Simply Clicks Blog

Google Guilty of Chrome SEO Spam Campaign

Filed under Google, PageRank, SEO, SEO Spamming

This is the first big SEO spam news story of 2012. Every so often a big SEO spam story appears. The surprise this time is that it is Google that is guilty!

Essentially the Google Chrome division of Google has been found to be breaching Google’s own webmaster guidelines in an apparent deliberate attempt to manipulate its rankings on the Google search pages. The technique employed has been to pay for upto 400 sponsored posts across a number of influential blogs. The sponsoring of such posts is not in itself a breach of the guidelines. It is the apparent fact that these posts have been specifically written and placed with the intention of boosting PageRank for the Google Chrome browser.

The Google Chrome campaign has ignited a flurry of indignation across the SEO community. Even the head of Google’s anti-spam team, Matt Cutts, has weighed in on the debate. Google has acknowledged the error but has blamed SEO agency Essence Digital for going beyond its brief. Google claims that Essence were asked simply to buy ads on behalf of Google Chrome, not attempt to boost the browser’s PageRank. The ads were linked to videos produced by another digital agency called Unruly in a campaign designed to boost Google Chrome’s standing in it three-way battle with Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet explorer. Apple’s Safaris browser is seen as a niche player in the browser market. Regardless of all the Google denials it seems that the campaign had the impact of illicitly lifting the ranking of Google Chrome above Firefox, Microsoft and other Internet browsers for the “Browser” search term. Today, the Google Chrome page has disappeared from the first two pages for that search term. See the image on the below for a recent search for the term “Browser”. Does this mean that a ranking penalty has been imposed on Google Chrome?

Google optimisation is a difficult task. It is why agencies such as Simply Clicks can charge a premium for our services. Rankings for key terms are difficult to deliver and even harder to sustain. We often debate the issue of avoiding the short-term rankings fix versus a longer term visibility across a range of terms. It seems, this time at least, even people inside Google couldn’t resist the short-term but illicit option.

The problem couldn’t have come at a worse time for Google as it faces allegations of abusing its dominant position in the search market. The case has echoes of the problems face by Microsoft in supporting Internet Explorer by bundling the browser software with its dominant Windows desktop operating system.