What is link velocity? How it impacts SEO and rankings
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Topic: Interflora
This day in search marketing history: March 5
Google confirms Vince Update, plus: mobile-first indexing, webspam, Google adds page load time to Quality Score algorithm and more.
This day in search marketing history: March 3
Google Panda name revealed, plus: desktop page experience update completes rollout, Interflora gets its Google rankings back and more.
This day in search marketing history: February 22
Google page experience update for desktop rolls out, plus: Google’s Pirate Update impact, Google Shopping experience scorecard and more.
Google vs. Edible Arrangements: Court rejects ‘theft’ claim
Edible Arrangements was seeking damages from Google for selling its name via search ads. The court didn’t bite.
Will Google & Bing Penalize Microsoft Over Their Sponsored Post Campaign For Internet Explorer?
This morning, news broke that Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting help from SocialChorus to build more awareness for the aging browser by way of sponsored posts. Michael Arrington posted on his site an email from the company, soliciting him into this paid blog post campaign. The campaign instructs bloggers to write about their experience with […]
Open Letter: Why Search Engine Land Will & Won’t Cover Someone Being Penalized By Google
It’s been big news recently about major brands and Google penalties, and the floodgates feel open on people spotting even more brands possibly hit out there. Some new crackdown by Google? No. It’s the rise of hyperactive attention in this area, and that’s turning into a problem. Hence this open letter, on how we’re planning […]
Expedia Lost 25% Of Their Search Visibility In Google Possibly Over Unnatural Links
The major travel website, Expedia, seems to have lost 25% of their search visibility in Google according to Search Metrics. It appears that drop was due to an unnatural link penalty, where Nenad called out Expedia over a month ago for possible paid links on article sites. Expedia.com’s Google Traffic Decline: Patrick Altoft noticed a […]
Rap Genius Back In Google After 10 Day Penalty, Ranks For Its Name But What About Lyrics?
Lyrics site Rap Genius says that it is no longer penalized within Google after taking action to correct “unnatural links” that it helped create. The site was hit with a penalty for 10 days, which meant people seeking it by name couldn’t find it. That’s been fixed, though it’s unclear how much traffic the site […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 9, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Matt Cutts: Link Spamming Google For A Specific Time Period? Then Mass Disavow Those Links. In a recent video released by Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, Matt answered […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: Link Spamming Google For A Specific Time Period? Then Mass Disavow Those Links.
In a recent video released by Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, Matt answered the question, “How can a site recover from a period of spamming links?” The example given was when Interflora was penalized by Google for buying links and only was penalized for 11 days. The question was, how can a site […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: User Redirection Based On Location Is Not Spam
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video yesterday clearly stating the geo-location or redirecting users based on their location is not spam. Google will not consider a site that uses geo-location techniques as spam. What Google does consider spam is when you redirect GoogleBot to a web page of content that users […]
Video: Google’s Matt Cutts On Advertorials & Webmaster Guidelines
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a new video today on YouTube clarifying Google’s stance on Advertorials and “native advertising.” Advertorials are editorial-like content that is published because an advertiser has paid the publication to publish the story or the content. Recently, we covered a story on how a major U.K. floral company […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 22, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: DoubleClick Search Tools To Migrate To Enhanced Campaigns Now Out Of Beta The custom toolset Google designed to help DoubleClick search users migrate to enhanced campaigns has come out of beta. […]
Interflora Wins Five-Year Battle Over Google AdWords Trademark Infringement
The High Court of England and Wales ended a five year legal battle between Marks & Spencer and Interflora yesterday. The court ruled in favor of flower delivery network Interflora, concluding that retailer Marks & Spencer breached trademark infringement laws by bidding on the keyword “Interflora” in its Google AdWords campaigns. In the European Union, Google allows […]
Google Notifies Sprint Of Spam Penalty; Seeks Advice In Google Help Forums
The latest large brand to be hit with a user-generated content spam penalty notification is Sprint, the large US wireless communications company. Similar to Mozilla’s penalty and BBC’s penalty, Sprint was penalized for user-generated content spam on a portion of their site that was open to anyone to post links and content. Also similar to […]
Google: That Mozilla Penalty Only Impacted One Page Out Of 22 Million
We reported yesterday that Google penalized Mozilla over user generated content. Today, we learn that it was a really, really small penalty that only impacted a single page out of Mozilla’s ~22 million webpages. Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, added more to the Google thread explaining that this manual penalty was applied in […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 23, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Pulls Related Searches Filter Due To Lack Of Usage Google has quietly removed the “related searches” option from the search tools menu within the Google search results page. When Google […]
Link Seller Linking To You? Google Says You Won’t Benefit From It.
