Oops. The big, bad wolf, a German automaker who apparently has been deceiving unsuspecting Little Red Riding Hood
(Internet users) for at least a couple of years, has been caught by the woodsman (Google) and had its ranking with the
woodsman’s search engine axed to zero.
It seems that BMW has been using a technique known as a
“doorway page” on its bmw.de homepage. The technique, used by less-than-ethical websites, provides a
keyword-rich page for search engine web bots such as Google’s. But the page is only for the ‘bots;
flesh-and-blood visitors are directed to another page.
Google, which posts policies against such deceptive
practices, reacted swiftly once it received the news and has put BMW under what is known as the “Google death
penalty”. The article provides more
information on both the penalty and the incident.
Although BMW has removed the offending pages, there
has been no official explanation released by the automaker.
[Thanks for the tip, starlightmica.]