BMW got caught cheating on Google!

vladinecko · 02-06-2006, 09:35 AM

"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."

Read the whole story here.

shimshimhada · 02-06-2006, 09:36 AM

Only the motherland apparently

cobradac · 02-06-2006, 09:48 AM

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-04-n60.html

and
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-01-n31.html

May take a few days for all lingering page hits (archived?) to disappear.

vladinecko · 02-06-2006, 09:49 AM

yeah, it's still embarrassing, don't you think? it's like they were europe's saturn that people are forgetting about and they try to bring the name back. i don't get it.

SteveMD · 02-06-2006, 10:00 AM

Why the f&^k would BWM need to use black hat tactics to promote its site.

Wierd to say the least.

I had a competitor get whacked for using hidden pages/text and link farms to push his site. A friendly email to Google is all it takes

Paul330d · 02-06-2006, 11:05 AM

Surely nobody uses Google to find the official BMW websites anyway?

RichReg · 02-06-2006, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul330d

Surely nobody uses Google to find the official BMW websites anyway?

Surely, it need not be Google to be used in the first place.
There are plenty of other search engines available. Then we can use our own discretion as to what sites have what we're looking for.

txusa03 · 02-06-2006, 12:48 PM

As Mr. Trump would say, "you're fired" to the BMW CIO...

vladinecko · 02-06-2006, 01:20 PM

if you look at the terms they were trying to associate with BMW there were mostly about used cars. maybe that's what they really wanted, is to boost sales of certified preowned through BMW and not third parties. maybe they were having troubles getting rid of returned leases for some outrageously high prices. i'm sure they had their reasons, but i'm still very disappointed in them.

timlang · 02-06-2006, 08:51 PM

In defense of the poor web designer/programmer that probably created that page for BMW (probably doesn't even work for BMW directly, but more likely a web design/marketing firm), it is increasingly difficult to get your web page to even be registered by search engines these days. Everybody is making their web pages more visually appealling using images and flash animations, and whatever is being communicated in that manner doesn't get indexed by search engines. It used to be you could use the "META" tags to list search keywords, however all the major search engines now ignore all the META tags. You can't even use tricks like white text on white background in small font, because the crawlers look at text color vs background color, font size, etc. One of the only ways to get a large amount of raw search text for the crawler to see, while still presenting a nice, modern looking experience for the user is the sort of trick the BMW.de site was using.

I think the search engines will eventually need to address this, as right now their crawlers favor old, out-of-date, plain text style websites with few or no flash/images when it comes to indexing. Very frustrating dilemna from a web design point of view - modernize your website and loose out on search engine crawler indexing, or keep it simple and easy to index but look out of date compared to your competitors and consumer expectations.

schwma · 02-06-2006, 09:24 PM

Quote:

I think the search engines will eventually need to address this, as right now their crawlers favor old, out-of-date, plain text style websites with few or no flash/images when it comes to indexing. Very frustrating dilemna from a web design point of view

Sounds reasonable. So why would Google resort to such a Draconian measure as complete delisiting then?

stressdoc · 02-06-2006, 09:28 PM

Maybe they got caught cheating on E90post.com ....

eleven24 · 02-06-2006, 09:32 PM

The most ironic part of the whole story is that Google's delisting of BMW will probably generate more people typing "BMW" into Google's search engine... thereby artificially inflating the numbers yet again.

I know I just did it.

vladinecko · 02-07-2006, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eleven24

The most ironic part of the whole story is that Google's delisting of BMW will probably generate more people typing "BMW" into Google's search engine... thereby artificially inflating the numbers yet again.

