A few days ago, I was working with a colleague on search engine optimization and marketing when we discovered that one of our competitors was ranking on virtually every CPR related keyword, across every search engine, with a different domain name for each keyword. This immediately smelled like foul play to me, so I began investigating. Here is what I found.

The American Academy of CPR and First Aid, Inc., is employing mirroring techniques to artificially boost their rank by purchasing 40+ keyword-rich domains. They then cross link all these sites, dynamically replacing a few keywords, title, and meta description on the homepage to trick the search engine into treating the content as different, and host each domain on a unique IP address so it appears to be a different site. They stuff keywords for the corresponding domain at the bottom of the page within the paragraph to make that version of the site more relevant to the search keyword.

This tactic is getting great results for their network of domains. Here are some examples for each of the top three search engines.

Google

Perform a Google search on “free online cpr” you will see them listed #2 as www.cprrecertification.net, #4 as www.freeonlinecpr.com, #19 as www.cprrenewal.org, #23 as www.healthcareprovidercpr.org, and #24 as www.cprcertificate.org. Now search for “cpr recertification” and you will see them listed #1 as www.cprrecertification.net and #9 as www.freeonlinecpr.com. For a more extreme example of all the variations this site has been indexed under within Google, Search for “online cpr $14.99” and you will see that every search engine result belongs to the same website.

Yahoo

The Yahoo example is the most extreme and disturbing. Simply search for “online cpr recertification” and you will see that the first page of results contains organic search results for this company in 6 of the top 10 listings. Their website occupies positions 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, and 9 for this search term.

Bing

If you perform a Bing search on “free online cpr” you will see them listed #2 as www.freeonlinecpr.com. Now search for “cpr recertification” and you will see them listed #2 as www.cprrecertification.net. Now search “adult cpr” and you will see them listed #4 as www.adultcpr.org. Now search for “first aid certification” and you will see them listed #1 as www.firstaidcertification.org.

So, what kind of response did I receive from the top three search engines when I reported this alarming abuse? Allow me to share.

Google is still investigating the issue, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Yahoo wrote a very nice response back to me, but the problem persists in their search results.

Hello Scott,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Search.

Thank you for submitting this abuse report. We have investigated the
report and taken the appropriate action.

Please understand that Yahoo! is unable to disclose specific actions
taken with a third party. We are not able to make exceptions to this
rule.

Thank you again for taking the time to bring this issue to our
attention.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Search.

Regards,

Lars

Yahoo! Customer Care

71261606

Bing’s response was probably the most upsetting. I will share what I originally got back from them by submitting the web form on Bing.com to report abuse. I later wrote this blog article and then messaged @bing on Twitter. This resulted in the Bing team taking my report seriously and escalating it internally to work on getting the problem fixed. So, this just shows that Twitter is your best bet to reach the best people at a given company.

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Initial Response:

=======================================

Hello Scott,

Thank you for writing to Bing Technical Support. My name is Julius and I am writing in response to your report against Academy of CPR and FirstAid, Inc. for using spam techniques to their favor. I know how important it is to resolve your issue.

Scott, I will now be escalating your email to our product specialists for further investigation. They will directly take action on your request and will be contacting you with an update soon. Thank you for providing all the details required.

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using Bing.

Sincerely,

Julius

Bing Technical Support

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Second Response

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Hello,

Thank you for contacting Bing technical support.

We do not automatically remove documents from our database because they offend someone. The database is a reflection of the content of the Internet and is built from billions of documents on millions of web sites around the world. Some of those documents will be personally, politically, or morally objectionable to some people, but others may find those same documents interesting and useful. We want the search database to represent the content of the web in as accurate and usable a form as possible.

Bing.com does not control the content of these websites, nor does bing.com have any ability to remove the allegedly improper material from these sites.

Furthermore, we will suppress pages from the search result if it contains illegal contents, presence of court-orders or similar legal proceedings, or direct request from the site owners.

Accordingly, your complaints should be directed to the owners of these websites or web hosts who may have the ability to remove the allegedly improper content.

