16 replies to this topic

[Michael Martinez]

I should add that while I was pretty critical of the SEO community in today's blog post about this, I had a very specific non-HR community blogger in mind when writing some of my harsher criticism.

I do feel the SEO community in general should have made more effort to analyze the situation even though JC Penney was not their client. I think it's important that we be able to offer our clients credible opinions if they find themselves in penalty situations.

The fact we should have access to more data with a real client mitigates being wrong as armchair analysts somewhat, but as I showed above the JC Penney data was there to be looked at all along. I just feel like the coverage from sites like Search Engine Land fell short of the mark for high quality analysis by not looking at earnings reports.

[DJKay]

Yes...I saw that and read the press release on the results. I figured someone would post on it. I think you really can't tell what impact the penalty had or not. Here is why...this is a big, multi-national corporation...even if it did hurt them in some ways, they are not going to tell us. There are other ways to shelter or shoulder losses via accounting moves, etc. They are a global corporation.

Next...and here is the lesson that small businesses need to get...search is one channel for them..its not their only channel. They have retail stores, they still do direct mail [although highly diminished and not what they used to do], they are still doing traditional forms of marketing and advertising; and I am sure they are doing something with mobile....

Any company, even if you have the coolest thing since sliced bread online or whatever...needs to diversify and use various methods and strategies to drive sales/create revenue. Yup...its really awesome that alot of us were able to ride the wave of the internet/technology. For many, it enabled people to get companies off the ground..Yea! You have to find a few different ways to grow your business...Other people have said this before too on this forum. Jill has mentioned it a few times over the years..

So...off the soap box. My two cents. DJKay