How is it possible that Interflora can bounce back from a Google penalty so quickly - is that normal?
-
As far as I understand it Interflora was removed from Google organic search results on February 20th.
I guess no one knows for sure why they were delisted other than Google but I have heard theories such as giving flower bribes to bloggers in return for links
How sweet - and placing paid follow links inside advertorials within local newspaper sites.Whatever the reason for their de listing it seemed Google must have wanted to send out a strong message since even a branded search wasn't ranking.
Fast forward 13 days to today and I now see Interflora ranking not only for their brand but also for flower delivery London etc etc...
How is it possible that they managed to get back in the SERPs so quickly? Is it normal to get a penalty and be back up and running at position 1 in less than 2 weeks? Is that normal for a penalty?
I was under the impression that being caught gaming Google to the extent where they delisted you was something far more serious and had much longer term repercussions?
-
"All" was probably a poor choice of words. Sorry.
Do any of us really know what blackhat SEO is anyway?
-
Your comment " All these big brands know black hat SEO and know they can get away with it so they do it." seems to broadly attack branded SEO work. Not all brands know black hat SEO. In fact, I've found more brands doing black hat and not knowing it was black hat. SEO is a mystery to brands.
Brands want results so it is on the part of the SEO or agency to educate on risks etc. I'm guessing most folks don't educate their bosses.
-
I didn't say there weren't?
-
It's not all the big brands. There are ethical SEOs working at brands.
-
They're a big brand. That's it. They knew what they were doing, got caught, got out. Very simple when you're a big brand. Same thing with iAquire. They were buying links, knew they were being naughty, got caught, got out. Big brand with big connections. Same story with most big brands. I actually just talked to a guy from Dunn & Bradstreet about this. All these big brands know black hat SEO and know they can get away with it so they do it.
-
People keep talking about how Interflora is getting favor because they're a brand, but I think it's possible that this could be no different than any other website with an unnatural links penalty.
If the penalty was due to one particular type of link (i.e. the advertorials) it's conceivably possible that they were able to get these removed very quickly and then file for reconsideration.
I've had reconsideration requests come back successful after only 3 days.
-
Or maybe they sent some flowers to Matt Cutts - Sorry that was terrible humour
-
Provided what I read was true, interflora were aware prior to the penalty that they were in trouble and were taking steps to remedy the situation by getting the links removed. It could be that their recovery is part of a settlement of sorts, they are a big brand, they took quick action, and this sort of recovery is hardly unprecedented (BMW recovered in 4 days after their penalty via Nick Wilsdon (credit where it's due)).
They apparently still haven't recovered for Valentines or Mother's day, which may be the penalty that lasts, but google got their message out about advertorials quite effectively and that is probably what they were after.
In addition I would imagine that Google's Chrome marketing ad from a while back was an argument in interflora's favour. It actually features items being sent to reviewers to review and it's hardly a huge step to see interflora's blogger flower deliveries as the same thing.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is It Possible to Be Punished By Google For Getting Too Many Links?
Hello, My team and I have been trying to get high-quality back-links by seeking other sites and blogs. We were ranking really well and then all of a sudden, our rankings dropped dramatically. We were only using backlinks and good ones at that, yet, our rankings have dropped. Is it possible for google to punish us for getting too many too fast? If not, what could be some of the other problems?
Link Building | | scottgray06200 -
Back links off the back of a paid sponsorship deal
Hey Mozzers, I am in need of a bit of advice please? I work for a Gyms chain in the UK and we are sponsoring a major sporting event next month. As part of the deal we get a dedicated webpage and backlink from their high authority website. We do not have a logo and multiple backlinks in the footer on every page of their website, so to my knowledge Google will not necessarily regard this as a paid backlink right? Is there anything in the algorithm that is able to distinguish between the aforementioned backlink and a natural one? Just wondering if our domain is linking to receive the equity or not? Regards Ben
Link Building | | Bendall0 -
How do I find and can I trust link building companies
I'm finding it hard to build quality links. I don't want to employ a link building company as I can't find anyone I can trust. I also don't know what is a realistic rate of pay for link building work.
Link Building | | mark_baird0 -
Does Google and other web crawlers follow through HTML forms?
Has anyone read or heard anything about this? I'm trying to decide if it's necessary to spell out all form options as links as well? Thanks!
Link Building | | dan.backowski0 -
Google Display Network
Hello! Ive been analyzing my competitors backlinks and see a large number of their google display ads shows as (alt text). I do have a google adwords account but stayed away from it in the past opting to use the search network only to keep cost down. Do the images count as a backlink if I can see them in the Seomoz tool? Thank You!!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links ...
Hi, We recently got "the message" from Google about unnatural links for two of our 50 sites. Ranking has dropped significantly since, we did not take any action to remove the links. All our 50 sites were managed by the same SEO company but only two got this message. We are in the process of understanding the best ways to deal with this situation, but currently there are two main approaches we can detect: Remove the links, resubmit for reconsideration Ignore the message and do not do anything, if you do something it is actually like admitting you did something wrong, and Google can not prove that you did... Any insights on what approach we should adopt? Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | jid1 -
Making sure links get indexed by google?
Hi I currently submitted to 30 seo directories & I just want to make sure my links get indexed by google so the link value passes onto my site. Any suggestions about getting my links indexed? I was thinking of either pinging or social book marketing the links! What's your view, thanks.
Link Building | | Socialdude0 -
Is there a cost per acuqistion figure I can quote that if I hire an agency to link build that we can guarantee a level of increased traffic from Google?
I am looking to justify to a pubilsher the cost outlay to hire an agency to do white hat link building for me as we do not have time. (the site is fully optimised but we lack the inbound links our competitors have) - is there a way I can explain in terms of numbers ie page impressions that if we build for eg 10k high quality anchor text links into our site we will get x thousand more page impressions as our rankings in the search engines will increase? Just need a justification before the budget is allocated.
Link Building | | Pday0
