“Outing” Kills Websites

I recently posted about Rand outing another SEO site for self-promotion. Looking at the Google SERPs today, it appears that NationalPositions site is no longer ranking on Google for “seo company” (though they still show up on AOL). They still rank for their own brand, so they might have had some of their links whacked without being fully penalized/removed from the Google index.

Google Even Policing Some Corporations?

I never though Google would go after businesses as big as BankRate, but after their CEO highlighted that they bought CreditCardGuide.com for $34 million based largely on its Google rankings, Google seems to have removed that site from the search results as well - it does not even rank for “credit card guide” when it has had a long history of ranking for “credit cards.”

There may be an update going on, and these sites might come back (and/or the above sites may get de-penalized after I publish this post - as happened with JoeAnt), but it is quite rare for an established site like creditcardguide.com not to rank for “credit card guide” and “creditcardguide.”

Lessons Learned

What are the morals of the story? Two four are top of mind are

• Even large brands might be policed now, which will drive a lot of site acquisitions underground and make companies be more cautious with promoting their purchases (especially if Google whacks another purchase, and/or the business is buying thin affiliate sites based on their Google rankings).
• Even if your publishing business model is SEO centric you need to give it another name…there is no upside in being branded as an SEO play. Sure Mahalo is nothing but a thin affiliate and AdSense site marketing via SEO, but Jason Calacanis made sure he called members of those industries scum to separate his site from the label it deserves.
• When Rand outs sites on his blog he does so with intent of destroying their businesses for self promotion, and if he does it again there is no way he can claim he didn’t know any better.
• If you do not sell SEO services, but learn it on the side, you may want to consider having an alias you use in the SEO industry, while using your real name to promote your regular sites. Being branded as an SEO is not a benefit when Google decides to judge you…ill intent/spam is assumed when you are branded as an SEO.

Your Feedback Needed

Keep in mind that Google might be rolling out a major update right now and some of the above MAY blow over, but then again some of it may not. Are you seeing a major Google update in progress across your keywords, or were the above hand jobs?

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