American department store giant JCPenney severed ties with its SEO company after the firm engaged in a “black hat” SEO strategy that involved paying hundreds of sites to link back to JCPenney.com, according to a new report.
Local SEO experts say the incident should force Australian SMEs to check that their SEO managers are not engaging in black hat techniques banned by Google which could see them stripped of page one search rankings.
Chris Thomas, chief executive of SEO firm Reseo, says the incident serves as an explicit warning for businesses that they should not engage in such behaviour.
“You really do need to be asking your SEO managers these questions,” Thomas says. “Stay on top of your SEO agency and insist they abide by these guidelines.”
As reported by The New York Times, the practice of creating paid links placed JCPenney at the top of search pages for several categories such as dresses and shoes.
But the pages that were linking back to JCPenney had nothing to do with these topics at all. Some included a site called “nuclear.engineeringaddict.com”, and another was “bulgariapropertyportal.com”.
The problem is that those links were not created organically. JCPenney’s outsourced firm paid other sites to put those links up, thereby artificially inflating JCPenney’s search engine rankings.
Google prefers its links to be organic in order to provide the more “relevant” result – JCPenney was only relevant because it paid to be.
JCPenney found out what was happening and subsequently fired the firm, SearchDex. But with Google’s policy being so strict it suffered serious consequences.
Software engineer Matt Cutts told the New York Times that what JCPenney was doing “violated our guidelines”.
Soon after, Google started penalising JCPenney’s website using an internal system of points. The publication reports that while the department store ranked first for the phrase “Samsonite carry-on luggage”, within hours it was tucked away on the fourth or fifth page of results.
As of this morning JCPenney was not on the front page of Google for that particular phrase.
The entire incident highlights how powerful banned techniques known as “black hat” can be and the severity of the consequences if a business is caught engaging in such practices.
Jim Stewart, chief executive of Stewart Media, says businesses need to be explicitly clear about what they expect from their SEO firms and says business owners need to become savvy enough with this type of business so they can identify if banned tactics are being used.
“There are a raft of questions you need to ask your SEO firm. Do you have backlinks? Do you need more? And how do you get them? And the most important is are we doing what could be considered black hat?” he says.
Black hat is the term used to identify SEO practices that are banned by Google. The practice is rampant among sites practically begging to get to the top of search rankings.
Last year, SmartCompany investigated the black hat scene in Australia and found that local businesses are engaging in such tactics.
But Stewart says the only reason a business would engage in trading links is because their site isn’t relevant in the first place.
“A lot of businesses don’t need them. I look at the JCPenney site and the problem they have is they are so image heavy there isn’t a lot of room to move there. My advice is that they need more text there to make it more relevant for the Google bots,” he says.
“Whenever a site has heaps of images, the bots get confused and don’t know how to rank it. It means you go down to the bottom of every category.”
Stewart says Australian businesses need to make sites relevant to search engines – and they shouldn’t just rely on paid links to get them to the top.
“If you’re using an SEO company make sure they aren’t using comment spam, backlinks or any other type of black hat. You will be found out,” Stewart says.
“Be relevant to the search. Catalogue your site properly and structure it so that you get to the top.”
Thomas says it is ‘amazing’ the incident ever occurred and says it is encouraging that Google is willing to take action against sites that take part in such behaviour.
“Google has been very clear about this and I think they’re trying to set an example here. Hopefully they will scare people off for a bit,” he says.
“You really need to stay on top of your SEO, Google has shown they will act.”
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written by john@xlevents.com.au, February 15, 2011
written by seoconsulant, February 15, 2011
You are right... many cowboys out there. Sorry to hear John
I believe you will love this video.
http://www.internetninja.com.au/interview-with-an-seo-company/
written by Mobilemojo, February 15, 2011
If Google is going to start penalizing sites for being linked from irrelevant sites, it could create the most effective strategy to knock a competitor off the top spot. Just link to them from dodgy places.
written by Dave Beck, February 15, 2011
Any business owner looking to engage SEO consultants has to do due diligence and at least understand the concepts behind what tactics are being used and why. No point going in eyes wide shut!
written by marclindsay, February 16, 2011
Cowboys would be giving credit.
