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Three SEO Lessons from J.C. Penney
- February 16, 2011 by Marcie Casas, Senior Account Supervisor
Would you be willing to pay any cost to see your company's brand or product website achieve top rank on Google's search results?
Before answering, consider this: What if the cost wasn't monetary, but instead the cost of consumers losing trust in your brand. Still think it's worth it? Ask J.C. Penney.
In a Saturday exposé in The New York Times, J.C. Penney and its outside SEO firm were outed as attempting to outsmart Google's page-ranking algorithm by using dummy sites and paid links to increase its rank in search results. J.C. Penney denied knowing of the scheme and promptly fired its SEO firm. The question of whether J.C. Penney or any of its internal employees authorized the program is open for debate. Nevertheless, the damage has been done.
So what are three lessons you can learn from their mistake?
Good SEO takes time
Anyone promising to get your site hundreds of incoming links in a matter of days should set off warning bells. Good link-building SEO practices take time. Any get-quick tactic is highly likely to be unethical, and will end up costing you much more in the long run than if you had simply gone about SEO the right way.
SEO and Google can’t be gamed
Don’t risk your company’s reputation or the trust you have built in your brand by trying to cheat at SEO. As J.C. Penney is discovering, it's not worth it. Besides the bad press, Google will act swiftly to shutter the activity and will bury your site if it suspects there is wrongdoing. Work instead to keep your SEO practices honest.
Accept responsibility for your SEO
If you are unsure how to go about implementing a good SEO link-building program, enlist the help of a trustworthy consultant or agency that has a proven track record and is guided by strong ethics. However, recognize that all responsibility for your SEO practices, as with all your business decisions, ultimately lies with you. If it doesn't pass the smell test, and isn't something you would be proud to read about in The New York Times, don't do it.
Shameless self-promotion: Speaking of ethics, GDC will be honored with an Ethics in Business Award on March 22.
Photo courtesy of Danard Vincente via Flickr
For more PR insights, visit Marcie’s blog
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