Thank you and have a great day.

Best regards,

Carlo

Microsoft Global Escalations

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My Response

=======================================

Dear Carlo and Julius,

Julius read my email and understands that I am not asking you to change the content on this website, nor am I stating that the content offends me. Carlo, it appears that you did not read my original email. I implore you to please read my email rather than sending me a cookie-cutter response.

This website is using mirroring hacks to trick the Bing search engine database into improperly indexing their website, giving them an unfair advantage against everyone else in your database. They are in violation of your terms of service which state that a prohibited use is a website that “attempts to manipulate the services, including ranking and reputation systems in the services, by violating any of the provisions of this Code of Conduct, colluding with others on voting or using multiple profiles.”

They have 40+ keyword-filled domain names that all point to the same website with minor modifications to keywords on the page in order to artificially improve the site’s SEO. All their mirror domains cross-link among each other in order to artificially improve the page rank of each site. Additionally, the company has purchased a separate IP address for each of these mirror sites so they will appear to Bing as a unique website. This is not allowable and degrades the usability of your search engine.

By ignoring my complaint, you are insinuating that this behavior is acceptable and encouraging me to employ the same black-hat SEO tactics. Please respond ASAP to let me know what action you are pursuing against this company.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Scott Andersen

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Third Response

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Hi Scott,

This is Steve from the Microsoft Global Escalations Team

We are not ignoring your complaint. We have checked the sites and understand that each URL renders to a very similar website. Please understand that Microsoft does not remove sites/domains from the Bing search results page under this type of alleged allegation. Microsoft is not in a position to determine whether content posted on a website is truthful or accurate. We would encourage you to seek resolution of this matter directly with site/domain owners.

I’m afraid that there is no action that we can do for this issue.

Sincerely,

Steve

Microsoft Global Escalations Team

So, what am I to take away from this experience? Yahoo does not care about search quality and continues to foster a culture of ignoring its customers. I have seen this over and over with my search advertising account at Yahoo as I am assigned an account manager, that account manager is transfered to a new department, and I am left on my own again.

Domain Names and IP Addresses owned by American Academy of CPR and First Aid:

www.aacfa.net 174.143.161.198

www.freeonlinecpr.com               174.143.197.62

www.cprrenewal.org                   174.143.197.158

www.onlinecprcourse.org             174.143.197.159

www.adultcpr.org                     174.143.197.160

www.cprcertificate.org               174.143.197.161

www.cprrecertification.net           174.143.197.162

www.firstaidcertification.org       174.143.197.163

www.onlinecprcertification.net       174.143.197.164

www.onlinecprrecertification.net     174.143.197.165

www.blshealthcareprovider.org 174.143.197.180

www.blscpr.org                       174.143.197.242

www.blsforhealthcareproviders.com   174.143.197.243

www.onlinefirstaidcertification.com 67.192.240.192

www.blsrecertification.info         67.192.240.196

www.cprcertification.us             67.192.240.203

www.cprfirstaid.org                 67.192.240.205

www.cprtraining.biz 67.192.240.206

www.firstaidclass.us 67.192.240.207

www.firstaidcprcertification.org     67.192.240.208

www.firstaidcprtraining.org         67.192.240.209

www.firstaidtrainingcourses.org     67.192.240.210

www.freecprtraining.org             67.192.240.211

www.freefirstaidtraining.com         67.192.240.212

www.freeonlinecprtraining.com       67.192.240.213

www.healthcareprovidercpr.org       67.192.240.214

www.onlineblscertification.com       67.192.240.215

www.onlineblsrecertification.org     67.192.240.216

www.onlinecprandfirstaid.com         67.192.240.217

www.onlinecprcertificate.com         67.192.240.218

www.onlinecprclasses.net             67.192.240.219

www.onlinecpr.info                   67.192.240.220

www.onlinefirstaidcourse.com         67.192.240.221

www.onlinefirstaidtraining.org       67.192.240.222

www.onlinefirstaid.us               67.192.240.223

www.bloodbornepathogenstraining.info 67.192.240.236

www.cprrenewalonline.com 67.192.240.238

www.blscertification.com 98.129.228.178

www.firstaidcourse.us 98.129.250.36

www.bloodbornepathogens.info 67.192.240.201

www.childcpr.info 67.192.240.202

1. Locate and install a copy of QPST 2.7 Build 301.

2. Open Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.7

3. Open QPST. You will need to add the COM4 and COM5 ports. Once this is done, you should see a connection on either COM4 or COM5 with your storm.

