Planet13 - 6:46 pm on Apr 9, 2011 (gmt 0)

I hate to admit it but if BestBuy is not on the first page for the "televisions" query - that's a poor user experience, whether they follow the G guidelines or not.

I think that is a key statement.

I think that if the user experience is good enough - in essence, the quality is high enough - then your rankings will be less affected when you go against some of the terms of service. Best buy has nice comparison tools, lots of ratings and reviews, a BIG selection of products, and name brand recognition.

I am sure that a lot of the news about best buy, like their earnings reports, get picked up by news outlets and republished numerous times. When they make a significant hiring, that press release gets picked and republished as well. They probably have numerous listings in jobs classifieds. They sponsor lots of events that probably give them a straight href link. They have a huge social media presence.

I am sure all that helps.

they probably get mentioned by high profile environmental groups for being ecologically irresponsible. They probably get listed by manufactures' sites when there are product recalls. Probably lots of ex-employees hated working there and in their blogs say as much.

I think these things probably HELP their rankings, too.

So I just don't think it is as simple as google saying "this company gets a pass because they are so big."

Anyway, these are just my thoughts.