Google Bans BMW Germany, Camera Maker Ricoh To Be Removed Next

[mandy]

Auto maker BMW.de banned from Google for using doorway pages.  Camera maker Ricoh.de is to be banned also for similar reasons.

Google delists BMW Germany for foul play

Google has flexed its muscles and dropped BMW Germany from its search engine following the German car manufacturer’s attempts to artificially boost its popularity ranking.

The move is likely to send shockwaves through the Internet industry over fears that one company has such power and effect over a websites access to the public.

full article: http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=2404

Another article:

Luxury car maker BMW has had its German website blacklisted by Google after it was caught trying to artificially boost its popularity ranking on the world's leading internet search engine.

The delisting was reported by several bloggers and later confirmed in a blog post by Google software engineer Matt Cutts wrote that the methods used by BMW were a violation of the search engine's guidelines.

The sanction - known colloquially as the "Google death penalty" - means that a Google search for terms like "BMW" or "BMW Germany" will not return a direct link to the car company's German website, bmw.com.de.

http://smh.com.au/news/breaking/google-d...13688.html

[mandy]

There's a right and wrong way to use highly graphical, rich-media-enhanced Web pages that entrance and engage users without much copy. Sometimes Web marketers are so focused on the graphic or rich media aspects of their sites they neglect SEO  best practices and mistakenly believe any and all means are appropriate to restore their SEO.

Recent events highlight there are times when major marketers should reevaluate their Web presences from both the organic SEO and paid search perspectives. Optimal pages for paid media traffic, including paid search, may not always be search-engine-friendly.

Evidence shows the engines allow a bit of flexibility with customized content, but no one knows exactly what the limits are. A landing page serving one or more banners or rich media page takeovers (or even AdSense) is an example of minor custom personalization. Clearly, that's allowed...

full article: http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/str...hp/3583831