Google Punished Interflora
 

http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/interfl...-happened.html

According to these guys it was because they bought ads on newspaper sites and the links were NOT "nofollow" ... The newspaper sites got hit too because of it.

Bad links can and will bring you down.

Wow, they really wiped the pr plate clean for the linking sites.

Wouldn't it be better for Google to just eliminate the PR benefit from the links (effectively render them nofollow) when they discover them rather than penalize both sites? Let people waste their money and wonder if they're getting a benefit rather than outright punishing them, making them think all they need to do is hide it better and they'll get the benefit.

great read.

they got bitched on.

they even removed interflora.co.uk ffrom the first result of the organic listings for "interflora"

They use too many low quality links from web 2.0 blogs and sites from network with same IP`s. Here another good article:

you have to spread the backlinks over MANY IP's and Class C's. That old rule has never changed. They got hit because they left a huge footprint.

And after 11 days, they back from dead:

11 days ... what a punishment.

I bet you think that the network you sell links from isn't flagged by Google.

+ 1 ................

please link to a case study that proves Class C IPs make a difference.

I've been asking SEO hosting places for years to provide proof they're not selling snake oil.

Not seen a single piece of evidence yet.

There isn't one because it's hogwash.

It's a myth that is perpetuated by worthless link sellers and network operators.

There are quite a number IP addresses with more than 10,000 sites on them.

Google knows this and uses much smarter algorithms to detect bad behaviour than just counting the number of referring sites from one IP.

I agree with you completely on this. we own many sites. I have a bunch of sites that share IP's for OUR internal use that always do well and always make sales... and have for years. We exchange links with those sites, cross link them, reference them, etc. The difference is that nothing is scraped, auto harvested, auto-generated spun, etc. There's no tricks or deceptive practices involved. We have actual writers and editors employed who create our updates daily.

While I am certain there is a degree to what you are saying, the problem that comes into play is when people are trying to game the system. Google does not have an issue with links per se, they have a problem with people trying to scam them.

We've been selling links (as a tertiary revenue stream) for more than a decade, but the predominant focus of our sites is content and user experience -- we WANT people to bookmark and share the sites. Link sales are not a primary revenue stream... sales are. But we keep things relevant to each site's primary topic. None of our sites, I mean not a single one, has been negatively impacted for selling links, or creating dedicated ad pages, by Penguin, or Panda or any other animal. I think the key has always been relevance.

Having said that, and I cannot speak for anyone else, but a lot of the reason we continue to maintain multiple /24 and /25 blocks, and especially smaller blocks, is because BUYERS read all the misinformation spread by years of "seo expert" claims and, frankly, it is just easier to continue paying for stuff like extra hosts, extra IP's on various network blocks, etc. rather than convince people otherwise. We still enjoy the benefits ourselves of our block of sites on shared IP's, so that's fine by me if an SEO expert doesn't want to be on those sites. We'll gladly use them :)

there is no such thing as PENALTY.
This penalty on the new panda / penguin is for idiots.
If that is true, I will pay $100 a russian dude to spam 1M nofollow links with my competitors url / anchor to get him out of my way.
Stupid post.

Things aren't that black & white Alex. Interflora didn't pick up 1M shitty links, they spent a lot of money, and profited, on advertorials and sent free products in return for positive reviews. Nobody would do this much for a competitor.. especially considering their penalty was lifted after only 11 days.

Then why does google give unnatural linking warnings to webmasters via webmaster tools. And why then can webmasters fix it and apply for re-inclusion?