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Barney Fife Chases the SEO Bandits at J.C. Penny

February 17, 2011

Barney Fife and the NY Times Chase the SEO Bandits at J.C. Penny

The NY Times published an article on February 13th (the 12th online) titled The Dirty Little Secrets of Search by David Segal, that lambasted J.C. Penny for a massive paid link campaign. This included playing elementary school tattle-tale and reporting their "findings" to Google - which in turn got J.C. Penny's search engine rankings flushed down the toilet.

To me, and probably a lot of other SEO experts, the article is a joke. The condescending tone alone was enough to make me almost not read it.

There are flaws in their "investigation" but come on; they didn't investigate Obama this much... had they, maybe our country wouldn't be swirling around, and around, heading down the toilet. I don't think all the "expert" SEO opinions in the article are accurate... more on that at the end of this post.

Evidently Segal was irate that J.C. Penny was ranking so high for so many items they sold, and brought in an expert to do some research on why. This expert found that J.C. Penny had been buying links to boost their SEO rankings. Something Google says is against their rules.

The article refers to link buying as "Black Hat". That's a joke. If anything, it's little off white or gray: nowhere, I repeat nowhere near black. People that actually know and use black hat techniques would laugh at the whole article.

Woops...
Segal should have done a little more homework on some of the sites he quotes in the first few paragraphs of his article. As he's naming various things like dresses, bedding, sweater dresses, etc. and questioning if J.C. Penny is really the best web site in the world for that product, he links to sites HE thinks should rank better... the problem is, he links to at least one site that buys links! Yep! You got it. And he gave them a no-follow link from the N.Y. Times to boot... I'll take one of those please! I spent maybe 5 minutes and found the rug site he links to has what appears to be paid links in link directories.

J.C. Penny denied they were buying links, but subsequently fired their SEO firm. The SEO firm should have used other methods to build links and kept the paid links at a minimum. I'm sure J.C. Penny was paying big dollars to this SEO firm and the firm was being lazy and obviously didn't take the best care of their client.

Buying links is common... my guess is Segal or someone at NY Times had a beef with J.C. Penny, or, owns a company that J.C. Penny was out ranking.

Is Organic SERP Boosted by Massive PPC?
The Times article also questions if there's a link between J.C. Penny's massive paid advertising spend on Google and their seemingly unnatural high search rankings. I think there is a correlation, however, I also think it's a subtle side effect not an intentional benefit rewarded by Google. Google is not God. Google is not infallible. Getting massive traffic from paid ads probably triggers an increase in organic rankings, but it's probably not much of an increase at all. I don't believe that Google rewards big advertisers by giving them a big jolt of organic ranking caffeine. But if they do, it's their business. They say they don't, so I believe them. If they do, then they shouldn't say they don't and that's the extent of it.

My Take...
My take on this "investigation" is: Get a Life! Go investigate something important and let Google police their own company and rankings. It reminds me of Barney Fife blowing something way out of proportion and making a big deal over nothing - and locking up the whole town.

After all, J.C. Penny actually sells the products they ranked for - there was no trickery, you could actually get what you were looking for... and that's the point of searching for something.

I don't agree with all the SEO "expertise" that's bantered around in this article - something I address in SEO Secrets - there are a lot of experts who state this or that, but when I've tested these things, they don't actually matter, or, even worse, will hurt your rankings... in this article I didn't read anything that would hurt rankings, but I did read a few things that they claim to matter that do not.

Until next time,
Fred

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Posted by Fred Black on February 17, 2011 | Printer-Friendly

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Comments:

From: Naftali

I understand what you are saying however I thought the article was dead on. Though in most cases the "whiners" are losers who don't know how to backlink or don't have the persistence and are too lazy to do it. The same whiners that complain about "content engines" like ehow who are giving searchers exactly what they want! ( pure jealousy ) If Google wanted to tinker with SERPS for their own benefit then sites with adsense would rank higher automatically and that would translate in the short term to a big payoff for Google. Though I am looking for any advantage to raise my sites in serps in Google I really do respect them.
Posted by Naftali on February 17, 2011 10:37 AM
From: Trump

This was a fascinating read. I thought that buying links is what we are suspoed to do to boost our SEO. Isn't that what banner ads are all about?
Posted by Trump on February 19, 2011 7:30 PM
From: Billy

I agree with you completely about Google policing their own whatever their policies may be. Unfortunately when it comes to their own domain they are god.
Posted by Billy on February 23, 2011 9:32 AM
From: Dom Interior

I don't believe that they knew anything. JCPenny hires a third-party company to do the job for them just like they hire the garbage man to take their trash away. Now, do they know that the garbage man is taking their trash away or throwing few miles away? no. They hired SearchDex to do the job for the them just as much as the hired programmers to build their web page. Do they know what's on the code? Nope. They sell clothes. SearchDex should be held accountable big time.
Posted by Dom Interior on February 26, 2011 9:35 AM
From: William Rose

An interesting read. I just can't fathom or keep up with some of googles policies. I had been considering starting affiliate promotion recently.
Posted by William Rose on February 27, 2011 11:02 AM
From: Tyson

I agree with being fed up with SEO experts who constantly claim to know what will get me closer to the top of search results. Often their methods are just the thing which ends up getting censured by Google. Basically, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Posted by Tyson on March 3, 2011 12:36 PM
From: turkce

