The tail end of last week, anyone who reads about search would have spotted the Interflora ranking massacre unfold. It tweaked my interest, not only because Interflora are a huge national brand, but because they also dominate in many local searches too.
Chatting with various people over the weekend, it was clear that many small business owners wouldn’t know a nofollow link if it came up and hit them, let alone why and when they should use them.
Perhaps worse, some are taking part in similar practices that allegedly got Interflora in deep doodoo with Google.
To be fair, it is ignorance rather than any malicious intention to manipulate search. Ignorance is no defence…
What happened with Interflora?
Type into Google – Interflora (go on, I’ll wait)
Other than the paid results at the top of the page, there is a distinct lack of organic search results pointing to the Interflora website. For a company that size with the budget they have, not ranking for the business name is a bit concerning.
Google walloped them for breaking the rules, and hit a lot more keywords than just their business name.
Painful! Image from DavidNaylor.co.uk
There was all sorts of speculation over the weekend, from blogger outreach to local doorway pages and bad linking strategies. But after the Google announcement regarding paid links, it’s pretty clear that advertorial links are the issue.
Reminder: Google’s guidelines on paid links that pass PageRank also apply to “advertorial” pages. See goo.gl/PhwsY for more info.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) February 22, 2013
Before the announcement, Anthony Shapely published a great assessment of the situation over on the David Naylor blog. His assessment also shows a huge number of local newspapers having their Page Rank devalued for publishing advertorials without nofollow links.
What has all this got to do with you?
I know many people who are approached to publish sponsored posts on their blogs and several who do accept a fee to publish posts. I also know several small businesses who have either offered products to bloggers for review or have paid banners and ads on other peoples’ blogs.
These are all examples of paid links and Google have very clear guidelines about them.
The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results:
Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
Perhaps surprisingly, several people did not know about Google’s policy on paid links despite regularly using them. Or the fact that both the linker and linkee can have their wrists well and truly slapped by Google.
For a small business, a manual penalty can be the death knell of a website.
It doesn’t mean you need to stop running ads, sponsored posts, approaching bloggers yourself or even running advertorials in local newspapers online. Google use these tactics too (and break their own rules – not for the first time either…)
It does mean stop the links passing PageRank by making them nofollow.
If you accept sponsored stories or ads on your site, add the rel=”nofollow” tag to the links.
If you use sponsored stories, ads and advertorials to drive traffic to your site, work with the publisher to ensure rel=”nofollow” tags are added to the links.
Over to you…
Do you use paid links as part of your online marketing strategy? Will Interflora’s experience make you reconsider? I’d love to hear from you in comments!
What You Can Learn From Google's Interflora Ranking Massacre by Jan Kearney
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Thanks for these tips! I don’t use advertorials to drive traffice to my site. I have to check my blog settings. I do believe I have it set for non follow.
Hi Toni – yes, it’s always best to check these things! Thank for popping in 🙂
Brilliant Jan .. as always! I’m also going to write about this in my new and improved blog as soon as it is ready 🙂
Thanks, Sharon – Looking forward to the new improved blog 🙂
Good info to know – I had never heard of interflora yikes!
You don’t “Say it with flowers” with Interflora over in the States then, Tiffany? Interflora is huge here 🙂
I’m sitting here shaking my head. When will these people (websites) learn to get with the program?
Oftentimes when you try to scam the system, it comes back to bite you in the a$$. I don’t give a hoot who it is, if you’re not doing things on the up and up – you deserve the kick where the sun doesn’t shine to be reminded of your goof up!
🙂
I agree, Bonnie. I do think Google took it too far hitting the brand name too – it doesn’t make a good user experience.
Even though I’m a Brit and Interflora is a household name for me, I hadn’t heard about this. What a great post, thank you!
I am (more than) a bit sick of Google playing god with search results – Interflora is a HUGE company in the UK, the biggest of the flower delivery companies, and leaving them out of search results does NOT make for a great user experience, which is what Google say they’re after.
It seems their “crime” wasn’t taking paid or sponsored posts (why shouldn’t they, if they’re clearly described as such?) but leaving the links as “dofollow” – i.e. the default. The whole “nofollow” thing is a Google invention anyway! They created PageRank to start with as THEIR private algorithm, then they enforce compliance with it by insisting on the use of their tag so as not to “game” it. If their algorithm worked properly in the first place, people wouldn’t have to tie themselves in knots to “comply” with it.
Hi Isobel, I have to agree with you. Most normal searchers, the average web users don’t know and don’t give a rat’s ass about nofollows and dofollows, paid or unpaid links. If they type in Interflora in search, it’s because they want to see Interflora not vouchercodes or Tesco. From a user experience, I think penalising the brand name is a step too far.
That said, the policy on paid links has been around for years – and it is a good thing. It’s not perfect, but it helps even the playing field. Both Interflora and the publishers affected are massive companies working with teams of SEOs and digital marketers who *should* know the rules. In the valentine campaign they broke them and got caught out.
It is because Interflora is such a huge household name here that we heard about it, but just being a household name shouldn’t make them exempt from the rules.
Unfortunately, there needs to be rules and algos. Every search engine has them. Google just happen to be the search of choice for 88% of British searches, so as web publishers, we need to play by their rules – it’s their game.
Thanks for popping in and your thoughts 🙂
Jan
This is a fantastic post. You pulled in the meaty parts and made it easier to understand. So here’s a question that came to mind. I do content work for web design companies and they often put their website in the footer of a website. I think in most cases it is “do follow”. So they get some free advertisement, but I also think page rank is passed on. I wonder if this type of typical web design ‘signature’ is deemed unacceptable?
Bottom line, stop banking on the SEO so much. Thanks for the info.
Hi Kater, a footer link is pretty standard practice in webdesign. I know there was some hoo-har over it a few months back with Penguin (rather than paid links), because it’s a source of spammy keyword linking. Footer links are specifically mentioned in Google’s guidelines as an example of unnatural links, so I would nofollow them http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
Wow that’s a very interesting article Jan. Well done.
I understand that I/F may have not exactly toed the line 100%, but it still brings home the dangers of relying on one thing – google – to bring home the lion’s share of the bacon.
Funnily enough, when I googled I/F, there were plenty of results so maybe some rankings have been restored.
All the best,
Paul
I’m still not seeing them Paul, vouchercodes and Tesco hold spot 1 and 2. A manual penalty like that will take months to recover from. Although the Big G may relent over the brand name like they did with BMW.
Jan, thank you for this very informative blog and excellent content! I never even heard of Interflora until this blog:) Thanks for sharing.
Hi Debra, Interflora are huge over here. Just for the record, the brand name penalty lasted 11 days – that’s very lucky on their side I think!