Google alerts based on inbound links.

[sgpratley]

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I have a Google alert set up to tell me when new stuff appears about ipoints.
This morning I got one that listed a competitor's homepage, which has no mention of ipoints on it, not even anywhere in the source.

I know google looks at the text around inbound links, but would that trigger an alert? Quite possible that this would happen as the site in question is often mentioned in the same breath as us.

Is there any danger that they could ever rank higher than us for our trademark purely on the basis of an inbound link campaign, and not on site content? I'd imagine it'd be pretty unlikely for our site, but could it be used against smaller sites than us?

[Brendon]

>> ut could it be used against smaller sites than us?

LOL, yes

>> I know google looks at the text around inbound links, but would that trigger an alert?

Its call latent semantic indexing (LSI), but I don't know if it could / should trigger an alert. I could believe either way

>> Is there any danger that they could ever rank higher than us for our trademark purely on the basis of an inbound link campaign, and not on site content?

Absolutely. It's the concept that most blackhat SEO is based on : Google loves links, and aren't half as good as they *think* they are at evaluating them

[sgpratley]

I remember the Dumb Motherf***er joke, pointing at George Bush's site, and the "french military victories" one, thought Google had got better at recognising this tactic, obviously not!

[Mogga]

google's got some right cack in it at the moment. It seems some nasty scraper sites are finding their way back in.

[Brendon]

It's not so much that G haven't got better, as that the spammers have improved even more. There are some pretty industrial grade scripts doing the rounds cheap or free, not to mention the home grown stuff. Automation is the future