How does Google identify/detect a Blog Network

[orizon]

Large/public blog networks have been de-indexed in the past. Smaller public networks have also suffered on occasion. And mismanaged private blog networks might end up doing more damage than good.

What methods do you guys think Google uses (algorithmic and manual) to find/identify a blog network and its member sites?

Do they look for anomalies in link structures? (100 websites linking to the exact same 10 websites)
Do they send spies in large blog networks to discover their members?
Do they use any super-smart footprints beyond registrar, platform, skin, usernames, ip, etc.
Do they check your gmail and read your host-info emails?

No doubt some of the above will sound ridiculous but this is more to serve as food for thought. Looking forward to your answers!

 

[Deleted member 120847]

Pretty easy to work out, think hosting, design, any kind of tracking, then move on to PR1+ domains being bought when expired then suddenly becoming these minisites. Then just think about what gets posted. When you use a network every single action you make could be seen as leaving a footprint.

Networks are a risk but I know of no other way to rank in tough niches and I mean including when you have tv/press/media buys going on, your strategy has to be as black as your competitor.

 

[sn0rt]

..stay tuned for the next episode of Google Super-Spies.

On a more serious note, I don't think anyone knows exactly how they do it. But keep in mind that whatever it is they do use can be applied to a large scale, not just a few sites. Remember, they typically want to monitor all of the internets usage.

 

[orizon]

Pretty easy to work out, think hosting, design, any kind of tracking, then move on to PR1+ domains being bought when expired then suddenly becoming these minisites.

That's true for expired websites, but most of these PBN websites are bought before they expire (from the registrars themselves) so they maintain domain age.

I tend to gravitate towards the link structure analysis. They could potentially reverse engineer an entire network, starting from knowing only a small percentage of its members.. as long as the same links are posted to lots or all of the network member sites.

Another idea is that of bad neighborhoods.. if they know website A bought a link, well chances are they bought more, so maybe that other link in website C is also bad, and what if website B that also appears to be buying links has a link in website C.. etc.

 

[slipperflip]

Another idea is that of bad neighborhoods.. if they know website A bought a link, well chances are they bought more, so maybe that other link in website C is also bad, and what if website B that also appears to be buying links has a link in website C.. etc.

Yes, sometimes also referred to as "communities".

I have a competitor with a very obvious network. He has one page sites with one link on each site - all pointing to the money site. When evaluating the niche, I saw this and decided that he'll be knocked out eventually and my site with better content and a less-blatant network will win.

It's all about replicating actual human behavior.

 

[SEO Power]

They look for footprints and they may also sign up themselves to uncover the sites in the network. It's pretty easy. They may also look for blogs linking to lots of websites unrelated to the topic of the blog.

 

[divok]

I think all they need is one culprit.
Then analyze links to the culprit.
Then analyze OBL from those websites.
Analyze links of those OBL
If a high ratio of common links/website..... BINGO.
They could confirm this by calculating spin %

Just guessing .

 

[orizon]

I think all they need is one culprit.
Then analyze links to the culprit.
Then analyze OBL from those websites.
Analyze links of those OBL
If a high ratio of common links/website..... BINGO.
They could confirm this by calculating spin %

..so the bigger the network, the more the data, the more certain Google can be that it is a network indeed

 

[VinceC]

Just make every blog network with diff hosting, IP, and login to them using diff vpn and dun interlink any of your sites to more than one site, you will be fine

 

[jackl]

Most are obvious including big sites but they usually don't get hit because of them spending a ton on adwords and the like.
Idk it's not like these google employees need great tools to detect them nearly every single one of them is obvious the ones that aren't are usually not ranking.