4. In QPST, start the client service programming.

5. Click the button to read the phone’s contents.

6. Click on the “PPP Config” tab.

7. Open the “AN” tab.

8. Locate the password field and fill it in with the ESN number of your phone. You can get this from the main QPST screen. Make sure to capitalize all characters.

9. Click the button to write to the phone. The phone will reboot and once the signal comes online, you should have full 1XEV signal.

One last thing, if you are not comfortable doing these changes with QPST, THEN DO NOT DO THEM. You can screw up the phone.

1. Perform one final backup of Leopard to my external drive using Time Machine.
2. Replace the hard drive in my MBP with the shiny, new 500 GB drive.
3. Restore my Leopard partition using the Time Machine backup and the Leopard OS disc.
4. Plug the old drive into my spare Windows machine using standard SATA cables.
5. Copy the entire Windows partition (including hidden and system files) to an external hard drive.
6. Upon completion of restoring Leopard, setup a new BootCamp partition and install Windows XP.
7. Boot into Leopard, delete all files from the BootCamp partition, and empty the trash.
8. Copy all files from the external hard drive to the BootCamp partition.

This worked for me. Now I am back up and running with plenty of space to spare!

Well, I ordered a Blackberry Storm on eBay on Friday in hopes of being able to activate the phone on the Alltel network (the Storm has only been released on Verizon in the United States). This might seem unnecessary with the Verizon/Alltel purchase deal looming, but I prefer my Alltel plan to the Verizon plans available, especially with the My Circle feature.

Now let’s just hope Verizon hasn’t locked down the programming menu of the phone too badly and I will be able to program in the Alltel network id and update the phone’s PRL to pick up Alltel’s towers. I will update this post with my progress in the coming days.

UPDATE (12/29/08):

My BlackBerry Storm is officially working on Alltel except for issues with EVDO (1x works fine). I will do my best to detail the steps I took to make the phone work:

1. Enter the NAM programming menu by typing ##000000 SEND from the phone screen.
   • Mobile Directory Number (MDN) should be your 10-digit number
   • Home SID (check your current Alltel phone programming menu for this number)
   • BlackBerry Registration Id should be 144 for Alltel. To change this setting, press the BlackBerry menu button and choose “Edit BB Reg Id”
   • SIP User ID should be <your mobile number>@bb.alltel.net
   • SIP Password should be “alltel”
   • MIP User ID should be <your mobile number>@bb.alltel.net
   • Push the BlackBerry menu button and choose “Save”
2. Now that your phone is programmed, you need to have the MEID hex added to Alltel’s system. You cannot use the web-based tool since this is a smart phone. Call Alltel from a different phone and have them add your phone to the system. You can check your MEID hex by typing #4357* SEND.
3. You will also need a SmartChoice plan with the BlackBerry option added to your account.
4. Dial *22801 to enter the Alltel OTA programming system and choose the option to activate your phone.
5. After the phone is activated, dial *22801 again and choose the option to update your phone’s roaming service. This will update the PRL on the phone to Alltel’s latest version, overwriting the Verizon PRL.
6. To provision the data services on the phone, go to options…advanced options…host routing table, press the BlackBerry menu key, and choose “Register Now”. This should replace your Verizon HRT entries with Alltel entries and you will receive a message from BlackBerry stating that the handheld has been registered with the wireless network.

UPDATE (3/3/09) – Issues with EVDO have been solved by some members of the Crackberry forum. Read this step by step guide on fixing EVDO.