Title
Search + Seizure: The Effectiveness of Interventions on SEO Campaigns
Abstract
Black hat search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of abusively manipulating search results, is an enticing method to acquire targeted user traffic. In turn, a range of interventions--from modifying search results to seizing domains--are used to combat this activity. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of these interventions in the context of an understudied market niche, counterfeit luxury goods. Using eight months of empirical crawled data, we identify 52 distinct SEO campaigns, document how well they are able to place search results for sixteen luxury brands, how this capability impacts the dynamics of their order volumes and how well existing interventions undermine this business when employed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2663716.2663738
Internet Measurement Conference
Keywords
Field
DocType
cloaking,search engine optimization,web spam,web-based services
World Wide Web,Psychological intervention,Advertising,Computer science,Search engine optimization,Computer network,Hacker,Search analytics,Counterfeit,Spamdexing
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.71
22
Authors
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
David Y. Wang1724.60
Matthew F. Der2110.71
Mohammad Karami3726.00
Lawrence K. Saul46239883.38
damon mccoy52073125.49
stefan savage6110171067.00
Geoffrey M. Voelker76844666.37