Take a moment to search for one of the UK’s biggest online flower
shops by typing ‘Interflora’ into Google. You’d think the company’s website
would be in the top two search results. It was, until a couple of weeks ago.
But now the florist’s UK website has been removed from Google rankings after it
caught them trying to buy their way to the top.
Last week, the search giant launched a clampdown on several sites who
had colluded to game the PageRank algorithm by buying and selling links to one
another. Interflora was the main offender, having carpet bombed UK news
websites with paid advertorial content ahead of Valentine’s day, and thinking
it could get away with not telling Google, which was a big mistake.
It’s been estimated that up to 90% of links on the web are paid
for, so that’s not a problem. But advertorials which contain links are supposed
to be flagged up with a ‘nofollow’ tag to alert Google that it’s not a genuine recommendation
– something Interflora didn’t do.
So they’ve been punished not for isn’t the buying of links, which
Google doesn’t mind at all. What Google took issue with was the fact that they
didn’t pay into the honesty jar by flagging up the content as bought. And Interflora
is not the only site to be hit by Google’s SEO police. Many newspaper websites
such as the Scotsman and the Yorkshire post have also been demoted in the
rankings for hosting the rogue Interflora content.
Google has put out a blog post stating that it keeps a close check
on sites trying to cheat their way to the top. “We do
take this issue very seriously,” warns Google’s Matt Cutts, “ so we recommend
you avoid selling (and buying) links that pass PageRank in order to prevent
loss of trust, lower PageRank in the Google Toolbar, lower rankings, or in an
extreme case, removal from Google's search results.”
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