of Google completely removing sites from its search results due to techniques like this.
Interestingly, I have done some random searches – pretending to be a typical user, putting typical search terms into google – and while our firm doesn’t come up at the top of the first 20 links, it doesn’t come off badly, either, especially considering our relatively small company size compared to competitors.
However, we have no way of knowing where we would have ranked if no special effort had been made. I have personal experience with sites I once designed, and those with meaty, useful data seemed to float to the top of search listings without any special effort on my part except for a careful choice of META tags.
Some more investigation reveals that there are two sets of those “spider pages”. One set’s URL includes our domain; the other has the designer’s domain. Altough the pages were originally identical, his copies have not changed while our office personnel has made some minor changes in our copy. If I search for specific phrases that exist in both copies, google shows both URLs with ours on top. Presumably, if we cancel our contract with him, ours will stay and his will go. I can’t see any problem with this, although he may claim authorship to the text.
He is now claiming that if we cancel, we owe him for 3 more months on the contract; he claims he farmed out the text creation work and the only reason we are paying him $400 per month is he was kind enough to allow us to spread out the expense over a year.
Personally, I think this is BS. He never mentioned this before now, and the payment schedule didn’t have an end date.
I want to thank everyone who replied to this thread. I agree with your assessments, and your comments have helped convince others in my office of what I’ve been saying all along. Maybe I was right? :dubious: