2/14/2011 Update: A reaction to this article: http://battellemedia.com/archives/2011/02/this_is_news_jc_penney_and_link_farms.php
PRETEND for a moment that you are Google’s search engine.
PRETEND for a moment that you are Google’s search engine.
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Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media examined J. C. Penney’s ranking on Google. His analysis suggested a world of intrigue in the search business.
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Someone types the word “dresses” and hits enter. What will be the very first result?
There are, of course, a lot of possibilities. Macy’s comes to mind. Maybe a specialty chain, like J. Crew or the Gap. Perhaps a Wikipedia entry on the history of hemlines.
O.K., how about the word “bedding”? Bed Bath & Beyond seems a candidate. Or Wal-Mart, or perhaps the bedding section of Amazon.com.
“Area rugs”? Crate & Barrel is a possibility. Home Depot, too, and Sears, Pier 1 or any of those Web sites with “area rug” in the name, like arearugs.com.
You could imagine a dozen contenders for each of these searches. But in the last several months, one name turned up, with uncanny regularity, in the No. 1 spot for each and every term:
The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”).
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