Google Blocks BMW From Search Results
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006
Google has very strict guidelines when it comes to what they will and will not list. It’s a smart system — if you’re trying to spam it, it’ll demote you or remove your listing. For example, an old trick used by websites to increase their search standing is to place a keyword many times on their website, over and over, in small or unreadable text. Lesser search engines will read this as high relevancy and will bump that website up in the listings. Google is smarter than that; redirects, spammed keyword density and other little tricks don’t work with their robots.
According to Reuters.co.uk, Germany’s BMW.de site was using just such a trick. The auto industry giant’s German site reportedly was using a landing page with the German term for “used car” placed fourty times. This landing page immediately redirected to BMW.de’s main page. This is an underhanded search placement trick that Google prohibits. In typical Google fashion, they’ve stuck to their guns, and in a bold move have removed the search listing of BMW.de entirely.
It seems that nobody can get away with messing with Google — not even a company as huge as BMW. One school of thought is that Google may have made an example of BMW as a scare tactic to show the search world that they really mean business. I expect that it will work.
