I was doing some research for a client for the keyword “La Jolla Hotel” in Google and stumbled upon some interesting information.
The top result when searching for “La Jolla Hotel” is www.hotellajolla.com. So, I checked their back links. I noticed a large amount of “Email” links. I soon noticed that all the “Email” pages looked the same. They all featured a page with a list of links. Looking at the bottom of all these pages I noticed they all linked back to by http://www.hoteltravelcheck.com. To me this looks like a link farm. On those pages www.hotelajolla.com is listed under the anchor text “la jolla hotel”. So, this must contribute to why www.hotelajolla.com ranks well even though it is a link farm.
You can view the back links I am talking about right here:
http://www.paraglidefanatic.com/email/scripts/loginuser.pl
http://www.snowboardmail.com/email/scripts/loginuser.pl
http://www.archerymail.com/email/scripts/loginuser.pl
http://www.softwarefan.com/email/scripts/loginuser.pl
http://www.ultimateemail.com/net-fan.shtml
http://www.ultimateemail.com/dvd-fan.shtml
http://www.ultimateemail.com/fratemail.shtml
There is a lot more. Check it out.
It is suggested that good quality related back links will contribute to success in ranking well in Google. So strange that www.hotellajolla.com is participating is some type of link farm and still ranks well. What does dvd fan mail have to do with a hotel in la jolla?
I know back links are not the only strategy that helps a site rank well, but this is very discouraging to see because it looks like SPAM to me. You all know that I just love spam!!!
I am still pretty green in the SEO and SEM arena, but am I way off on my judgment or am I have stumbled upon yet another issue google needs to consider?
I posted this complaint to google, but was limited to only a 1000 characters. Which also pisses me off. How are we suppossed to suggest how Google can improve with a character limit! I know …. I know … Google does not want to sit there and read long rants, but a part of me thinks they should. Hell they could hire me to read them and report back!
Hopefully someone from Google can fill in the blanks for me.
Thank You for listening to my rant!
