In talking to a client today, the conversation turned to the recent article in the NYTimes on J.C Penney’s. In the months leading up to Christmas 2010, J.C Penney’s shot up to the top of the Google rankings for various terms which were surprising to see Penney’s holding the number one rank.
The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”).
With more than 1,100 stores and $17.8 billion in total revenue in 2010, Penney is certainly a major player in American retailing. But Google’s stated goal is to sift through every corner of the Internet and find the most important, relevant Web sites.
Does the collective wisdom of the Web really say that Penney has the most essential site when it comes to dresses? And bedding? And area rugs? And dozens of other words and phrases?
How did this happen? They purchased spammy links which are placed on various websites and these links are then pointed to J.C Penney’s website. This is a BIG Google no-no. This is essentially cheating in the online world and it’s called “black hat” optimization. While it took several months for them to be caught, the long term benefits of this strategy will not help the department store.
On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company.
At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.”
Two hours later, it was at No. 71.
At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.”
By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.
In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country.
The next it was essentially buried.
So while there are ways to get yourself to the top ranking quickly, Google will catch you, and the punishment will be painful! It’s nice to see that Google catches and punishes the cheaters, so all of us who are being honest aren’t penalized. Check out the full article here.
-Patrick
Building links into your website is an important part of any SEO campaign. You may well have read our previous post about J.C Penney’s and how they gamed the system. Yes, that works but only for a short time, the best way to build links is to do it naturally.
