Search Rankings Mystery: The Penney Drops

Google has cracked down on what has been described as the most ambitious attempt to unfairly influence its search rankings. And the offender? J.C. Penney.

An online search expert says the retail store benefited from a mass-scale exploitation of one of the key elements of Google’s ranking: inbound links. While the exact algorithm Google uses is a closely-guarded secret, it’s generally believed that getting links for sites that are themselves prestigious and popular carries additional weight.

However, the J.C. Penney example suggests there is a point when a sheer quantity of links overwhelms the quality side of the equation.

Doug Pierce, carrying out research on behalf of the New York Times, set out to discover when the retailer had managed to hold top spot in the rankings for almost every product-related search term going. He discovered that taking one product area alone, dresses, he was able to find more than 2,000 sites that include a reference to a dress, with that reference being a text link to J. C. Penney. The majority of the sites had nothing to do with dresses, had little content, and frankly were blatantly nothing but link farms.

Deliberately using this tactic is a violation of Google’s guidelines. But a J. C. Penney spokeswoman denied any wrongdoing, telling the Time that the company “did not authorize, and we were not involved with or aware of, the posting of the links that you sent to us, as it is against our natural search policies,” adding that it was working to take the links down.

While that may indeed be the case, it’s very obvious somebody has set out to artificially boost the company’s rankings, and the fact that it has now stopped using the services of its search engine consultant firm certainly points the finger.

And why did Google take so long to fix the problem? Well, the company points to the fact that it has 24,000 employees trying to deal with 200 million unique domains. And Google’s search guru Matt Cutts flatly denied that J.C. Penney spending $2.46 million a year on paid Google ads has any effect whatsoever on its rankings for “organic” search. It’s now taken “corrective action” that has seen the retailer plummet in the rankings for most of the relevant terms.

In a separate action, Google is also adding an extension to the Chrome browser that allows users to blacklist particular domains from appearing in the results that they see for a Google search. The company says it will explore the idea of seeing which sites users choose to block and building that information into its ranking algorithm.

Death Works From Home [Comic]

[Source: Savage Chickens]

Ouch: Darth Vader Full Back Tattoo

Most impressive, but ouch, getting something like that etched on your back must be a long and painful process.

[Via Calcanis]

Real-Life Mario Kart 2.0

You’ve already seen Remi Gaillard reenacting a real-life game of Mario Kart on [GAS] in the past, and now, that crazy French dude has done once again. Check him out!

[Via]

Awesome: Street Fighter in Real Life [Video]

You guys really have to check out this awesome video from the Thousand Pounds Fight Team featuring some sexy ladies pwning the hell out of a bunch of guys, Street Fighter-style.

And if that left you wanting to see more, head over to the group’s Youtube page for a lot of additional OMG-worthy videos.

[Via TDW]

New Spider-Man Suit Picture Released

Here’s the first official picture of Spider-Man’s suit for the upcoming reboot. What do you guys think?

[Via]

Simulated manned mission reaches “Mars”

A Russian and an Italian have climbed out of their craft and walked on the surface of Mars. But while the men know it is merely a sandpit near Moscow, their bodies might not be so sure.

The pair are among six men in their 20s and 30s who are taking part in a global experiment to track the psychological and physical challenges that would face a manned mission to the Red Planet.

In a project run by European, Russian and Chinese space agencies, the group will spend a total of 520 days locked in a set of windowless metal tubes designed to simulate a spacecraft. Why 520 days? That’s the estimated time it would take to fly to Mars and back.

In return for a payoff just short of $100,000, the men must go through a routine designed to mirror that of real astronauts. They must each work five days a week on maintenance and experiments and are limited to one shower a week. As would be expected on a real mission, the craft includes both a gym and a greenhouse for producing fresh vegetables.

In an effort to make the experiment more realistic, all communication between the “craft” and the outside world comes with a 20 minute delay, and officials have already experimented by introducing “technical glitches” to the feed.

Today two of the crew, Alexander Smoleyevsky and Diego Urbina became the “first men on Mars.” They and another crew member will spend a total of 10 days on the bogus planet, leaving the remaining three to experience what it would be like to be the 21st century Michael Collins.

In setting up the experiment, officials decided not to include any females on the trip, working on the basis that the on group dynamics would be so strong as to make it difficult to isolate the specific influences of the journey itself and the gender balance.

As it happens, last week NASA researchers concluded that were a woman to become pregnant in space, the craft might struggle to protect her from the effects of ionizing radiation that would be strong enough to leave a female fetus sterile from birth. However, once on the planet, potential parents might want to take a trip to nearby moon Phobos where a crater would obstruct around 90% of rays.