Comments on: This Is News? JC Penney and Link Farms

By: Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 02:00:52 +0000

BZZT! Wrong use of the term "link farm", John.

A link farm is any group of Websites that all link to each other. Since JCP wasn't linking to the spam sites, they were NOT participating in a link farm.

By: John

John — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:17:41 +0000

Thanks Lee, appreciate the frank insight…

By: Lee Baler

Lee Baler — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:46:15 +0000

Hey John, I get your point but like Javaun said, this article wasn’t for the expert in search. Even for my digital agency this is a big eye-opener. As more companies that are in the quick content game come into our offices, and I’m not going to mention names, we have to be aware these tactics are readily pervasive and what questions to ask to ensure it doesn’t happen for us. I can’t have my brand engaged in this type of activity and as such, my team needs to understand what happened and why the DEMAND for instant SEO elevation and quick traffic sometimes isn’t as innocuous as it can sound.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:14:05 +0000

Valid points, John. However, taking a slightly different angle, it’s hard to believe the folks at JC Penny had NO clue what their SEO firm was doing. That’s news in an of itself…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:40:22 +0000

So one thing I REALLY don't get; Google assigns a lot of "signal value" to inbound links; but it assigns an extraordinary amount of value to "anchor-text rich" inbound links. That's what was happening with all those high rankings JC Penney achieved on product keywords.

In my estimation, this dwarfs any other signal. The funny thing is, if you think about keyword-dense text in anchor links, it should be a NEGATIVE signal. No one really links this way except spammers. It so so obvious, but something that Google seems to ignore, and I really cannot understand why. This goes all the way back to Google Bombs like "miserable failure". I have not ever heard a satisfactory explanation for why the anchor text gets any signal value from Google.

By: kirrey

kirrey — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:59:15 +0000

The technology industry may understand link farming, but the general public is barely aware of it.

By: mrg

mrg — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:22:11 +0000

sure, overall, same ol' for anybody who reads here, but 2 things to consider -

* repeated mention of 'manual intervention' on G's behalf. Wasn't the party line a few months ago.

* in a broader sense, another very high exposure of G in a not-so-good light. That this piece was put forth in this spotlight; i gotta think there's plenty more journo's ready to take the sentiment and dig deeper.

By: CFed

CFed — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:00:35 +0000

Isn’t it a shame that Google’s ecosystem is one that’s hell-bent on destroying them? It’s so different from MSFT and now Facebook, where developers and Partners support and (to various degrees)share in the success.

By: xirsi

xirsi — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:48:56 +0000

In link-baiting you get more or less natural links by creating content specifically designed to get those links.

By: dendy

dendy — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:48:51 +0000

We should all be thrilled that the rest of the population can see our industry as intriguing.