JC Penney may not be the first retailer that comes to mind when you think of dresses, rugs and skinny jeans. However, the company’s website (JCP.com) was performing so well, you would think that the former catalog retailer was number one in the country.

The company website was ranking so well on Google that it caught the eye of an investigative reporter for the New York Times. What ensued led the company to fire its search optimization firm and led Google to demote the company site across many topics.

The article exposed a bevy of black hat marketing techniques that one SEO expert called, “the most ambitious attempt” at manipulating Google’s search engine results that he had ever seen.

Among the tactics described in the newspaper’s exposé is the practice of burying links on low-profile sites around the Internet, tricking Google into seeing relevant references where none existed.

According to the New York Times report, most of the more than 2,000 links back to the JC Penney website were located on sites that had nothing to do with clothing. The phrase “black dresses,” with a link to the retailer, was located at the bottom of a nuclear.engineeringaddict.com; “evening dresses,” with a link to the retailer, was found on casino-focus.com; and “cocktail dresses” showed up on bulgariapropertyportal.com. There are links to JC Penney pages on sites about diseases, dogs, travel, snoring, bathroom tiles, hotel furniture, online games, glass shower doors, and dentists, to name a few.

Matt Cutts, part of the Google team that uncovers black hat SEO techniques, confirmed that JC Penney had violated Google’s guidelines on manipulating rankings. As a result, Google manually dropped the rank that JC Penney had been enjoying from the tactics its SEO firm had employed.

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Clear! Speaking Event

Featuring The Hitman, Steve Brazell

Thursday, February 24 at 06:00 pm
dzine it, Inc.
26 West 23rd Street, 4th Floor
(212) 989.0813

We are honored to welcome Steve Brazell back to dzine it, Inc. for another one his exciting presentations, on the heels of his new book, Clear! The Simple Guide To Keeping Your Business Alive and Kicking.

The last dzine it event that featured Steve’s unmatched marketing strategies was a huge success and we’re sure that Thursday’s event will be just as much of an eye-opener. Those in attendance can expect to leave with a new prospective on how to effectively break down walls in today’s new economy.

This will be Steve’s first public presentation based on the new book. He’ll dish out which marketing strategies work in this new economy, expose what he calls “big media’s dirty little secret,” explain how social media is affecting your business, and offer new ideas on how to convert customers into brand fanatics.

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