I know I just did it.

ha ha, that is so true. the story even made it to cnet.com so i'm sure people from there, after reading the news, will go on and look what the website looks like etc etc. however, this will only be a 1-2 day kind of thing. with their approach, they got consistent search results in their favor.

poldim · 02-12-2006, 03:38 PM

Sneaky bastard!

ska///235i · 02-12-2006, 03:40 PM

I think is easier to type "www.bmw.com" then to type "www.google.com" anyways

02-06-2006, 09:35 AM	#1
vladinecko Brigadier General 285 Rep 3,924 Posts Drives: '11 E92 M3 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Bay Area, CA iTrader: (1) Garage List 2011 BMW M3 [9.00] 2008 BMW 335i [0.00] 2006 BMW 330i [0.00] 1994 BMW 325i [0.00]	BMW got caught cheating on Google! "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." Read the whole story here. __________________ 2011 E92 M3 - IB/Beige/Sycamore Wood/6MT/EDC/ZPP2/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/iPod-USB/Enh. Audio 2008 E92 335i - Montego Blue/Black/Gray Poplar/6MT/ZPP/ZSP/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/HDRadio/iPod-USB - *Sold* 2006 E90 330i - Mystic Blue/Black/Aluminum/6MT/ZPP/iDrive/PDC/Heated Seats/Sat. Prep - *Sold* 1994 E36 325i - Boston Green/Beige/Automatic/ZPP/Heated Seats/Premium Sound - *Sold*
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02-06-2006, 09:36 AM	#2
shimshimhada Brigadier General 445 Rep 4,838 Posts Drives: Portal Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Portal iTrader: (2)	Only the motherland apparently
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02-06-2006, 09:48 AM	#3
cobradac First Lieutenant 20 Rep 374 Posts Drives: '05 645Ci Coupe Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Titusville, FLA iTrader: (0) Garage List 2005 645Ci [0.00]	http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-04-n60.html and http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-01-n31.html May take a few days for all lingering page hits (archived?) to disappear.
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02-06-2006, 09:49 AM	#4
vladinecko Brigadier General 285 Rep 3,924 Posts Drives: '11 E92 M3 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Bay Area, CA iTrader: (1) Garage List 2011 BMW M3 [9.00] 2008 BMW 335i [0.00] 2006 BMW 330i [0.00] 1994 BMW 325i [0.00]	yeah, it's still embarrassing, don't you think? it's like they were europe's saturn that people are forgetting about and they try to bring the name back. i don't get it. __________________ 2011 E92 M3 - IB/Beige/Sycamore Wood/6MT/EDC/ZPP2/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/iPod-USB/Enh. Audio 2008 E92 335i - Montego Blue/Black/Gray Poplar/6MT/ZPP/ZSP/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/HDRadio/iPod-USB - *Sold* 2006 E90 330i - Mystic Blue/Black/Aluminum/6MT/ZPP/iDrive/PDC/Heated Seats/Sat. Prep - *Sold* 1994 E36 325i - Boston Green/Beige/Automatic/ZPP/Heated Seats/Premium Sound - *Sold*
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02-06-2006, 10:00 AM	#5
SteveMD Colonel 198 Rep 2,485 Posts Drives: 2016 F10 535i MSport Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Raventown! iTrader: (3)	Why the f&^k would BWM need to use black hat tactics to promote its site. Wierd to say the least. I had a competitor get whacked for using hidden pages/text and link farms to push his site. A friendly email to Google is all it takes __________________ 2006 E90 330i (retired) 2009 E90 335i (retired) 2012 E70 X5 50i M Sport (retired) 2016 F10 535i M Sport
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02-06-2006, 11:05 AM	#6
Paul330d Torque junky 115 Rep 1,688 Posts Drives: Remapped e90 330d Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: France (UK expat) iTrader: (2) Garage List 2006 330d [0.00] 2005 Fiat Panda 4x4 [0.00]	Surely nobody uses Google to find the official BMW websites anyway? __________________ www.greenkeepers.fr - spécialiste des tondeuses à gazon hélicoïdales atco qualcast ransomes lawnflite
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02-06-2006, 12:48 PM	#8
txusa03 Major General 556 Rep 6,563 Posts Drives: TS330iPPSP6MT Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Planet Earth iTrader: (3)	As Mr. Trump would say, "you're fired" to the BMW CIO...
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02-06-2006, 01:20 PM	#9
