Did Google Get Played By The New York Times?
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Did Google Get Played By The New York Times And A Savvy Internet Marketer?
Will Davidson, http://gold-keywords.net
We are just a small niche oriented news blog. But something caught our eye that needs to be brought to light. Google may de-index us. The New York Times may try and come after us. But this needs to get out there.
In a recent story that doesn’t mean much to anyone outside the world of internet marketing, the New York Times ran a story called “Search Engine Optimization and its Dirty Little Secrets”, where they “blew the whistle” on how major retailer JC Penny had been deemed to be using “blackhat” techniques to improve its Google search ranking across a myriad of phrases and had been doing so for many months. They even reported it straight to Matt Cutts at Google (I am sure that a contact from a NYT reporter with “evidence” got through much quicker than a normal everyday webmaster like ours) as related in the story:
““I can confirm that this violates our guidelines,” said Mr. Cutts during an hourlong interview on Wednesday, after looking at a list of paid links to JCPenney.com.”
Google subsequently “took action” against JC Penny for using those techniques and the report went on to give date and time details chronicling the JCP “fall from grace” of search engine position. And of course, every blogger and site that is listed in Google news jumped on the “bash JC Penny” bandwagon to get readers to their sites. But we wondered, “Does Matt Cutts know the entire story?”
Questions Arise
Authored by David Segal, the article cites that JCP had been ranking at the top or very close to the top of Google search results for several phrases, all related to their offerings “for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping” beating out millions of competitors for those very same phases.
Mr. Segal then goes on to point out that there were 2015 pages linked to JCP from unrelated, low valued sites, implying that those links gave JCP an unfair search engine results position. Obviously, Mr. Segal has no clue what affects search engine results position, especially in Google. So he had to “consult” someone that did have a clue.
To anyone outside the world of internet marketing, this seems unfair to influence search ranking. But, those of us that have experience with SEO know that small number of links, especially from low value, non-authority sites, across the spectrum of valuable phrases cited, are not enough to move even one position in Google, much less dominate the top 3 search positions on all of those phrases.
Who The Hell Would Be Tracking JC Penny?
The first thing that struck us as odd was that simple question. For those of us that have been doing search engine optimization for any length of time we know there are only two reasons why a particular site is methodically tracked on specific phrases for that long. Someone had a vested interest in:
- That particular site’s search position performance for those keyword terms, OR
- One or more competitors for those same phrases.
We are not making any accusations or implications against The New York Times, Blue Fountain Media, or any person, business, or organization involved in this story, but it is very curious that a reporter for a Major News outlet gets access to months of SERP data on a major retailer. We doubt very seriously that any reporter “watches” the search positions of all retailers and how their links were obtained.
Curiously, the story failed to mention just how JCP’s SERP performance came to the attention of The New York Times. Mr. Segal quotes an “expert” named Doug Pierce, a Marketing Strategist from a company called Blue Fountain Media. The story implies NYT “consulted” Mr. Pierce for this story, who described the optimization as “the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen”.
Really? A professional Internet Marketing Strategist and 2015 links were the most ambitious attempt you have ever seen?
Still, it sounds pretty innocuous right? NYT is doing a story and checks with a company that has expertise in the matter and knows something about.
In the first few paragraphs (“above the fold”) Blue Fountain Media is cited by NYT as if they were just an internet marketing firm Segal called upon to act as a consultant. But our investigation revealed that NYT and Blue Fountain Media have an ongoing relationship.
The CEO and Founder of Blue Fountain Media, Gabriel Shaoolian, consistently writes on a blog ON the New York Times website called “You’re the Boss” and it is prominently promoted on the NYT website. However, the story failed to mention the relationship with BFM.
Blue Fountain Media is an effective Internet Marketing Company with big name clients. A quick search of the service offered on the website, reachable by a link in the story, reveals that they offer a wide variety of services: from website design and architecture to Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Branding and curiously, even open advice on Reputation Management from companies that have received bad press. We are pretty sure JCP will be in need of a service like that.
They do not list them all but have some fairly big names in their client lists, from Oppenheimer Funds, P&G, US Mint, the NFL, O Magazine, and even some well known Charity organizations. We attempted to find a full client list, but it is a privately held company.
How to Influence the Media?
In the Business Learning Center section of Blue Fountain Media, we found an interesting post from the Chief Content Officer, Jon Gelberg titled, “How to Get Press Coverage for Your Business Online: The Perfect Pitch”. In that article, Mr. Gelberg offers this advice:
“Once you’ve targeted a journalist or blogger, then you need to convince them why they should be featuring you or quoting you… While it is great to have a major media outlet do an in-depth feature about you and your business, those kinds of opportunities are few and far between. There are tremendous opportunities, though, in participating in stories that focus on issues related to running a business…”
Great idea, but if that is the case with this story, full disclosure from NYT would have been pretty much a prudent necessity in this instance.
Further searching of Blue Fountain services also revealed they provide Search Engine Optimization services, of which link building is an essential function and they have some pretty big name clients.
So if you ran an SEO company and had the ability to list a live “follow” link to any website that you happen to be writing about in that post, how valuable would that be in courting prospective SEO clients?
Did Matt Cutts Get Blindsided?
Don’t get us wrong, we applaud the success of Blue Fountain and the fact that it looks like they have worked very hard to build “relationship links” which Google absolutely loves. And we understand the need for news agencies to maintain the secrecy of their sources.
But, we wonder if they disclosed that relationship fact to Matt Cutts at Google.
How information so unique and detailed got the attention of a reporter, and then the “relationship” between news outlet and the consultant was so egregiously omitted, is beyond us.
The problem is that outside of our Internet Marketing world, not many people understand what has happened here or the conflict of interest that was not disclosed. Much less, do they understand the ease of a shell game on Google with direct influence on the multi-billion dollar world of online commerce?
Tags: google, jc penny, new york times, SERP