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a 90-second video on what happens if a site that is selling links also links to your site. In short, Matt Cutts explains that when sites that sell links (with Google knowing about it) link to you, Google won’t pass value from that link seller website. So, […]
As News Publications Experiment With Sponsored Content, Google Says Keep It Out Of Google News
News publications having “sponsored content “deals are on the rise, and Google’s apparently concerned enough that it’s issued a warning today that publishers should keep such content out of Google News. In a post today on the Google News blog, the company writes: If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, or marketing […]
Google Streamlines AdWords Rules On Using Trademark Keywords
Google has announced an update to its AdWords trademark policy that streamlines the rules on using third-party trademark keywords in campaigns. With the update, Google now has a consistent global policy that allows advertisers to bid on competitor third-party trademark keywords. The update states: “Starting on 23 April 2013, keywords that were restricted as a result […]
Google Penalized One Article On BBC’s Web Site
Google did end commenting on why the BBC received an unnatural link notification despite offering us a “no comment” on our story this past Friday. Was the BBC penalized for unnatural links? Was it possible that the world’s largest news organization was not trusted by Google’s algorithms? The answer is, only one article was penalized. […]
Google Sends BBC News A Manual Link Penalty Notification
Google has sent the world’s largest broadcast news organization, BBC News, an unnatural link notification last Saturday. The Search Engine Roundtable reports Nick, a BBC News representative, posted in the Google Help Forums about the notification. Nick was seeking advice from Google or SEOs on how he may find those unnatural links so the BBC […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 5, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Matt Cutts Awarded Patent On Detecting Hidden Text & Hidden Links A new Google patent was awarded today named Systems and methods for detecting hidden text and hidden links. The […]
Interflora Is Back: What Did They Fix & How Did They Come Back So Fast?
Interflora got penalized only 2 weeks ago, right after Valentine’s day with a huge coverage in the media and also a some-what indirect statement from Google’s Matt Cutts himself about Advertorials also counting as paid links if they pass Page Rank (i.e. do not have NOFOLLOW tags on them). Now, just this past Sunday, a […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 4, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: SMX West Starts Next Monday in San Jose; Register by March 10 and Save The clock is ticking! Search Engine Land’s – SMX West begins next Monday in San Jose, CA. […]
Interflora Gets Its Google Rankings Back, 11 Days After Penalty
Interflora, the major UK flower delivery service, is showing up again in Google’s search results — just 11 days after it was penalized. According to some tweets and posts on Google+, Chris Gilchrist was first to spot Interflora’s resurrection today. As you can see in the screenshot above, Interflora is ranking again on searches for […]
Will Google Penalize Chromebooks, Google Analytics, AdWords & Google+ For Using Advertorials?
A day after warning publishers against advertorials, will Google’s search team now have to penalize parts of its own company for running advertorials? Perhaps, and if so, it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s also another absurd chapter in Google’s war on paid links. Google Says: Advertorials, Beware! After news came out yesterday that Google […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 22, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: After Penalizing Interflora & UK Newspapers, Google Warns Against Advertorials After penalizing Interflora and UK newspapers Google has issued a stern warning that selling links on sites that pass PageRank can […]
After Penalizing Interflora & UK Newspapers, Google Warns Against Advertorials
After penalizing Interflora and UK newspapers, Google has issued a stern warning that selling links on sites that pass PageRank can lead to a penalty in Google. Google specifically called this a “reminder,” because in 2007, they clearly went on record that selling paid links can lead to a penalty. Google’s Matt Cutts, the head […]
Google Dishes Out PageRank Penalties To UK Newspaper Web Sites For Selling Links
Google has downgraded the Toolbar PageRank scores for several dozen UK operated newspapers and news sites today. It is believed the reason Google has downgraded their PageRank scores is because they were selling links on a massive scale. Google Penalizes Sites Selling Links As you may remember, in October 2007, Google went on record that […]
Google Says No Comment On Why Interflora Was Penalized
The popular UK flower website Interflora seems to have been penalized in Google. They no longer rank for their key terms, such as [flowers], [flower delivery] and related terms — nor do they rank for their own name [Interflora]. Here is a picture of the search results in Google UK for [Interflora]. As you can […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 23, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Dear Bing & Yahoo: Pushing Deck Chairs Around Isn’t A Good Plan I swear, it’s like watching the Titanic having run into that iceberg, as Bing and Yahoo try to figure […]
In Interflora Case, EU OKs Bidding On Trademarks With Some Restrictions
The European Union’s Court of Justice has ruled in the long-running Interflora case against Marks & Spencer, which involves bidding on trademarked terms, and the decision is no clear victory for either party. Instead, it OKs trademark bidding so long as the resulting ad offers an alternative to the mark holder’s service and doesn’t cause […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 24, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Yahoo Search Direct Alphabet: Where Every Letter Starts With Yahoo And you thought Google favored its own properties? Check this out: In Yahoo’s new Search Direct feature, 21 of the […]
European Advocate General Finds Against Trademark Bidding in Interflora Case
The European Advocate General is recommending that the Court of Justice of the European Union rule against retailer Marks & Spencer for bidding on the trademarked terms of Interflora, the flower delivery network company. If the Court of Justice acts on the findings, it could effectively spell the end of bidding on competitors’ trademarks in […]
Italians Issue Another Dubious Anti-Search Decision
Earlier this year the Italian Communications Authority decided that YouTube was effectively a TV broadcaster and imposed the same rules and restrictions that apply to TV in Italy — and potential penalties for their violation — on Google. It said that Google is now legally responsible for any content appearing on YouTube. Now an Italian […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 21, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Why Google Can’t Count Results Properly It’s a long-standing complaint of mine with Google. You can do a search, then repeat the same search and “subtract” a word from your original […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 2, 2009
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google AdSense Improves The Competitive Ad Filter The Google AdSense blog has made improvements to the competitive ad filter. The two major changes includes increasing the size of the competitive ad […]