Google demotes BeatThatQuote one day after buying it

Google has penalised its own newly acquired UK price comparison site BeatThatQuote.com, after the firm was found to be violating Mountain View's guidelines about linking. Earlier today, Aaron Wall noted on his SEO Book blog that Google had recently penalised Overstock.com for offering discounts in exchange for links. " …

[Bob 18]

Link Buying?

Yes, link buying is bad and evil. Google is the only company that should be making money off of buying, selling, aggregating and otherwise manipulating links.

[MrCheese]

Well well well

I'm normally not much of a fan of Google but it does make a refreshing change to see a company eating its own dog food.

Unless of course there's some shady, ulterior motive behind it, but it's Google....so there couldn't be...surely? ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

Obviously, if their page rank shot-up right after acquisition, someone would complain. If it disappears for 30 days and then magically comes back at a higher location, they can plausibly deny anything fishy ;).

[Anonymous Coward]

There ain't no such thing...

as bad publicity, remember?

Who'd heard of "BeatThatQuote" before reading this article? Not me...

[Dr Insanity]

Newsworthy?

Surely by doing something as controversial as temporarily banning one of their own sites, it will encourage people to report on the issue, thus providing new links and buzz about the site, allowing them to legitimately climb the ladder of the googorithm?