Brett_Tabke - 1:45 pm on Feb 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

As far as we know right now, I don't think thats what happened here Netmeg. I have seen 8 examples now and not one was in any way not within Google guidelines.

Overstock was penalized for having great rankings and a brillant marketing effort. They probably learned it at a Google sponsored conference.

Lets look at what they did:

- Made an offer to college students.
- Specifically target products that college students (and parents) would be attracted too.
- Ask those college students to link back.
- Provided cheap copy for those students to do so.
- Provided an affiliate program anyone could join.

Thus, students were incentivized to join and link.

There (at this point in time) is no evidence that Overstock was involved with placing the copy.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:08 pm (utc) on Feb 24, 2011]