Black Hat Marketing

Black hat marketing is a bad idea – just ask retail giant J.C. Penney.

For several months, the retailer’s website was the #1 Google search result in many key product search terms. This was remarkable enough to get the attention of the New York Times; the paper asked an Internet marketing expert to look into J.C. Penney’s suspiciously high search engine positioning.

And so began a complex tale of Google-scheming intrigue… J.C. Penney (or their search engine optimization firm) engaged in questionable web positioning strategies. Known as “black hat marketing,” these are techniques designed to fool Google and other search engines – and they are explicitly banned by Google.

To make a long story short: (1) The Times published an expose. (2) Google’s search results stopped displaying J.C. Penney. (3) J.C. Penney fired their web marketing firm. (4) Media firestorm ensued.

So, J.C. Penney is again at the top of the Google search results – but in the News section this time.