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Domain Name Gaming: Tricking Engines and Annoying Searchers
By Kurt Krejny | August 19, 2008
When performing a competitor analysis for an SEO client I often come across one competitor dominating the search results with multiple domains for one keyphrase. I call this practice "Domain Name Gaming".
From what I have seen in search engine results, the process to take over the top rankings for one keyphrase can be fairly simple (however it is not guaranteed):
- Register multiple domain names with highly searched keyphrases, and also include a city name. i.e. - www.keyphrase-cityname.com
- Create a different coding & design structure and modify the on-page content so it’s not duplicated across your domains
- Swap out the city name and place a different address and phone number in the footer
- Optimize the Page Titles and Meta tags for your keyphrase and location
- Build inbound links to the domain to support the keyphrase rankings
A recent analysis I performed showed one client’s competitor ranking for 14 of the top 20 search results in Google for a highly searched keyphrase!
Seeing this practice work across various industries means two things to me:
- Many industry websites have poor online visibility and are lacking basic search engine optimization
- Search engines are being fooled and do not recognize the companies that are gaming the system with multiple domains
As an Account Executive responsible for my clients’ success in search engines I get aggravated when seeing this practice dominate the results. I question whether or not it is an ethical SEO strategy.
As a search engine user I get annoyed with the poor quality of results returned. Is the search engine even displaying the most relevant results to benefit the searcher?
SEO savvy business owners that partake in this practice can see astounding search traffic numbers. Can you really blame a business for being proactive and wanting to increase their online visibility and overall sales?
There are instances when this practice is highly appropriate, and other times when it is downright unethical.
Ethical Example:
- Franchises of a business that have a physical location and are territory based (location based search is crucial to their success)
Unethical Examples:
- A business that has no physical address or presence in a city and sells incoming leads to other companies
- Creating multiple domains with bogus content and little to no value to searchers, and then linking them all back to your main domain to support your rankings
When considering the cost of creating one new domain versus the amount of potential business it could bring in, it is a no-brainer.
- Domain ~ $10/year (fixed cost)
- Hosting ~ $5/month (fixed cost)
- Development, Design & Content creation ~ Let’s say between $1000-$5000 (variable one-time cost)
Although the cost to potentially get top rankings is low, the risk of being penalized by the search engines down the road is major. I would like to believe the search engines will catch on to this practice in due time and realize the quality of search results are suffering because of it.
We have looked at both the good and bad of this practice, so where do you stand as an SEO?
If you can ethically make a recommendation to your client to pursue this practice and see results then you can look like an all-star.
If you want nothing to do with populating the search results with clutter, then take action! Submit a Spam Report to Google. There is no guarantee your request will get recognized, but it is worth the shot to help improve the quality of Google search results and show your client you are on top of the situation at hand.
What do you advise clients to do who ask about this practice?
My advice on this topic is to focus your efforts on building relevant and quality content on one domain. Localized content is easy to build if you can support it, and quality inbound links to this domain will help support your optimization efforts as a whole.
Informing the client of long-term risk over reward can easily put the "domain name gaming" practice idea to rest.
Do what you feel is right to help your clients succeed online, but keep in mind that searchers will appreciate one well executed site over many poor quality sites. Searcher habit can help the engines improve the quality of their results… and us SEO’s know how often the engine algorithms change! Stay on top of the game without gaming the system.
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August 19th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Sound thinking all around…minimizing risks.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I know that as a user this really annoys me. If I am looking for something I don’t want to see the same thing over and over. If I do see something over and over I know that I will not purchase from that company.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
The one key point that you are missing in the spam report comment is that many of these Domainer (Affiliate Networks) websites do not fit the strict rules of what Google says is definitely spam. So there is technically a loophole in the spam reporting system where these large domainer companies can get away with putting out these arbitrage sites that are worthless to the user, but generate revenue for them in multiple ways.
I think what needs to happen is for Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask to seriously crack down on those services. Otherwise, people will keep using them more and the search results will get progressively worse.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Great addition berto! I agree there needs to be a crack down.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I agree with you..it’s not the ranking that should be the primary concern of business owners..they also need to remember that providing quality content is important for their readers.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
It’s really irritating to see the engines being gamed and very hard to restrain yourself from doing the same.
If you look at the way linking is being totally abused it’s the same story. Sometimes I just feel like advising my clients to pay the link spammers in a ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ kind of way.
If you report sites abusing the SERPs through domain names of linking to Google they do nothing, it’s out of control and beyond their ability to fix it IMHO.
d
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Google has spoken about this on a few occasions on their Videos (hosted on YouTube). I specifically remember Eric Schmidt talk about it many times.
He said ‘We don’t have the technology to say “This is an online business” or “this is someone gaming our system” when it comes to domain name” but he did say ‘We do experiments with these keywordrich domains to see if it benefits the user and it if does, it stays.”
August 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
If it works (and it does) then many marketers will likely keep doing it. If you disagree, then go work for Google and don’t be evil.
You forget that many business aren’t concerned with ‘purchase’ conversions, but simply traffic volume. This type of ‘unethical’ behavior, especially when not tied closely to the flagship brand, is incredibly effective for those type of businesses, and does not seem to drive away the average internet user who found the much improved ranking on their favorite search engine.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Kurt,
Great post. I actually came across an instance of this myself while doing link building research for another client. It wasn’t until about the fourth page that I got past this particular domain name gamer.
September 17th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
What I would love to see is aggressive policing of scraper sites that simply re-post content without attribution. This form of publishing is lower than the devil doing the limbo at Mariana’s Trench.
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