JCPenny hires a third-party company to do the job for them just like they hire the garbage man to take their trash away. Now, do they know that the garbage man is taking their trash away or throwing few miles away? no.Though I am looking for any advantage to raise my sites in serps in Google I really do respect them.
Posted by turkce on March 5, 2011 5:49 AM
From: Mihaela

I totally agree with you! Never though NY Times was interested in SEO lol
Posted by Mihaela on March 6, 2011 12:47 PM
From: Paul

In the end it's Google that runs the show. They just happen to be "top dog" at the moment. Everyone is looking for them to throw scraps their way (in terms of free traffic)and some will do whatever it takes to rank highly. Google continuously wants fresh content and in the end there is never going to be enough quality content available.
Posted by Paul on March 8, 2011 7:23 AM
From: Lisa Davis

A truly helpful article you got here! Very informational and useful for readers. Thanks!
Posted by Lisa Davis on March 10, 2011 10:31 AM
From: Mircea

Many people don't understand SEO. I think the article was well-written and well-researched.
Posted by Mircea on March 10, 2011 2:30 PM
From: Gary

As long it is fair and square I don't have a problem with this.
Posted by Gary on March 13, 2011 1:05 PM
From: Dian

Google Maps is a great tool to use to help promote your small business, and its one tool that you don't want to ignore. Google Maps is a little different when thinking in terms of the social media world
Posted by Dian on March 16, 2011 1:50 AM
From: Ryan

Very interesting article!

I agree with your statement that instead of focusing so much on SEO and blackhat methods, they should be focusing their time somewhere else.
Posted by Ryan on March 16, 2011 5:27 PM
From: Austin

I don't think they're misleading us when they say they don't intentionally boost rankings - it's probably an un-intentional side effect if anything.
Posted by Austin on March 22, 2011 3:55 AM
From: Stephen Dean

Seems to me like Google is waging a great fear campaign.
Posted by Stephen Dean on March 25, 2011 4:38 PM
From: shak

Many people don't understand SEO. I think the article was well-written and well-researched.
Posted by shak on April 15, 2011 3:07 AM
From: Tina Bychkova

hi Fred,

Thanks for a nice article. it is a shame but though seo professionals might laugh, many not-so-technically advanced citizens would buy it..

Posted by Tina Bychkova on April 15, 2011 6:19 AM
From: Tim

Thank you for sharing those good tips! They are helpful.
Posted by Tim on April 15, 2011 10:24 AM
From: Amy

I think people would be surprised how many large companies break these rules.
Posted by Amy on May 4, 2011 1:10 AM
From: Mike

It would seem to me that the Times didn't actually have much of a clue as to what they were talking about but then again the technical details of an SEO campaign certainly wouldn't sell newspapers!
Posted by Mike on May 15, 2011 8:59 AM
From: dan

@AMy - they're not even rules to begin with but guidelines. G doesn't care whether you follow them or not, but if you don't then theres a risk that you don't get the benefits of being in Google's ecosystem.

I agree with your last point fred, that we shouldn't be really doing G's job by outing each other. I think the recent penalties of jc penny + overstock was only a reaction due to mainstream media coverage. Look at where the two sites are now and you'll see.
Posted by dan on May 16, 2011 8:35 AM
From: Chris

Thank you for the article. I didn't know Ny times care about SEO world.
Posted by Chris on May 20, 2011 11:12 AM
From: CD

Blackhat? I think just like a lot of marketers they pushed the "envelope". There are lot of things marketers do that is against Google t.o.s. That doesn't make it "right", but in the scheme of things JCP is just playing the "game" the best way they know how. And they're definitely not the only big retail companies doing so.
Posted by CD on May 28, 2011 6:19 PM
From: Mell Gibson

Well I believe in organic traffic so I think that if you need organic traffic then your site keywords should in ranking in search engine which you target. Sometimes I buy paidlinks but its in rare case, mainly I prefer 1way links, 2way is risky and you have to keep all the records for 3way link swaps.
Posted by Mell Gibson on August 29, 2011 2:12 PM
From: Dr. Robert Doebler

I didn't read the article published by NY times but I think there are just too many SEO gurus out there trying to make us more tired with their never ending tips on how to increase traffic using SEO tools. However, there are genuine ones too but a lot depends on how much effort we ourselves put into SEO works.
Posted by Dr. Robert Doebler on September 17, 2011 4:01 PM
From: Rohit

I guess the SEO firm took the easy route in this case, and many others would do the same thing. Big companies with lot of SEO dollars can spend money at it. But agree with you, there is nothing illegal here, and up to google to figure out ways to enforce stronger policing.
Posted by Rohit on November 26, 2011 7:52 PM
From: Myalgia

Many people have no clue about SEO, Thanks for this Article
Posted by Myalgia on May 8, 2012 8:50 PM
From: Ryan @ Dumpster Rental

We have never bought links mostly because it just feels like a scam. has anyone had any success with link purchasing?
Posted by Ryan @ Dumpster Rental on July 18, 2012 2:37 PM
From: Shabd

Google is just try to through out spammers out of index. Engineers of Google matrix are trying hard to provide best search results. Most important they are working to give users best experience through their hard work. G is best.
Posted by Shabd on September 14, 2012 3:06 PM
From: Josh

Thanks for your column, I wouldn´t expect such article from NY times...
Posted by Josh on November 10, 2012 4:35 PM