J.C. Penney is Busted by the New York Times

If you are a regular reader of this blog or an e-newsletter subscriber, you will know that I often talk about link building. There is no doubt that getting external links to your site can boost your site’s rankings. In fact, Google states:

“Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you.”

Of course, many read that and stop. Google actually goes on to say:

However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. – Source: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

Well, apparently J.C. Penney was one of those who stopped at the first sentence, as pointed out by The New York Times, The Dirty Little Secrets of Search.

Through some investigation, the New York Times noticed that J.C. Penney was unusually outranking millions of sites on tons of keywords. It wasn’t just the typical words you would expect the large department store to rank for, but it was also for branded terms. They were out ranking manufactures, like Samsonite, on their own terms. Sure they sell, Samsonite, but their site is not “more related” than the original source.

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”).

After more digging and expert consultation, NYT found misguided and “black hat” link building leading to these rankings.

There are links to JCPenney.com’s dresses page on sites about diseases, cameras, cars, dogs, aluminum sheets, travel, snoring, diamond drills, bathroom tiles, hotel furniture, online games, commodities, fishing, Adobe Flash, glass shower doors, jokes and dentists — and the list goes on.

But wait, it worked?

Yes, these black-hat techniques did work. They worked temporarily. The problem is now Google is executing that clause above “…can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.” J.C. Penney has dropped dramatically in the rankings. Moving from the top position to the sixth or seventh PAGE.

Literally overnight, J.C. Penney went from visible to non-existent on major keywords. J.C. Penney immediately fired their search firm. It’s a firm that I am familiar with, because they have often “charmed” executives I have reported to. It’s not just this firm. There are tons of firms out there that do these techniques. They often get away with them too, because they are a quick solution. They get the results. Cash the check. Then, move on to the next client. They are not around for the long-term damage they have done to the brand.

In fact, if I approached a potential client and said I could get them rankings in 2 weeks, there is a good chance they would hire me. It’s frankly, much easier than my approach and the approach of many of my search engine marketing friends. Yes, there are many of us out there.

This is not a post to tell you to hire me. There are many, strong search marketers in the business. In fact, I’d like to think most practice solid content and quality link building techniques. If you are looking for help, Google has provided some useful questions to get you started:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you?
• Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Source: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291