Google Penalizing Itself

Google Japan was recently penalized by Google for spamming the search engines. Google Japan, http://www.google.co.jp/, launched a new feature to their search engine and tried to get the word out about it. However, they ended up getting the word out the wrong way. They paid bloggers to write about this new feature and link it to Google Japan. Paying people to write/link to your website is not allowed in the internet world. When you get caught, you get penalized. When Google found out about this, they dropped Google Japan’s PageRank down to a 5, previously at 9! Basically, Google penalized itself. Yahoo! Japan is actually Japan’s #1 search engine and directory. Google Japan thought they could extend its reach by spamming, something Google despises! However…this backfired. Weird to think that Google would penalize its own search engine!?

According to the Nielsen NetRatings, Yahoo! Japan holds 44% of Japan’s internet searches while Google Japan holds 41%. Apparently that 3% meant a lot to Google Japan and they resulted to spamming.

See what great lengths people, and companies, go to just to be ranked better or have a higher status in the internet world? Many times, this is done without any respect to search engine optimization rules. This is why it’s important to read up on what to do and what not to do. Using the wrong techniques that are considered “illegal” can cost you big time. You never want to risk putting your website at jeopardy. In the case with Google Japan, they paid people to link to them. If you look at Google’s guidelines, paying for links and buzz is not allowed. It looks like Google is trying to set an example - you will get caught - especially since it’s penalizing its own baby!