A Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) Parallel Universe

Microsoft Research Strider Team

Created on August 5, 2006; Last Updated: August 5, 2006

The fish website http://topfishcam.com (80.77.92.150) looks very similar to http://www.trophyfishcam.com (see Figure 1); the brain injury page http://www.plomoinfo.com (80.77.85.64) looks very similar to http://tbilaw.com (see Figure 2); the records website http://newearthrec.com/ (80.77.85.64) looks very similar to http://www.newearthrecords.com/about.asp (see Figure 3); the ISDN website http://www.canisdn.net (80.77.85.64) looks very similar to http://www.isdntechnologies.ca (see Figure 4); which one of these two is NASA's official page for their Regional Technology Transfer Centers: http://usrttc.org (80.77.88.163) or http://www.ctc.org/NewFiles/RTTCs.html (see Figure 5)?

So it looks like somebody is building a parallel universe of the web in the IP range of 80.77.85.nnn ~ 80.77.92.nnn. These websites are quite diverse except that they all have one thing in common: if you do a View Source and scroll to the bottom, you will see that they all have a “display:none” section containing the URLs of search-engine optimization targets. For example, in early July, this section contained a bunch of freett.com URLs (see Figure 6) and many of them were successfully optimized to appear as top search results (see Figure 7 for an example); in late July, a bunch of high-fashion.be URLs were added (see Figure 8) and again many of them appeared among top search results (see Figure 9 for an example).

Now let’s all monitor these websites every day and see what URLs will be added and whether they can do it again.

Figure 1: Screenshots of http://topfishcam.com and http://www.trophyfishcam.com. (Notice that, on the first screenshot, it still says “about the trophyfishcam”; everything else has been changed from trophyfishcam to topfishcam.)

Figure 2: Screenshots of http://www.plomoinfo.com and http://tbilaw.com.

Figure 3: Screenshots of http://newearthrec.com/ and http://www.newearthrecords.com/about.asp.

Figure 4: Screenshots of http://www.canisdn.net and http://www.isdntechnologies.ca/.

Figure 5: Screenshots of http://usrttc.org and http://www.ctc.org/NewFiles/RTTCs.html#what.

Figure 6: Screenshot of http://usrttc.org View Source on July 2, 2006 (ignore the highlighted “fendi” URL and pay attention to the “coach” URL)

Figure 7: freett.com link appeared as top Google search result for “Coach handbag” on July 3, 2006.

Figure 8: Screenshot of http://usrttc.org View Source on July 22, 2006, where http://www.high-fashion.be/ links have been added.

Figure 9: high-fashion.be link appeared as #3 Google search result for “Coach handbag” on July 22, 2006.