Big Brands Finally Getting Penalized

Of all the news media resources, the New York Times broke a story that JCPenney's #1 rank on Google was actually the result of a link scheme. In order to create these very unnatural looking links, JCP's SEO firm bought into a couple of paid link networks around the holiday.

Thousands of unrelated links were pointed to JCP's sites from sites which had page titles and content that was completely unrelated to the anchor text. Compare the page titles with the link anchor text below to see what we mean.

And if that wasn't enough of a red flag, there was a series of sites, related or not, that had essentially random and unnoticeable links in their footer pointing to JCPenney.com.

Using the above methods helped JCP become number #1 or #2 for hundreds of big money general search terms like dresses, bedding, comforter sets, skinny jeans, home decor and more. We can only assume they made buckets of cash as a result, but it leaves us wondering if it was all worth it.

These types of "black hat" techniques are used for sites that are meant to have a temporary Web presence and make fast cash. However, these same techniques applied to a solid company Web site like JCPenny.com and you get devastating consequences.

Once the New York Times broke this story, JCP immediately stated they had no knowledge of the link scheme and fired their SEO firm. JCP is no longer ranking for any of these keywords and is currently buried on Google...shocking I know :)

Not long after seeing the devastating results to JCPenney.com, a competitor noticed similar unsanctioned activity on Overstock.com and decided to snitch on them as well. Overstock.com had put out an offer to .edu sites for 10% off their purchases for students, faculty, staff etc. in exchange for links on their .edu pages. The link typically took the form of a seemingly innocent 10% discount for stu...