This post is reprinted from the High Rankings Advisor Newsletter. Subscribe to the weekly High Rankings Advisor newsletter for regular search engine advice from the experts. I would like to second guest author Jill Whalen’s plea to Google to make it less rewarding for the spammers and more rewarding for the folks who are playing by the rules.
Dear Google,
I’m tired of you making me look like a fool.
I’ve spent a good portion of the last 10 years patiently explaining to business owners and budding SEO enthusiasts that the key to being found in Google is to have one, great, 
all-encompassing website. That throwing up multiple keyword-rich domain doorway sites is a fool’s errand. That writing crappy articles and submitting them to networks full of other crappy articles is a waste of time and bandwidth. That keyword-stuffed gibberish on your website just makes it look stupid. That link farms are spammy.
And I really thought that by 2010 all of the above would be 100% true. And yet they’re not. I’m not sure if they’re even 50% true.
Now don’t go telling me that you’ll eventually catch all that stuff – because that’s what you’ve been saying for years and yet you don’t. Even when it’s repeatedly pointed out to you. I just don’t believe you anymore. I see the same search engine spam showing up today that I saw and pointed out 5 years ago. I see keyword domains and URLs that have nothing of value, yet they show up highly in the search results only because the URL matches exactly. I see fake links trumping natural links everywhere I turn. I see how one company with 10 similar but different websites can dominate the top 20 results.
The worst part is how you’ve single-handedly created the entire link-building and link-buying industries. Link building is the most distasteful, horrible act to have to perform for a website. It’s unnatural and something that should not even exist. Which is why I’ve always told people to have a link-worthy site and get the word out about it to the right people (through marketing) and they’d receive great links.
But you’ve made a liar out of me. While that naïve suggestion can definitely bring links to a website, they rarely have the best anchor text that you require. You put way too much stock in anchor text, which one rarely receives through natural links. This in turn forces people to beg for or buy the “unnatural” links that you claim to dislike, but are secretly in love with.
Google, I’m sure you’re aware of the companies that charge as much as $50,000 a month to write useless articles and spin them through spam-generating word-mixer-upper software (which turns a few articles into hundreds). Then they pop some keyword-rich anchor text links into their client’s website and upload them to their network of thousands of blogs and fake review sites where the nonsensical (but appropriately linked) articles get posted.
And it works! Yes, Google, those keyword-rich links on crap sites hugely boost the rankings for the targeted website in YOUR search results – and for highly competitive phrases, no less. It’s true that those links won’t last or count for very long (cuz you’re not that stupid), but because they continually repeat the process, it does indeed keep working. As long as the client is willing to pay for polluting the Internet (and for your search results), it works.
It’s sad, Google. It really is.
If the fake link building didn’t work so well, or the keyword-rich multiple domains never got ranked, maybe the companies looking for better placement in your search results would invest their money in the creation of amazing websites. But why should they? It’s a lot easier for them to generate the spam that you love, Google, and point it to their small lead-generation website(s). Sigh.
Anyway, Google, I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know. Just let me know when you find an algorithm that really does reward the good stuff and not the bad. In the meantime, I’ll keep telling people to make their websites be the best that they can be for their users so that there might be a few less horrible websites showing up at the top of your search results.
But when they ask me whether my way works better than spamming you, I’ll have to tell them the truth.
Your friend,
Jill
P.S. I just got an email from someone asking if it was okay with you if they bought 10 keyword-rich domains and created “satellite sites” out them that point to their main site. I told them yes/no/I don’t know. Sigh.
P.S.S. You’re still way better than the other search engines!
About the author: Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Services Company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen
SAD & TRUE
Great article and it comes on a day when my personal blog which has loads and loads of unique content, where I’ve never bought links, has been downgraded from 3/10 to 1/10 on my main page (and the blog is 2/10 – go figure!). I can only assume this is linked to the recent email I got telling me that Google Adwords would no longer accept my business due to my being deemed a “get rich quick scheme” because my book is called “The Money Gym. This book has been selling steadily on Amazon and has changed people’s lives, but there is NO reasoning with them – they just won’t listen. I’m really fed up about the downgrading of my PageRank but hope that continued blogging with quality content will win out. Keep up the good work on behalf of us “little people”. Cheers, Nicola