Interflora Google

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.”