subject: What the JC Penney Link Buying Scandal Means for SEO [print this page] What the JC Penney Link Buying Scandal Means for SEO
In mid-February, the New York Times broke the story of J.C. Penney holding the number one rank in Google for hundreds of search terms thanks to an apparent link buying scheme on a grand scale. Google web spam fighter Matt Cutts took action, burying J.C. Penney's site for the questionable practices. What does this say about using appropriate SEO techniques?
Here is the article on the link spam scandal if you somehow missed it. One of the things the Times found was that J.C. Penney outranked Samsonite's own website for "Samsonite carry-on luggage." That's suspicious enough that the newspaper asked Doug Pierce to investigate. Pierce, who wrote about his discoveries separately in addition to sharing his findings with the Times, discovered thousands of web pages linking back to J.C. Penney's dress section with anchor text related to dresses.
That's no big deal, until you notice that most of the pages on which the links are located have nothing to do with dresses. Tell me, if you can, what a website ostensibly on nuclear engineering has to do with a little black dress! The dress section link scheme is just one example of something that was going on throughout the retailer's site for "tens of thousands" of terms, according to Pierce.
It's worth reading Pierce's piece; he found other violations involving J.C. Penney, such as a doorway page and what he calls "anchor link keyword stuffing." He concludes by asking "How can small businesses compete with large companies that have deep pockets for paid links?" It's a valid question, and not the only one that this situation raises.
For example, J.C. Penney claims that they didn't know their SEO company, SearchDex, was doing this. "J.C. Penney did not authorize, and we were not involved with or aware of, the posting of the links that [the New York Times] sent us, as it is against our natural search policies," J.C. Penney spokeswoman Darcie Brossart told the newspaper. Indeed, the retailer fired SearchDex when they got the news. And yet, in the article, Matt Cutts noted that Google spotted violations related to the retailer's website on three previous occasions, most recently last November. How could J.C. Penney NOT know that their SEO was doing this?
If you're particularly gullible, you might believe that SearchDex didn't know they what they were doing, either. Here's a quote from the company's website in reference to this debacle: "SearchDex has not participated in, nor endorsed the linking schemes mentioned in the New York Times article. Our company is built on the highest ethical standards and at no point have we incorporated the use of improper linking schemes or other gaming techniques into programs for our clients. SEO tactics employed by SearchDex for all of our clients, past and present, have been compliant with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. As a result of the NYTimes story, SearchDex is verifying that all strategies employed for our clients continue to comply with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We are also conducting a formal investigation in order to attempt to determine the source and motivation of the links cited in the article."
If you're feeling inclined to poke around SearchDex's site, guess what you won't find? A customer list. It used to be there, but apparently it got taken down. Fortunately, Your SEO Sucks caught it from Google's cache before it disappeared completely - and there are some very big names on it.
You might be interested to know, by the way, that until after the Times broke the story, the most recent press release on SearchDex's website dated to 2007 - March 15, to be exact. It mentioned J.C. Penney signing up with the SEO company for an unprecedented fourth year. Imagine that. Somehow, I don't think the retailer will be signing up for a fifth year of service from SearchDex.
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
