Sunday, February 12, 2006

Traffic-Power.com Banned in Google

“At Traffic-Power.com we use our expertise and technological know-how to get top search engine placement. Search Engine Placement is an effective way to generate Web site traffic and enjoys a substantial competitive advantage over Search Engine keyword advertising.”
– From a page at Traffic-Power.com, a site which at this moment can’t be found in Google (and has a PageRank of 0)

Matt Cutts at his blog officially confirms that SEO company Traffic Power and domains promoted by them have been removed from Google’s index due to SEO techniques violating Google’s webmaster guidelines. According to the WSJ, Traffic Power’s Matthew A. Marlon “built the company by hiring an army of salespeople to cold-call thousands of small businesses,” his salespeople finding leads “by running searches on certain keywords in search engines, such as ’flowers’ or ’golf accessories,’ and identifying small Web sites that ranked poorly in the results.”

Matt goes on to cite a Threadwatch.org post in which Threadwatch owner Aaron Wall says that “Traffic Power finally made specific claims against TrafficPowerSucks.com.” TrafficPowerSucks.com is an anonymous site complaining about Traffic Power’s tactics – I don’t have any information at this time who’s behind the site. Could it be Aaron himself? It’s not Aaron himself. (Disclaimer: Aaron Wall at one time paid for right-hand side text ads on my blog.)

If TrafficPowerSucks.com’s claims are true, then this isn’t the first time an SEO company is attempting to silence the web with their lawyers... and as usual, that will only help to escalate the situation. A search for traffic power today results in headlines such as, “Traffic Power Sucks,” “Google Bans Traffic Power and its Clients,” and “Traffic Power scam.”

Traffic-Power.com Banned ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (11)

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