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Can negative publicity improve your rankings & profits?

by FreshMedia
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Unfortunately it can.

The New York Times reported on a story of a guy "who boasted of being abusive to customers and claimed, inaccurately, that such behavior had a side benefit of producing good rankings in Google."

Here is some proof to this

"In reaction to the piece, Google quickly introduced a change so that merchants with bad reputations would lose rankings in its system. It also debunked the notion that bad reviews somehow managed to help him gain prominence in its search engine."

Apparently Google's change (or lack off) Just seemed to improve his rankings. I performed a search for one of the keywords and his site is #1.

Please don't post anything that would help improve this site's ranking if possible. But what do you think? Should Google even be concerned about the negative publicity a site is getting, and just let i'ts Algorithm do it's thing.
#improve #negative #profits #publicity #rankings
  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    The guy is also now in jail, so it's probably not a good tactic to try out.
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    • Profile picture of the author FreshMedia
      Completely unethical and wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but some people out there may look at the rankings this guy is getting for some keywords and try something like this. I don't think big G should have this guy on top for any profitable keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      The guy is also now in jail, so it's probably not a good tactic to try out.
      The only advice I'd give is to listen to the information given above.

      It works until you get your collar felt. Then you suffer.
      Signature

      Wibble, bark, my old man's a mushroom etc...

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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    Google has his site at #1 right now
    He needs to post bail and throw that site on flippa... pronto.
    Signature

    I'm all about that bass.

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    • Profile picture of the author FreshMedia
      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      He needs to post bail and throw that site on flippa... pronto.
      Flippa? That site and domain name are dead in the water.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    It wasn't down to the reviews on consumer feedback sites why he was number 1 on Google.

    Not at all. It was from other links and, ironically, one from the ny times website ages ago.

    On SearchEngineLand.com, the site you refer to, it explains this in detail.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    Here it is: No, You Can’t Rank Well Just By Cultivating Terrible Reviews

    Matt
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Depends on the negative publicity.

    Xenforo, for example, caught a lot of flak for supposedly "ripping off" vBulletin and having a lawsuit filed against them.

    This operated quite effectively as a scarcity tactic - you'd better buy it now, before it's removed from the market! - and to remind people that most vBulletin users hated the recent changes in the software since the company changed hands.

    I'd never heard of Xenforo. With the lawsuit, however, I looked into it very seriously and will quite likely buy it. I do, after all, need a membership site set up in the near future... and as a former vBulletin licensee, I've been unhappy with recent changes myself.
    Signature
    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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