CanadaRoses.Com

Coming into my radar this week is the floral entity Canadaroses.com. While they already rank well for terms related to sending flowers to Canada, they’ve recently mounted a strong SEO campaign for more general terms like “flower delivery,” “send flowers,” & even “flowers” itself.

The website currently holds a PageRank value of 3 but will probably increase in value upon the next Google PR update due to a recent burst of link-votes (covered below). Also, the age of the URL gives it an advantage in ranking as it was first indexed in November of 2002 and listed in the Yahoo Directory which gives it credibility in the search world. Furthermore, their backlink structure exceeds that of 4,000 so things look rather promising for this website….right?

Well, at first sight everything looks good but it is when you dig a little do you sense that their ranking foundation is not built on organic soil, but rather on artificial sand. A general rule of thumb in SEO is that if a website is involved in an artificial link-vote campaign it is likely that a suspicious pattern will emerge in the first 40 backlinks that you review (via Yahoo).

In the chart below, I have posted what Yahoo believes to be the most current and important link-votes cast by other sites. To the left of your screen is the actual URL, and to the right is what that particular URL cast as a link-vote to help rank canadaroses.com.

[Pickup conversation below]

	Backlink URL	Link-vote Anchor Text
1	http://www.flowersonline.tv/	send flower delivery to canada
2	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/	flowers
3	http://www.neutralexistence.com/	send flowers
4	http://www.hosernews.ca/	florists in canada
5	http://www.global-warming-awareness2007.org/	flowers
6	http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/environment	flowers
7	http://thegivinghands.org/	canada flowers
8	http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/	flowers
9	http://blissful-weddings.com/	flowers
10	http://ilonagarden.blogspot.com/	flowers
11		[Link-vote was recently removed]
12	http://www.perfect-anniversary-gifts.com/	send flowers canada
13	http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/	flowers toronto
14	http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/blog-against-sexism-day	flowers toronto
15	http://www.fridayhomeguide.com/	flowers delivery
16	http://www.flowerstomd.com/	flowers canada, Send Flowers, Order Roses Delivery, Toronto Canada Florist
17	http://www.pilecity.info/	send flowers
18	http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/blog	flowers
19	http://www.usagardener.com/	flower delivery canada
20	http://www.ecotourismblog.com/	flowers
21	http://urbangardencasual.com/	flowers toronto
22	http://canada.bizfolders.com/	florists in canada
23	http://www.americanagiftshop.com/	Send Flowers, online florist, order roses delivery
24	http://www.paper-paper.com/links.html	Send Flowers, online florist, order roses delivery
25	http://emad.fano.us/blog/?p=510	?
26	http://www.weddingsvictoria.net/	flowers toronto
27	http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/2006/02/12/blog-ag.....	flowers toronto
28	http://www.horses-shiatsu.com/commercial_sales.shtml	http://www.canadaroses.com
29	http://thegivinghands.org/2007/10/10-ways-our-words-can.....	canada flowers
30	http://planet02138.com/	?
31	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2008/04/07/recycled-tin-.....	flowers
32	http://www.hosernews.ca/tag/halifax/	florists in canada
33	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2006/11/27/carnival-of-t.....	flowers
34	http://greatgreengoods.com/2005/11/28/carnival-of-the-g.....	flowers
35	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2007/11/12/recycled-circ.....	flowers
36	http://vegankid.solidaritydesign.net/carnival-of-empty-cages	flowers toronto
37	http://www.hosernews.ca/tag/kiva/	florists in canada
38	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2007/11/26/carnival-of-t.....	flowers
39	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2008/04/06/recycled-silv.....	flowers
40	http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2008/03/23/eco-friendly-.....	Flowers

It is more likely that if a webmaster was going to cast a pure organic link-vote it would look more like this anchor-text: “Canada Roses” or “canadaroses.com” or something similar in tone, rather than what we see above, especially concerning the word “flowers.”

While such a link-vote structure may cause Google’s eye to rise, it is when the actual link-casting website is checked that concerns of an artificial link-vote campaign are really likely to heighten suspicion. On that, most of the link-votes that occur on the websites above are placed in the side bar area of the website often near similar links going to other floral entities using the same link-vote structure, or next to other link-votes that are completely unrelated. The more you become familiar with whose-who in artificial link-vote campaigns, it is often the same players that are involved, and you see them from site to site.

Google is very much into identifying the whose-who of artificial link-campaigns and seeing them always grouped together in the side bars of blogs and websites. In which case, Google devalues the strength of the website's casting ability of link-votes. As is well known in SEO circles, getting a link within the content of a site is key to ranking and staying below the radar.

Right now, CanadaRoses.com is clearly above the radar.