In doing some checking on my competition, I have found a competitor who using some linking tricks to get a number one ranking. They are achieving "Google found" links to their site.

There is no debate that it works - the results are in the ranking. It's whether is moral, ethical or if the process will stand the test of time.

I will show you what the site has done and rather than show you the actual site. I will cover the process they have used to rank high on many keywords. (over 900 focused terms)

1. The developed a list of core keywords - these are in demand competitive product item keywords which many advertisers are spending large amounts of money to buy on Adwords. These are buy product words like "hair dryer".

2. Placed blog comment links - The blogs they have used are a specific type, diverse subjects with no set theme or idea. Which by the way,takes away the myth that you need links from sites in the same market eg: if you are selling dog items - you need links from other "dog sites" - never was true but at least this is proof.

3. Research - Most reputable blogs have a comment system allow others to make a comment, or statement about the information (see more info below) This allows users to interact and at the same time, create regular updated information, bringing the Google search spider back to your site, so it's a win-win.

In most Blogs when someone posts a comment it needs to be checked and approved, before showing and a "No follow" html tag is placed on the comment.

This means that Google will follow it to find pages, however it will not count it as link to your site. It will not pass any type of reputation on that will help your rank. Most blogs have this set to protect themselves.

The blogs there are using do not have these settings turned on and look like they are old blogs that have been abandoned. Some of the blogs have a lot of incoming links in place and therefore have a good page rank in some cases. Also there are others blogs which don't have page rank but appear in Google as backlinks to the site

To check what links Google sees on any site use this in the Google search box:

link: www.sitename.com

I am guessing the company that done this may be Chinese as a lot of the blogs that link to the site are in Chinese and need to be translated.

Here's the main point of this article- it does in fact work and maybe your competition is doing it do it is called comment spamming.

Due to Google saying over the years, that you cannot be punished for others who link to you ( That way your competition can't link to your site do you harm) The only way that the results can be changed is to create more quality links to your site.

You can contact Google (like I did BTW at abuse[AT] google.com ) however its unlikely to change things. They may decide to hand edit the results by removing the site, but this is unlikely.

So where does this go? Is it the responsibility of the owner of the blog? Or is the moral ground being used by the person posting the link? Thoughts? I would love to get your feedback