Traffic Power was a Las Vegas, Nevada search engine optimization company that engaged in black hat techniques. These were spamdexing practices that violated Google's webmaster guidelines. As a result, some Traffic Power clients were banned from Google's organic search results.
According to a Wall Street Journal profile of the company, Traffic Power used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[1] Wired reported that Traffic Power sued a blogger, Aaron Wall, and the website Traffic Power Sucks, for mentioning that they were banned.[2] Google software engineer Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[3]
In January 2009 Traffic Power's CEO, Matt Marlon, was jailed on accusations of fraud related to a foreclosure "scam".[4]
References
- ^ Kesmodel, David (September 9, 2005). "'Optimize' Rankings At Your Own Risk". Startup Journal (Wall Street Journal). Archived from the original on 2005-10-03.
- ^ Wired Magazine, Legal Showdown in Search Fracas, Sep, 08, 2005, written by Adam L. Penenberg
- ^ Cutts, Matt, Confirming a penalty, published on 2006-02-02 at Matt Cutts Blog
- ^ "Accused foreclosure scam artist behind bars". kvbc.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-20.