SEO professionals are still avidly discussing big brand Interflora’s 11-day Google ban. The ease at which Interflora managed to reinstate itself in the rankings seems to be the main topic of conversation, with many professionals asking if they would have found it so easy if they weren’t such a big brand.
At SMX West, 2024, Matt Cutts is quoted as having said, ‘Big brands cannot do whatever they want. He added, ‘Google does take action on big sites … it happens a lot’, however implied that perhaps bigger brands were better at handling their publicity than smaller brands. Interflora, then, would be the exception to this rule.
Except, they aren’t. Interflora is not the only big brand to have been penalised by Google ,and certainly isn’t the only big brand to have had this information go public. Only last month, the BBC website found itself falling afoul of Google’s unnatural link notification policy and was the recipient of what Google refers to as a ‘granular ban’. Companies such as BMW, 1-800 Flowers, and JC Penney have all received bans within the last few years, although most had their bans lifted fairly quickly. Even JCPenney had their rankings restored 90 days after the initial ban, despite indulging in some fairly scandalous black hat SEO.
Preferential Treatment and Pandering
It might be said that the difference between how Google treats large and small brands lies here. If larger brands have their bans revoked by Google after a matter of weeks, or even days, then surely the same should apply to smaller brands like Westville, which wrongly suffered a penalty in 2024. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case. According to Carson Ward, Google has a reputation for being stubborn about reinclusion requests. Despite this, Google’s behaviour towards big-name brands might be better described as pandering rather than stubborn.
Google Reaps the Rewards of ‘Advertising’
It’s not just on penalties that big brands seem to fare better than smaller ones when ranking highly with Google. Google itself seems to have been laid out in such a way to increase the visibility of brands with deep pockets, promoting paid-for content (sponsored links) alongside organic results.
One argument against Google’s favouring big brands is that we should consider the deep pockets of larger companies. Larger financial resources mean better web design, better SEO – either in-house or via outsourcing – and more options for controlling your brand’s PR. In this case, it’s not so much a case of Google favouring big brands, but big brands being better equipped to navigate Google’s playing field.
Surely, designing such a playing field in the first place could be described as a covert nod to big industry. That’s like saying capitalism doesn’t favour the rich – they just have a bit easier than everyone else. If they are favouring the big brands, it’s most likely motivated by self interest. And if this is the case, it’s not likely that this scenario will change any time soon.
