A psychologist is employing some interesting methods in web promotion.
I'd like an analysis of what he is doing.

a) What exactly is his strategy? b) How well is it working on various
spidering search engines (Google, AltaVista, Hotbot, Lycos, Excite,
FAST -- am I missing anyone?) for the keywords in his domain names; c)
Is it considered spam; d) Have any web articles been written about
this particular method of site promotion; e) Is there some kind of
software program that automatically generates these kinds of pages
based on a keyword algorithm or some such thing?

Here are some of the URLs:

http://psychologist-maryland-baltimore-towson-biofeedback-hypnosis.com/
http://www.psychologistforyou.com/
http://www.psychologist-maryland-baltimore-towson-biofeedback-hypnosis.com/3733264473.html
http://www.psychologist-maryland-baltimore-towson-biofeedback-hypnosis.com/37332764473.html
http://www.clinical-psychologist-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/3733267133.html
http://www.clinical-psychologist-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/37332767133.html
http://www.psychologist-marriage-counseling-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/3733275436.html
http://www.psychologist-marriage-counseling-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/37332775436.html
http://www.psychologist-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/3733389097.html
http://www.psychologist-baltimore-towson-maryland.com/37333789098.html
http://www.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/3733396771.html
http://www.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/37333796771.html
http://marriage-counseling.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/3737596848.html
http://marriage-counseling.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/37375796848.html
http://hypnotherapist-psychologists-psychotherapist.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/3738074779.html
http://hypnotherapist-psychologists-psychotherapist.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/37380774779.html
http://attention-deficit-disorder.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/3738201726.html
http://attention-deficit-disorder.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/37382701726.html
http://smoking-cessation.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/3738296537.html
http://smoking-cessation.psychologist-baltimore-maryland.com/37382796537.html

Hi strwhat,


   This method of "search engine spamming" used to be very successful
on Google and ensured #1 positioning. However, Google, being one of
the best search engines, changes its algorithms, and has made this
technique less effective, but not ineffective. The site you're
referring to finds itself at #2, #3, #6, #8 & #9
(Note : "baltimore psychologist" is the search term I'm using)
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=baltimore+psychologist

   In the case of Yahoo, all sites are reviewed by "humans".
Obviously, this strategy won't work.

   Alltheweb.com, who indexes more pages than google, but doesn't
match it qualitywise, is fooled by this technique. The site finds
itself at #1,#2,#3,#5,#9.
http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=utf-8&l=any&q=baltimore+psychologist

   The same case with Teoma. #1,#5,#8,#9
http://www.teoma.com/search.asp?t=baltimore+psychologist&qcat=1&qsrc=0&search.x=53&search.y=7

   MSN, who claim they are the #1 search engine has also been fooled.
#1,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6.

In brief,

(a) - He uses multiple domain names using the same keywords, and links
to all pages from each page.

(b) - Yes, it is working now. But when he gets found out, he could be
removed forever,

(c). Yes, it is considered as spam.

(d) - One of the many such articles written -
http://www.searchengineguide.com/rankwrite/2001/0111_rw1.html

(e) - I've not used any software, but a software called Webposition
Gold does this.

Although you didn't ask for this, I'm posting it just to demonstrate
the popularity of various engines.

(from my site stats)
Links from an Internet Search Engine
- Google 6235 
- Yahoo 2095 
- MSN 568 
- AltaVista 183 
- AOL 53 

I leave it to you to decide whether to use this strategy or not.

Cheers,
aditya2k

---

Request for Answer Clarification by strawhat-ga on 28 Jun 2002 09:48 PDT

Clarification: I asked for ranking info on Hotbot, Excite and Lycos.
Comment: I own WebPosition Gold and it does not generate these kinds
of pages. I am not sure if your "search engine rankings" are accounted
for by the fact that your pages may be optimized for certain search
engines vs. others.

---

Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 28 Jun 2002 10:27 PDT

Hi strwhar,

Hotbot - #1,#2,#3,#4,#5
http://hotbot.lycos.com/?query=baltimore+psychologist&cobrand=&matchmode=all&datedelta=0&language=any&recordcount=10&descriptiontype=2&modsign1=MC&dateoption=within&placeselection=georegion

Lycos - #1,#2,#3,#4,#8,#9
http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchhp&query=baltimore+psychologist

Excite - #2,#3,#4,#6,#8
http://msxml.excite.com/_1_37F4UNB05211O__info.xcite/dog/results?otmpl=dog/webresults.htm&qkw=baltimore+psychologist&qcat=web&start=&ver=08883

Just to strenghten my argument that you can't fool Yahoo!, look at
this :
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=psychologist+baltimore

2 sites...this site is #2.

The site stats I posted in the answer belong to a site which is not
search engine optimized.

Cheers,
aditya2k.

---

Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 29 Jun 2002 21:06 PDT

Quote from original answer :
"In the case of Yahoo, all sites are reviewed by "humans". Obviously,
this strategy won't work."

Quote from clarification :
"Just to strenghten my argument that you can't fool Yahoo!, look at
this :
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=psychologist+baltimore "

I didn't mention that Yahoo was a spidering engine. I cited Yahoo as
an example that such sites cannot fool "humam-edited" engines.

Thanks for the clarification. Regarding "not being able to fool Yahoo"
-- My questioned pertained to *spidering* search engines. Yahoo is a
human-edited directory, not a spidering search engine.

(a&b)
   The strategy seems to be trying to exploit the method of 
   Google's search engine. Fortunately for all of us, it didn't
   succeed fully. Yet... intriguingly, Google did as it was supposed
   to do, and faithfully spidered a majority of sites that refer to
   Dr Lipton. I'd give it a 95% success with Google.

   The sorry excuse for a "competitor" to Google... TOTALLY FOOLED
   by the campaign. Congratulations. 101% success on Teoma.com

   Lycos, 100% taken in... basically the same with the rest of the
   engines. 

(c)
   An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal
   identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally
   applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient
   has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable
   permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception
   of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate
   benefit to the sender.  

(d)
   I'll look that up later.

(e)
   Probably not? I'm sure it could be made. I could probably make it.
   Want me to make it for you? ;-)

-AI

Here is a good article that goes into search  engine spamming:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/23/index1a.html?tw=e-business