Saturday, October 11, 2008

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.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice catch there. you have actually mentioned one of my sites that has link to canadaroses.com. it was supplied by TLA and yes, you must be right that the link vote is temporary.
but i myself do this just that google will be able to index my site. any visitor coming from the link is just an extra bonus.

CANADA FLOWERS said...

Hello
I am the web master and the after spending almost 50.000 on SEO
I decided to learn thing THAT so called SEO
I did and bla bla bla
ANYHOW
I am going to take all THE back link done you know why
I was watching Matt he was speaking on they can catch this kind of thing I did not think
they can do it
but since WEBSITE has more link
I have lost my position
go figure.
that was the end of the link. Even I have done all other kind of link do not work at all
PS I AM ONLY A FLORIST!!! YOU ARE SEO GUY!
GOOD LUCK
TO YOU ALL
THANKS
HAMID HAJI