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Target.com's Aggressive SEO Tactic Spams Google

Posted by kdawson on from the wide-of-the-mark dept.

eldavojohn writes "Greg Niland is blogging about target.com's aggressive near-spam search engine optimization, and is more than a little critical not only of how this affects the most popular search engine, but also why it will probably persist. If you want an example, search for 'Exercise Bike Clearance' and click the first link."

3 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Easy response by techno-vampire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope every slashdotter reading your comment takes your advice. Target deserves to be slammed for that.

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  2. How are these getting indexed? by MikeFM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The big question is how are these pages getting indexed? Generating them isn't wrong but there should be no links to them.

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    1. Re:How are these getting indexed? by adolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Dear AC,

      If you'd R'd the FA, you'd have noticed this: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atarget.com+%22We+could+not+find+matches+for%22.

      Therein, are some 14 million dead links which land on Target's do-nothing search page.

      Will you really have me believe that target.com has been linked to for over 14 million specific products which they no longer sell?

      Not even Newegg, who tends to keep old product pages around for ages after they've stopped selling an item, has this problem: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=site%3Anewegg.com+%22this+product+is+no+longer+available%22 tops out at a perfectly believable 149,000 hits.

      Really. 14 million?

      FFS: Something here stinks.

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