Analysis: The failure of JCPenney search engine optimization and its revelation

Jessipane, one of the world's largest apparel sellers and the largest e-commerce retailer in the United States, recently JCPenney headlines, as some of the company's search engine optimization methods are more questionable and punished by Google. Event background The New York Times recently published a "search optimization and its secrets" article, which explores the JCPenney during the holiday period in the dominance of the search area of suspicion, and for its garbage-like activities, Google also made a response, the brand eventually absent.

The New York Times gathered evidence that JCPenney secretly used some SEO strategies, including the placement of unrelated links on unrelated sites. The Google Spam team investigated the matter and pulled the brand's ranking from the first page of the search results to page sixth or seventh as punishment.

　Question: What has gone wrong with the brand's approach?

Search engines such as Google are based on a number of factors to assess the relevance and quality of a site to a particular keyword. Google's primary goal is to provide a good user experience to ensure user retention. They hope that for a given keyword, the site will be able to provide the most relevant content and be able to line up in front of the search results page. In the algorithm used in this evaluation, the internal link to a website is one of the most important factors in many factors.

In all other conditions, the more links the target keyword has to your site in the target text (hyperlink), the higher your ranking will be on that keyword. That is, not all links are created in an equal manner, and not all inbound links are purchased in a legal way.

Google's links to websites from unrelated or not-authoritative sites seem to be in denial. The link to a retail site that comes from a car site to a salesperson's product is considered irrelevant and is likely to be harmful in practice. Links from a site that is purely a link to another site (also known as a "navigation site") can also damage your site's reputation. Google would also be suspicious if the number of links to a site has increased dramatically in a short time. Thousands of links were collected within one months, but the site purchased only 10 to 20 links within this month, which may indicate that some link plans are in progress. Finally, the use of web pages or mirror sites designed specifically for search engines, rather than users, can also cause Google's suspicions.

In essence, any activity that is not pure in motives, whether purely to manipulate search engine rankings, and/or to the detriment of the user, will eventually be Google's red card. Any of these suspicious or deceptive activities, often referred to as "spam" or "Black Hat seo", are generally punished by Google-lowering rankings or, in some extreme cases, removing them all from the index.

JCPenney's approach includes many of the above suspicious behavior, so Google has also been a red card: 1, in the short term a large number of links; 2, links from unrelated sites and spam; 3. Use a mirrored web site hosted by a proxy server instead of the primary JCPenney domain name.

　　What have we been inspired by?

In Search engine optimization field, patience is everything. Anything that looks like a "crash" can be bad in the long run. To ensure quality, link relevance, it takes time to maintain the rankings for a long time.

Some suggestions for search engine optimization strategy:

1, the user is supreme: if the link does not apply to the user, that does not apply to the search engine;

2, the focus is to create high-value, related content and perfect user experience, so naturally there will be other sites for reprint;

3, create the link as an ongoing activity, not one-year activities;

4, pay more attention to quality rather than quantity. Some links from reliable sources can be spread online more than hundreds of links on smaller, less relevant sites;

5. Use paid search to enhance your network presence during critical periods, such as back-to-school or holiday periods.

6, plan your search engine optimization work ahead of time, so that the link will eventually have effect, but not in the short term to achieve a certain effect.

7, for each major section of the site or page to select specific keywords, rather than select a wide range of keywords.

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