From: The Weekly Feed <noreply@feedjit.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:27:37 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: The Weekly Feed #56: The SEO rise and fall of two online
retail giants - and the tactics they used
To: https://feedjit.com/adSignup/?utm_source=dailyFeed56&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dailyFeed56>and
we have a crazy door-buster:
- Geotargeted ads get double the impressions: $49 for 2 Million Ad
impressions.
- Globally targeted ads get double the impressions: $49 for 6 Million Ad
impressions.
- *Globally* targeted ads are also available at *$249 for 30 Million
impressions*. Usually this price only gets you 5 million impressions.
We're offering a small number of these crazy door-busters.
Click here to set up your Rush ad now and take advantage of these limited
time specials.<https://feedjit.com/adSignup/?utm_source=dailyFeed56&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dailyFeed56>
We're doing this while inventory lasts and once we're sold out, we're going
to revert back to our regular pricing. So if you're promoting a new blog or
website, buy your ad impressions now because we won't do this again any time
soon<https://feedjit.com/adSignup/?utm_source=dailyFeed56&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dailyFeed56>.
Remember that you can schedule your ad to run at a future date, even after
we end this promotion.
Now on to our regularly scheduled programming:
*The JC Penney Story*
Less than 2 weeks ago the NY Times broke a story titled "The Dirty Little
Secrets of Search<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1>"
about JC Penny using Black Hat SEO marketing tactics to artificially boost
themselves to the top of Google's search results. JCP's search marketing
firm created links from a large number of spam or questonable websites back
to JCP's website and optimized for phrases like "black dresses",
"tablecloths", "comforter set" and other products in their range.
The result was that JCP ended up at the top of the search results - higher
even than brand name manufacturers of some products. The result of the NY
Times article was that Google penalized JCP. On 1 Feb JCP ranked an average
of 1.3 for 59 search terms in their product range. Ten days later their
average ranking was 52.
There has been some backlash from the search marketing community who feel
that if they weren't a large brand who spends ad dollars with Google, they
would have been penalized clear out of the search results. A ranking of 52
seems awfully generous of Google.
*The Overstock.com Story*
On January 12th someone posted to webmasterworld.com SEO discussion
forum<http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4252178.htm>that
Overstock.com was ranking extremely well and it might be worth
reverse-engineering why they're ranking so well. In a rare instance, the
moderator on Webmasterworld actually allowed the reverse engineering to take
place.
Then after a month of picking apart their tactics the discussion wound down.
Today the Wall Street Journal broke a
story<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704520504576162753779521700.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection>that
Overstock.com has been penalized and they've been demoted in the
search
results to exactly the same spot as JC Penney: between 40 and 70.
The discussion on Webmasterworld has a few additional
comments<http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4252178-3-30.htm>since
the Wall Street Journal story broke today - mostly political stuff.
Until this story broke the general consensus was that Overstock actually was
using acceptable tactics to market their site. But Google's web spam team
(specifically Matt Cutts) hangs out on Webmasterworld and Google doesn't
like to be embarrassed, so they took action and you now know the result.
So what tactics did Overstock.com use to get on page one? Simple:
1. They created PDF's that they sent to universities.
2. Each PDF was customized for each university e.g. it had the university
logo, and the text was customized.
3. The PDF said that students at the university could get a 10% discount
at Overstock.com.
4. It also provided specific text for each university webmaster to post
on their website. e.g. Ladies jackets, comforter sets, mens wear all 10% off
at overstock. The important phrases linked to those specific sections on
Overstock.
5. An important point here is that the link text and links in each PDF
were DIFFERENT for each university.
6. Many university webmasters posted the text verbatim on their websites.
7. Some webmasters simply put the PDF on their sites. Links from PDF
documents also pass pagerank and give you a boost in the search results. Few
people know this and the posting of these PDFs to university websites was
the real genius of this campaign.
8. The result was that Overstock.com ended up with a large number of
dot-edu links to different sections on their website.
9. Google gives links from .edu domains a much greater pagerank score
than regular links, and the result was page one for every product section on
Overstock.com.
Until today when Google penalized them. If they had kept their heads down or
if someone had not "outed" them on Webmasterworld, they would still be
ranking #1 for a large number of categories for potentially months or
years.
That my gentle readers is the story of JC Penney and Overstock and their
rise and fall. I shudder to even speculate how much money these
search penalties have cost both of these online retail giants.
Have a spectacular week and weekend and I wish you the very best in your
online marketing efforts. Don't forget to buy your Rush Ad before our
special ends<https://feedjit.com/adSignup/?utm_source=dailyFeed56&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dailyFeed56>
.
Mark Maunder
Feedjit Founder & CEO.
If this email was forwarded to you by a friend, you can subscribe on this
page<http://feedjit.com/theWeeklyFeed/?utm_source=weeklyFeed&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=subscribeLink>.
The
Weekly Feed is published once a week when we have news, information and
helpful tips to share. Unsubscribe instructions are at the end of this
message. You can read previous editions of The Weekly Feed on our
blog<http://feedjit.com/blog/?utm_source=dailyFeed&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blogLink>
where
we may also post additional content.
--
Feedjit respects your privacy. Please click the link below if you would
like to stop receiving these emails or if you have joined our list and
would like to unsubscribe.
http://feedjit.com/mailu/?l=439bc1c0479ab0fb53489ec9b7612a4fdbd81ab762a3a9019bdc35b65138b191
You can contact us at <support@feedjit.com>. Our postal address is:
1916 Pike Place, Suite 12365, Seattle, WA, 98101.
