Gmorgan - 4:33 pm on Feb 22, 2013 (gmt 0)

Has anyone seen the story doing the rounds today about Interflora?

Their SEO firm had been doing some blogger outreach which focused on giving away flowers in exchange for a review and a link back to the site.

It was working well and is something most SEO/PR firms would consider a great strategy but their very impressive rankings were torn down by a penalty this week.

Looks like they crossed the line into link buying and Google took action.

I don't think all is as it seems but I do think Google is in the wrong if it is for these blog links. This is a solid PR strategy that has stood the test of time, so who are they to say that it's no longer an option? It's not like it was spamming or black-hat, so why not let it be?