It has been brought to my attention that a certain Dubai SEO company, nestled amongst the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and just a stone’s throw from Abu Dhabi, Umm al-Quwain, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, and Sharjah–all of which contain internet marketing companies offering SEO and related search engine optimisation services–has taken the liberty of copying my prized Meta description content and using it on their own website, without my permission and without proper attribution. This post is my response.
Don’t Hire Thieves to Do Your SEO
Any SEO company–in Dubai or elsewhere–that blatantly steals content from other SEO’s websites…is one that should be avoided at all costs. Website owners in search of “affordable SEO packages and link building services” are more susceptible to being scammed by marketing firms like the one shown above.
Don’t Hire a Liar
Stealing content is nothing new…but in this particular instance, the thieves actually got someone at ZDNet to write a 2-page article about how clever their Meta description is (yes, the one they stole from me). Making matters worse, the guy who stole my content actually had the nerve to stop by ZDNet’s article and start talking about the “other” work he’s done regarding SERP snippets!
Does Your Dubai SEO Speaking English!!?
A subtle warning that this company either doesn’t understand English grammar… or simply lacks confidence in their SEO skills:
Cheap Imports
Here’s my original SERP snippet, followed by a cheap imitation from Dubai:
Advanced Online Reputation Management Warfare
If you made it this far, congratulations. Here’s the method to my madness…
Did you notice that I never mentioned the Dubai SEO company’s actual name? The name is only used in the images’ alt attributes and in the <title> of this article. The reason for doing this is simple: I want to force Google to use this article’s Meta description for the SERP snippet.
Since this article’s Meta description is yet another meaningless sequence of W’s and underscores, Google sees it as a “last resort” option for displaying in the search results. Therefore, if I want my special hand-crafted description to be displayed when someone searches for Majed’s shady SEO company by name, then it can’t appear in the page content–otherwise, Google will show the on-page occurrence of the keyword being searched for. Ultimately I’m trying to rank this page for the company name, using only the title, alt attributes, and the anchor text of all those inbound links you’re about to point at this page. :D
If everything goes as planned, the results of this Google search will include something like this:
One Last Request
If you tweet about this post or link to it, be sure to use the company name in it. And for the love of everything holy…don’t mention it in the comments, unless you want me to hack your website to pieces.
…and by website I mean family.
Updates
Due to a typo in my custom PHP function–the function that said DO NOT put date stamps on the comments of this post–my snippet was date raped. :(
I fixed my code, removed all dates from this post, and within just a couple of hours…Google had recrawled the page and un-raped my snippet. Looks best in Firefox; doesn’t work in IE. Click image below for full size.
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Darren I’ll link 3 websites directly to your article with that company’s name as anchor if you send a link over to my website :)
Let me know, and may your vengeance be terrible!
Wow. Awesomeness.
SEO 101: Don’t mess with Darren Slatten.
Get over yourself. It’s a Google snippet, who the hell cares?
If criticizing me for getting worked up over something meaningless somehow makes you feel better about your limp dick, then you might want to check out my other posts too. Plenty of opportunities for a cool noodle like you, Gar’.
Great job Darren.
Thanks to your posts i’m learning a lot of cool stuff!
Greetings from Italy!
Awesome post xD all for the SEO-induced revenge!
This rage-revenge post brightened up my day. GJ.
This is absolutely fantastic! Great stuff haha!
I like the way all their above-fold homepage content disappears in IE9. Obviously some big anti-IE protest going on there. Take that Microsoft.
And they still have the same meta desc tag. Does no one monitor their online rep anymore? Won’t somebody think of the children!
Very well done and deserved indeed. :)
Awesome, pure and diligent awesome.
You are one bloody brilliant, scary, seo genious.
lol olololol
Ehi, your snippet is date raped again!
Ouchhh.. Fire the liars and Copycrows. You did it well Darren. Wondering I got to know you now. BTW, just a little effort to help feed your 9 kiddos :p Am sharing this post
Not for nothing but whats the big deal anyway. Its just some meta tag characters. I’ve so much content, forms, images “stolen” from my sites that I could create a phone book about it. I get a little irate, then i just move on. Its just the way the web is. ESPECIALLY with some keystroke characters for a meta description.
Haha… i did the search and saw the SCAM instead of SEO…nice one ;)
Interesting that if you refine results to “Past Month” then you are being date raped again.
UPDATE:
Looks like the author became wise to the deception and gave the credit back to the mofo :)
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/seo/really-neat-idea-using-ascii-art-within-a-meta-description/695
Hilarious! Wish you the best of luck on your conquest.
