This post starts out with a simple enough research exercise while watching a DVD.  I have realised that I need to focus more around link building as per one of the last blog posts I read on SEOmoz.org.  So I begin researching using Linkscape to begin to understand my how some of my competitors are outranking me in particular key phrases. 

I found a great number of links and continued building my directory database, which is slowly growing.  I’m using this database for my business and my client's business and have found the Linkscape tool amazingly helpful.  But there is an issue I discovered about the new LinkScape tool--it's too good!

The issue is that with a bit of fine tuning and experimentation the tool works much better than your competitors would have hoped.  By using Linkscape, you can now level the playing field. If your competitors are spamming the search engines, you can at least understand why they are ranked higher in the SERPs. 

So now your competitors who are using various black hat techniques can be discovered easily and quickly.  If you are being requested to be part of a paid directory, run a check to see if they are using <no follow> tags for all their members, or just free memberships. 

There was a website that had been mentioned several times to me about how great it does in the SERPs for a large number of key phrases, but no one really understands why. There is nothing obvious hidden within their site.  So I thought that I would run the site through Linkscape to see was their some suspicious linking or referrals in place. 

The initial results didn’t show much, but on closer inspection there was a common occurrence: numerous links from one website with the same type of anchor text: a simple “img” tag with an alt-specific keyword description of their services. 

This seemed innocent enough, but the hundreds of links from the website meant something was suspicious.  Looking at the linking website there was nothing visible on the website, no links, no images, nothing within the visible text to show a link.  A simple keyword search through the source code for the infamous alt tag description showed that it was within html code <no script>.  This doesn’t seem like a major issue, but when you examine the code, you notice that there is actually two links to the company's website.  

<noscript><a href="http://www.monkey.com/"><img src="//gotcha.com/counter.aspx?tid=330033" alt="monkey business" /></a></noscript>The question needs to be asked, if there is a link required to their website, but to enclose a second link, with alt descriptions, this shows that something sinister is a heart.  In following Google’s spam detection updates that penalize overuse of alt tags, the company has altered the tags so they're a slight variation on the keywords chosen for each section. I would call that slightly evil...

The interesting issue here is that they are a Google reseller that a number of people have been recently following online because of their large online presence in the SERPs.  There are three elements to this issue:

1. Do Google resellers have a higher level of accountability?
2. Which side of the coin is <no script> tags these days? Good/Evil?
3. Does the client need to be informed? If they agree is it ok?

So to explore the issue about accountability, if Google resellers already have a range of resources at hand and marketing support to help promote and educate their customers about Google products.  The issue is that should they be able to fight with the gloves off while lodging internal requests through Google channels to investigate competitors for breaching T&Cs?

The <no script> issue is something that is ok one day to use if it's used correctly and for a specific purpose, but not correct if the purpose is to spam Google SERPs. This particular case showed that evil was the intention of the script and self promotion was the outcome, no benefit for the client.

Was the client informed of the referral link? If this is part of the standard terms and conditions does that client understand the benefit to this company?  Does this bring the company's image into question--if they are possibly risking their client's reputation with Google by passing out <no script> links?

Does anyone agree that this company did the wrong thing by the industry and the client? (This company will not be named or disclosed by myself!)