vladinecko Brigadier General 285 Rep 3,924 Posts Drives: '11 E92 M3 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Bay Area, CA iTrader: (1) Garage List 2011 BMW M3 [9.00] 2008 BMW 335i [0.00] 2006 BMW 330i [0.00] 1994 BMW 325i [0.00]	if you look at the terms they were trying to associate with BMW there were mostly about used cars. maybe that's what they really wanted, is to boost sales of certified preowned through BMW and not third parties. maybe they were having troubles getting rid of returned leases for some outrageously high prices. i'm sure they had their reasons, but i'm still very disappointed in them. __________________ 2011 E92 M3 - IB/Beige/Sycamore Wood/6MT/EDC/ZPP2/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/iPod-USB/Enh. Audio 2008 E92 335i - Montego Blue/Black/Gray Poplar/6MT/ZPP/ZSP/Nav/PDC/Heated Seats/HDRadio/iPod-USB - *Sold* 2006 E90 330i - Mystic Blue/Black/Aluminum/6MT/ZPP/iDrive/PDC/Heated Seats/Sat. Prep - *Sold* 1994 E36 325i - Boston Green/Beige/Automatic/ZPP/Heated Seats/Premium Sound - *Sold*
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02-06-2006, 08:51 PM	#10
timlang Private First Class 4 Rep 114 Posts Drives: 2018 330i Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Vancouver, BC iTrader: (0)	In defense of the poor web designer/programmer that probably created that page for BMW (probably doesn't even work for BMW directly, but more likely a web design/marketing firm), it is increasingly difficult to get your web page to even be registered by search engines these days. Everybody is making their web pages more visually appealling using images and flash animations, and whatever is being communicated in that manner doesn't get indexed by search engines. It used to be you could use the "META" tags to list search keywords, however all the major search engines now ignore all the META tags. You can't even use tricks like white text on white background in small font, because the crawlers look at text color vs background color, font size, etc. One of the only ways to get a large amount of raw search text for the crawler to see, while still presenting a nice, modern looking experience for the user is the sort of trick the BMW.de site was using. I think the search engines will eventually need to address this, as right now their crawlers favor old, out-of-date, plain text style websites with few or no flash/images when it comes to indexing. Very frustrating dilemna from a web design point of view - modernize your website and loose out on search engine crawler indexing, or keep it simple and easy to index but look out of date compared to your competitors and consumer expectations. __________________ 18' 330i xDrive M Sport Edition II - Mineral Gray/Black (Canadian Model 'eh!) 14', 13', 11' & 08' 328i xDrive - Mineral Gray/Black, Steptronic, PP, Nav (Canadian) 06' 325i - Sparkling Graphite/Black/Burl, Steptronic, PP (Canadian) Last edited by timlang; 02-06-2006 at 09:40 PM..
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02-06-2006, 09:28 PM	#12
stressdoc Moderator 620 Rep 10,858 Posts Drives: BMW i8; Toy 4runner TRD pro Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Waco TX iTrader: (0)	Maybe they got caught cheating on E90post.com ....
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02-06-2006, 09:32 PM	#13
eleven24 Foppa! 29 Rep 214 Posts Drives: 2018 X5 xDrive35i Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Furlong, PA iTrader: (0)	The most ironic part of the whole story is that Google's delisting of BMW will probably generate more people typing "BMW" into Google's search engine... thereby artificially inflating the numbers yet again. I know I just did it. __________________ 2018 X5 xDrive35i past: 96 323ic \| 00 328i \| 06 330xi \| 11 Q5 \| 14 Touraeg \| 17 Q7 ~ 2011-2017: my era of darkness
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02-12-2006, 03:38 PM	#15
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02-12-2006, 03:40 PM	#16
ska///235i ***** noob 1381 Rep 10,479 Posts Drives: 325xi>M235i>428GCx Mspor Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Boston iTrader: (34) Garage List 2006 325xi [0.00]	I think is easier to type "www.bmw.com" then to type "www.google.com" anyways __________________ 2006 325xi (Sold) 2014 M235I (Current) 2015 428xi Gran Coupe (STB)
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