As you all know, Google’s Panda update has finally cleared-away a lot of the junk from Google’s search results leaving many sites that have spent a fortune on SEO in the dust. I have been a HUGE fan of this update as it benefits me as someone that builds real online businesses as well as me as a web user that wants to find real results rather than junky article directories.
Well there has been another victim to Panda’s death blow, Milanoo, a sequoia-backed company that TechCrunch reported has been using link spam to increase it’s rankings. Milanoo was targeting terms like “cheap dresses”, “evening gown”, “cheap wedding dresses”, etc. by paying for tons of links. In most cases it isn’t the company that is doing this but instead an SEO company that they are spending a fortune with to achieve these rankings.
This is yet another example of why SEO as a whole has changed. This is a company that received millions of dollars in funding and was using some of that money to improve their rankings. I don’t know how much they paid their SEO company but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in the $100,000 range, and for what, just to be punished by Google.
For all the Domainers out there working on developing-out their sites, remember, the SEO game has changed. You have to actually make a useful site, with information that people value and link to on their own without you having to pay them to do it. Social Media is at the core of the new SEO world so if you don’t use Twitter or Facebook yet, it’s time to get onboard and start getting social with your brands! If Milanoo wants to do the right thing now they should make a company that becomes #1 on Google for “cheap dresses” because they have the best selection of cheap dresses, not because they pay money to rank well for the term!
