I think I might have figured out this ranking puzzle...

[Tony Salerno]

This is my first post so please bear with me...

Key phrase: Long Beach Plumber
Rank: 1 organic
G+ Local link:
Domain: a1bestplumbinglongbeach.com

Here is the back story on this one. This guy is a rogue webmaster/seo who stole the domain from my client who owns Sunset Plumbing Inc. (that is another story) Since he has control of the original domain (sunsetplumbinginc.com) he has a 301 redirect pointing to his new fake plumbing company which he sells the leads to another competing plumber. The original domain (sunsetplumbinginc.com) was number one with good authority and a DA 6. I suspect that all the "link juice" is transferring to the new domain (a1bestplumbinginc.com)to make it rank high.

Does that make sense? Can someone confirm my thinking on this. I see no other real reasons why that site should rank at 1. Also if I didn't know the back story, is there a way to tell if a site is getting "link juice" from a 301 redirect?

Thanks for your help...and I love this forum.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Tony and welcome!

Thanks for starting off with a bang and doing a ranking puzzle. I love those!
(And I play a pretty mean ranking detective sometimes.)

However buried getting our newsletter ready for publication and then tied up most of day so may not be able to circle back til tonight.

BUT hopefully some other members will check this one out and give you some feedback.

Who wants to play???

 

[David Fesler]

The 301 is definitely in place, and I believe it's said that 301's pass roughly 90% of the original link juice (I may be wrong), so it would make sense that the a1bestplumbinglongbeach.com is benefiting from that 301.

Other than the 301, however, they seem to have a decent link portfolio, with a good chunk of branded anchor texts, which includes the key term "plumbing", which only adds to their relevancy.

I've had a few design clients have their domains jacked by individuals involved in the domain purchase process, it is definitely the suck.

 

[Tony Salerno]

Thanks David...Yeah I noticed his link profile was good, but it all comes from his other clients websites in mostly unrelated fields. Also he only uses static content. It just didn't seem that his links were that strong for him to rank so high. Thanks for your input...

 

[Broland]

Yes the 301 is definitely helping it. How exactly did it get "stolen"? Did it just get dropped? If Sunset Plumbing Inc is trademarked they may be able to seize the domain... have to determine if it's worth the time/effort though.

 

[Tony Salerno]

Yes the 301 is definitely helping it. How exactly did it get "stolen"? Did it just get dropped? If Sunset Plumbing Inc is trademarked they may be able to seize the domain... have to determine if it's worth the time/effort though.

The long story short is that the company was sold to my client which included the domain name. Instead of transferring ownership to my client he transferred it to himself. My client doesn't really want the hassle of fighting it.

I'm still curious, if it was not known that the domain had a 301 redirect giving it some link juice, is there a way to find out if a site is benefiting from a 301 redirect?

Thanks Borland for your thoughts...

 

[David Fesler]

If it's a working 301 redirect the new site is benefiting from that old site's juice.

An easier way to tell is to crawl the links on the site in question. When I used Open Site Explorer it showed:



I'm not sure if that answered your question, but as long as the 301 is set up correctly it will do the deed.

 

[Tony Salerno]

Cool. Thank you David.

 

[David Deering]

First of all, that a1 site needs to be de-indexed just for having such a cheesy domain name! lol Tony, I'm seeing that the a1 site has around 140 backlinks with 80% of the anchor text as "long beach plumber - plumbing long beach" or the same phrase just switched around. The sunsetplumbinginc site has around 260 backlinks, which have been 301'd to the a1 site. So that's where he's getting most of his ranking power it would seem.

 

[Linda Buquet]

First of all, that a1 site needs to be de-indexed just for having such a cheesy domain name!

And needs to get dinged for that spammy title tag. Surprised it's not penalized.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Out of curiousity, how does one "rat" a website to Google's web spam team? Drop them a G+ message? Carrier pigeon to Matt Cutts?

 

[Linda Buquet]

LOL Andrew. If a carrier pigeon to Matt Cutts doesn't work you can try the web spam report.

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