S.E.O = Sinister Enhancement Option?
SEO is, of course, the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It's the practice
of creating web sites, links, references and other mysterious arcana to enhance the chances that a particular web site will appear on the first page of results whenever you do a search (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing). It is a well respected practice and something most everybody does. The largest search engine, Google, has a trade secret algorithm that determines how such searches are ordered.
Google has a vested interest in appearing to present the search results in a rational order. If it appeared that the system was materially flawed or gamed, then less importance would be placed on a search by Google and they might lose market share. For that reason, they have a set of rules by which SEO purveyors are supposed to abide. To violate these rules is to risk having Google take steps to cause your web site to appear lower in the Google results.
This brings us to the interesting case of J.C. Penney. The New York Times reported on Saturday that during the recent holiday season, the rankings for searches for a number of things that J.C. Penney carries (e.g. dresses, bedding, area rugs, furniture, skinny jeans) routinely returned a number one ranking. This raised the question as to whether this would have occurred without significant manipulation of the Google algorithm. Turns out, probably not.
J.C. Penney apparently engaged SearchDex, a SEO firm based in Dallas. SearchDex supposedly used suspect methods, including placing links on unrelated, obscure, underused or dormant websites that pointed back to the J.C. Penney site. Effective, definitely. Ethical, matter of opinion.
SearchDex lists its ethical standards on its website and also lists its response to the Google standards for SEO activities. According the New York Times article cited above, Google believes that SearchDex and J.C. Penney have violated the Google standards. However, none of this appears to violate any laws and J.C. Penney has filed the obligatory "We Didn't Do Nothing" response.
One of the methods is to use services like TNX, which purports to raise website traffic by placing paid links on other sites that redirect the search to the target site. The redirecting sites agree to allow the links in exchange for payment based on the number of redirects.
So, with sponsored links, Google AdWords, Google Places, TNX and really creative SEO operators, who's to know whether the searches are credible. And, I would like to sign up somewhere to get our name on the first page of the listings. Oh, wait, we are (today)! (Search "Austin Technology Attorneys")
