Google Spanks J.C. Penney For Advertising Violations

Eclectic Dreck

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Sep 3, 2008
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When I learned about the basic Google search algorithm, this exploit was the first thing I thought of. I was actually idly wondering if someone had tried such a thing and later been caught for it.

Vitor Goncalves said:
What the hell is JC Penney. Never heard of them.
They are a retailer best known for mid line clothing. It is a common fixture in malls in the United States.
 

thiosk

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Sep 18, 2008
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I would bet a company with a name like "SearchDex" is actually responsible for this.

Search engine consulting firm. Psh.

Leeches. Everywhere leeches. OH GOD THEY'RE ATTACKING MY EYES
 

tkioz

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May 7, 2009
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Nothing worse then looking for something via google and ending up with those crappy sites that only have popular keywords and spam in them at the top of your search because of asshat marketing companies.
 

manythings

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GiantRedButton said:
manythings said:
Darkauthor81 said:
Ok so now we've seen the power of Google to nerf a company's listing positions.... I can certainly see this power being used for evil. Perhaps blackmail?
The Chinese government is careful not to cross google, and with good reason. The google corporation is a global blackmailing racket waiting to happen.

whaleswiththumbs said:
Google is kinder than me. I would have dropped them completely. Like googling J.C. Penney would have resulted in nothing, at all.
That would be a huge violation. If you could vanish from google how long before some competitor officially declares that off the table and draws a lot of googles business interests away. I wouldn't want to deal with anyone who would try to kill my company.
Didn't china block google after google stopped censoring their search results?
The Chinese government tried to pass a law forcing google to hand over any information they deemed of national import (RE: All information) and google immediately ceased search results showing chinese business sites in response along with a legal case. China backed down fast.
 

Bernzz

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J.C. Whoey?

I have no idea who they are.

But whatever, they were idiots and Google got 'em.
 

HentMas

The Loneliest Jedi
Apr 17, 2009
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what i do believe is that "J.C Pennie" had nothing to do with this, if they hired a "web consultant firm", i "KNOW" they didnt even payed attention to what they were doing, and if they did, they didnt knew it was wrong

anyway, from a companies point of view this is a low hit in marketting
 

Jaime_Wolf

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Sounds a lot more like SearchDex fucked up. JC Penney is a MASSIVE corporation and something as technical as farming links to improve search ranking is pretty unlikely to have come from anywhere near the top. More likely, it was just the consulting firm. I'd bet that, at the very most, a handful of people who had no idea that it was against the rules were briefed on it by SearchDex.
 

ComicsAreWeird

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Oct 14, 2010
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I didnt even know what a j.c.penney was before this article.I guess their Google infraction wasnt that successful in bringing the company´s name to everyone´s ears.
 

RollForInitiative

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With a company as big as J.C. Penney, one has to wonder if the right hand knows what the left is doing. I doubt anybody will ever actually figure out who was really responsible for these actions. It's entirely possible that the upper managing levels of the company had no knowledge of it whatsoever. Kind of makes you wonder at what level this was executed, doesn't it?
 

standokan

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And there was I thinking that Google was the allpowerful god of teh Interwebs, boy was I wrong.
 

jdun

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manythings said:
GiantRedButton said:
manythings said:
Darkauthor81 said:
Ok so now we've seen the power of Google to nerf a company's listing positions.... I can certainly see this power being used for evil. Perhaps blackmail?
The Chinese government is careful not to cross google, and with good reason. The google corporation is a global blackmailing racket waiting to happen.

whaleswiththumbs said:
Google is kinder than me. I would have dropped them completely. Like googling J.C. Penney would have resulted in nothing, at all.
That would be a huge violation. If you could vanish from google how long before some competitor officially declares that off the table and draws a lot of googles business interests away. I wouldn't want to deal with anyone who would try to kill my company.
Didn't china block google after google stopped censoring their search results?
The Chinese government tried to pass a law forcing google to hand over any information they deemed of national import (RE: All information) and google immediately ceased search results showing chinese business sites in response along with a legal case. China backed down fast.
That's incorrect. China didn't back down, China kicked them out. Only when Google relented they were accepted back into China.
 

Jack Macaque

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Jan 29, 2011
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Haha oh JC what were you thinking, hope they get a good burn for this.

Now top search result for say 'Hardcore Donkey Shows' would have been a good one.