There are a few companies I enjoy working with in Australia, you know who you are.
Articles like this however, do not give enough information for people to actually get the right information.
"Thomas says it is ‘amazing’ the incident ever occurred and says it is encouraging that Google is willing to take action against sites that take part in such behaviour."
Come on guys......
Its not amazing, it happens in every major US industry, it does not mean its right.... but it does happen.
The specifics to this were that it was LINK BUYING with pure intent of manipulation for search results.
Other statements in the article give the Austrlaian SEO space a bad name.
Referencing "backlinks" in general when also talking about blackhat and spam content, this statement alone is fueling poor results and reasons for the Australian "cowboy" SEO companies to keep delivering fail results and ripping off Australian Business's.
Consumers should always have an understanding of what their SEO company is doing for them, so congrats on bringing the question out more.
Unfortunately most consumers will only ever talk to a sales person that may parade as an "online results specialist" which essentially means they are able to convince you with empty words that they can do what is needed.
If your answers are anything like this after asking a bit deeper..... then run away.... fast.
Q: What exactly am I paying you for each month
Bogus Answer 1: Well we keep your site highly optimized each month for the ever changing search space, did you know that google changes their algorithm constantly.
Bogus Answer 2: We make sure that your site is submitted to all the major search engines each month and its awareness grows.
Just one example.....
Ultimately, Find out what you are paying for..... and then what EXACTLY that is.
Most companies charge an "optimisation" fee per month, and deliver very little real value which results in very little real results and a bad name.
BREAKTHROUGH NEWS.....
It takes time, money & resources to get major rankings in major industries and sorry but the $200 to $400 per month is not going to cut it for any major movement in most indusrties.
Sure.... local based industry like...
"Bobs laser dentistry practice gold coast"
No worries, change your on-page to reflect your business and nature and this will happen anyhow, this is usually how most lowend companies pickup their early results..... through on-page seo changes and for low value, low competition terms.
I welcome a healthy discussion....
Marc
written by seoconsulant, February 17, 2011
Well written...
Love your work man... (I think I supported your internet lifestyle) for over 1 year using AMA.
I agree with you... companies need to understand exactly what they are paying for... the problem is that many so-called SEO companies are experts in promote fear and confusion to their customers...
The ... "we submit your website to 400 search engines" it's not only one of the best scams... so many companies are doing that at this exact moment.
Amazing....
written by Arrow SEO, April 19, 2011
written by LT SEO, April 19, 2011
Usually though it would require a heck of a lot of manipulation to do such a thing, the only reason JCPenny came un-done was because of the news article.
You could also see massive trends in their link footprints for this type of link.
When combining all of the above, it looks pretty clear that it is done for JC Penny, by JC Penny.
If you were trying to knock a competitor out like this, I doubt you would do it with as much breadth as they were.
If anything one might target all on one phrase to create an un-natural footprint much quicker and perhaps attracting an over optimization flag.
End of the day Google can and will change results manually where it comes into mainstream.
I would imagine this is a message being sent, as it sets a standard on what is "okay" to do.
"Well JC Penny is doing it so it must be fine"
Marc
Oh dear... this is like if we live in Alice in Wonderland.
Since when links are created organically? I mean... you do article marketing, then that link is not organic ... it's artificial. You created the article to get the link.
You submit a comment (like this one) ... so I added my link, so I intended to get a link from this site to my site... therefor it's not organic.
I submit my site to a business directory... I do so because I want a backlink... but wait... I did that thinking of getting a link... so that's not organic.
I agree that what JCPenny was stupid... and google used the to set an example... but to claim that google doesn't like you to artificially inflate search engines rankings... well obviously they don't . But they can't control it, mainly because their algorithm works on the weight of links and link velocity. This means... for them to "clean" the net of "evil companies" (lol) trying to increase their ranking, they will need to change their own algorithm. ;)