Google Doesn't Discriminate-It Eliminates!

By Chris Behan

It has been an interesting few months in the world of Internet Marketing as Google took significant action against two high-profile retailers. The search engine giant doled out a well-deserved beating to the Google rankings of Overstock.com and JCPenney.com when it was discovered that both were engaged in link building schemes aimed at gaining higher rankings on the organic, or left-hand side, of search engines.

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link back to your own website from theirs. When one website links to another, Google looks at the link much like a vote of confidence for the receiving site. But not all links are good links. There are many factors that Google analyzes to determine the quality of a link, but one of the most important factors is relevance. Is the link relevant, or does it make sense, for that site to link to yours?

Nuclear Powered Black Dresses

In the case of JCPenney.com, the link building scheme used to prop up that site’s Google ranking employed many irrelevant links, which ultimately got the retailer in hot water. For instance, the search engine optimization (SEO) firm that J. C. Penney hired added a post to a nuclear engineering blog that included the phrase “black dresses” and then linked that phrase back to www.JCPenney.com. You don’t need to be a nuclear physicist to know that black dresses have nothing to do with nuclear engineering. Google saw the disconnect, too, and deemed the link completely irrelevant.

I would like to mention that Google would rarely (if ever) take action against a website that does this one or two times, but when the process of linking irrelevant websites together is systemic, Google is certain to take action. With that in mind, you can imagine the extent to which J. C. Penney’s SEO firm employed these manipulative “black hat” practices, since Google responded by manually adjusting its algorithm so that many of JCPenney.com’s first-page listings were sent all the way down to page 70.

I would also like to mention that J. C. Penney denies any knowledge of their SEO firm engaging in these practices, and that may certainly be the truth, but does it really matter? Not in Google’s eyes.

Google only wants relevant websites to link together. If the “black dresses” link pointing to www.JCPenney.com was from another clothing or dress website, then it would not have been violating Google’s policy.

Taking Out the Trash…

Many Internet Marketing firms will tell you that Google is always changing its algorithm – “almost daily” they might say – but is that really the case? Think about it for a moment. Google’s goal is to put the most RELEVANT website at the top of the search engine listings. Believe it or not, Google does NOT determine relevance; YOU do. That’s right, you determine if the results that Google returns are relevant to what you searched. If they are, you’ll keep using Google as your search engine. If not, you’ll switch to another search engine – and likewise for the billions of other people who use search engines.

Google does not arbitrarily change things up to keep you on your toes. When Google makes an adjustment to its algorithm, it is to simply take out the trash, removing websites from its results that tricked or manipulated their way into high rankings.

Why Does Google Care So Much About the Organic Results?

If Google allowed irrelevant, uninformative, or otherwise unworthy websites to outrank sites that deserve higher placement, then people would stop using Google as their search engine. If people stopped using Google, then Google would no longer be able to sell the “Pay-Per-Click” ads that run down the right-hand side and top of their results. So the answer to the question is MONEY. Google needs the free organic results to be relevant and useful, attracting the largest audience possible so that Google can then sell the Pay-Per-Click ads that appear next to the non-paid listings.

So What’s The Moral of This Cautionary Tale?

Choose Wisely. Choosing the wrong SEO firm can have consequences far past not ranking well in search engines. It can jeopardize your company’s entire brand online.

For more information on how to choose a search engine optimization firm, simply Google the phrase “Google SEO Guidelines” and the first result will take you directly to Google’s SEO guidelines. There you will find great information on how to choose.

About the Author
Chris Behan is the President and Chief Optimization Officer of Socius Marketing, Inc. (www.sociusmarketing.com), Tampa’s top-ranked search engine optimization company, which provides Internet marketing services to small, medium, and large businesses looking to expand their online presence. With offices in Tampa and Atlanta and clients across the country, Socius Marketing is one of the largest, and fastest-growing online lead generation firms in the United States.  Specializing in organic, white-hat search engine optimization, Chris has more than 11 years of Internet marketing experience and has helped hundreds of companies generate leads online. Chris can be reached at chris@sociusmarketing.com or by calling (813) 282-8300. – Offices Rocky Point, Tampa