Since when stealing meta tags can get you sued ?!?
i thought only the use of registered trade symbols can get you there.
I’m shocked. is this for real ?
@Duran seo
Im not sure how far one could take this regarding meta tags, however, you could send a DMCA request.
I think the problem comes into play when you knowingly plagiarize and profit off of it. And of course… get caught :)
Well, like my father once said.
be honest and you will always sleep good at night :)
I didn’t realize you invented ASCII art (bad ASCII art at that), or that you own the trademark to SEO. Good thing you would never steal from anyone else (like your logo character) or you’d be a pretty big hypocrite…
Technically, it’s not ASCII art. The essential characteristic of ASCII art is a fixed-width font, which creates a predictable layout of character positions, in a fixed grid of rows and columns.
Since Google SERPs do not use a fixed-width font, the process of creating “art” from them is considerably more complicated. The use of “W” and “_” characters is a strategic choice that specifically addresses the need for extra-wide characters, such that the sum of horizontal pixels of 2 “words” (ie, 2 strings of W and _ characters, separated by a space character) exceeds the horizontal pixel capacity of Google’s designated HTML block, which is defined in the SERPs CSS as
max-width: 42em;.The
em-based width complicates our task even further, as it introduces inconsistencies between web browsers–a problem that’s compounded by differences in font rendering (eg, with or without ClearType, font smoothing, etc.). It is these inconsistencies that cause my SERP art snippet to appear differently in each browser (and completely fail in some).So no, I didn’t invent ASCII art, but as far as I know…I did invent SERP art, and to date, I haven’t seen anyone else successfully implement this idea in their own SERP snippet.
Regarding my use of an image that resembles the character from Calvin and Hobbes, this is merely an example of non-commercial fair use of copyrighted content. It has nothing to do with trademark. (BTW…this article has nothing to do with either one.)
My primary reasons for incorporating Calvin into my web “presence” are (1) the “Calvin peeing on…” image is the most widely recognized symbol for “I’m not a fan of…” and (2) I fuckin’ love Calvin and Hobbes. How much do I love Calvin and Hobbes? Well, for example, I tracked down the exact comic that the Calvin image was based on–by searching through my complete set of every Calvin and Hobbes book that’s ever been published–and reconstructed the commonly used “sticker version” to more-accurately represent the original artwork. Plus, I owe a great deal of credit to Bill Watterson for indirectly teaching me how to read.
Ha! Ha! What great point to bring up. SEOmofo “steals” or just uses a well known (probably trademarked) logo he didn’t create and then uses it for his homepage company logo. Maybe you should look in the mirror buddy. Unethical? Just sayn’
SEO is not trademarked at all, Rhea Drysdale fought and won a bloody battle about that.
Blimey, this is pretty radical as a punishment. I do feel it has a purpose as it is blatant plagiarism which is unfair when you consider google will punish both websites. Copying is never a good thing, nor is it clever!
How do I get the same to display SXEO intead of SEO??
I have been having a play with that but it’s not easy to redo with four letters I can tell you – hmm hang on Yoast WordPress plugin maybe that will help ………..
This is hilarious! Looks like everything did go as planned! Goes to show that you really need to pick your battles carefully. Justice be done! Thanks, Darren!
people should at all times respect the original creator. you can always put a reference or credit page or even just a simple note of recognition if you got that idea from someone else.
I like the way you use the word “steal” and then or just uses a well known logo. You want to make your mind up mate.
dude. you have too much time on your hands.
LOL.
Haha just found this on the web and loved it!
As soon as I get my site up and running, you can count on a dxbseo anchored link to this page…
Haha, great post. A very clever plan of attack. well done
you did a great job, have to give it to you for teaching the dxb site a lesson :)
Looks like he beat you in the serps
Is copying meta description consider as duplicating content ?
Lmao I Lol’d hard.How old is this post? These barneys still have it as their meta, but when I google it it looks like complete shit.
Max
LOL, I’ll mention the company name, it’s……………..
funny watching these postings. I bought this dxb site about 8 months ago. Yea, i paid too much. I am trying to find the previous onwe to change the website around and get rid of the mets stuff. No luck as of yet. Previous owner now live in syria and i can’t communicate with him to remove the meta stuff. “Syria currently won’t let anyone communicate with the outiside world. Soon I hope to have the met fixed. Currently i can’t get a response from the previous owner. “Majed”. I will keep trying.
Interesting! Was fun reading this post. Fight for it till the end, All the best :)