I was wondering if there were any big name companies that have or have had bad SEO and I found a whole article outlining some huge companies we’ve all probably heard of, committing some of the most heinous SEO crimes out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BMW’s Keyword Stuffing Nightmare in 2006 Toys “R” Us Wastes Millions in 2009 Ryanair’s Website Overhaul in 2014 PwC’s Domain Debacle in 2002 GoCompare’s Spammy Link-Building in 2009 No matter how big or small a business is, SEO mistakes can be extremely costly. Proactive and white hat SEO practices are the best for long-term success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was wondering if there were any big name companies that have or have had bad SEO and I found a whole article outlining some huge companies we’ve all probably heard of, committing some of the most heinous SEO crimes out there. BMW’s Keyword Stuffing Nightmare in 2006BMW used doorway pages stuffed with keywords to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/strong>BMW used doorway pages stuffed with keywords to manipulate Google’s rankings. When BMW got caught, Google demoted their PageRank to zero! Lesson learned: do not stuff your site with keywords. Of course, Google’s algorithm is much more advanced today, so high-quality content is the only sustainable strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>After buying the Toys.com domain for $5.1 million, they failed to set up 301 redirects for old URLs and completely lost the domain’s authority (and the SEO value they paid for). Lesson learned: Google can’t read your mind, so always set up 301 redirects when buying domains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Ryanair, the most profitable European airline, tried to reduce the number of clicks to book a flight. They forgot to redirect old landing pages to the new ones, costing Ryanair 25% of its search volume until they managed to fix the issue. Lesson learned: always tell Google that you’ve redirected your pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>PricewaterhouseCoopers spent $110 million on a rebranding exercise and didn’t register the .co.uk suffix of their domain, even though most of its customers were in Britain. PwC ultimately suffered from a huge PR disaster and ended up scrapping the rebrand. Lesson learned: domain suffixes really matter, especially those related to specific geographic markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Price comparison site GoCompare tried to pay for links not once but twice within months, and Google penalized them immensely. Lesson learned: build backlinks ethically and steer clear of black hat SEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n