Companies spend billions of dollars annually to try and rank as high as possible in the Google search results. And for good reason, as it’s been shown that ranking first in Google results in 33% of all traffic from that keyword.
But what happens when you land on the wrong side of the search engine? Whether by accident or design, many of the world’s biggest brands have found themselves using non-Google approved methods and being hit by penalties as a result.
There are many high-profile examples of companies that have tried, and failed including the likes of BMW, Home Depot, The Washington Post, BBC, and eBay. All have all been hit with penalties from Google for bad practice. Showing no one is immune, even Google itself has been penalized (by Google) for accidentally buying links as part of a campaign to promote Chrome!
In this latest infographic, we’ve taken a look at just a few big brands to have received Google penalties. We wanted to create a visual resource for marketers and business owners to be able to learn from the mistakes that other companies have made. If you’re trying to claw your way up the SERPs, this is a must read. We covered exactly when each company was penalized, the violation they committed, the penalty they received, the length of the penalty and the loss of web traffic over the duration of the penalty.
Source: http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/companies-tried-cheat-google-and-lost
