Big brand spam, Google loves it, Aaron Wall hates it, what should the public think?
Big brand spam is something that Google has been very willing to put up with. It’s been well noted that Google knew about JC Penny’s link spam techniques for well over a year and did nothing about it because they wanted the retail giant to show up in it’s organic results. But are having big brands ranking organically really the best thing for Joe and Jane public? I’m not sure that it is.
Now, it was brought to my attention that Overstock is now ranking again. Commentor Benjamin pointed this out to me just today. I spot checked some rankings and they do seem to be back in the organic results form most searches.
Now I’m not saying that they didn’t deserve a second chance. It was clear that they have been making many efforts to clean up the linking that Google took offense to. I even argue to this day if what Overstock did to get the links was against the Google TOS to begin with. I think that it was quite brilliant actually and that they were helping people that needed it. I’ve seen Google more blatantly give away free things like cell phones in exchange for links and press! But that’s another story.
But seeing Overstock back in the results is what got me started on this post. Is Google right to force and even endorse big brands that clearly go against their TOS to rank while hard working small and medium sized businesses fight hard for their rankings, the right ways?
