Constant Contact spamming Google?
Constant Contact, an online campaign management service company, may be spamming Google “obviously actively trying to own rankings for their name”, according to Darren Barefoot. Apparently, Constant Contact has set up several domains to redirect to their site. Is this spamming? Should it be considered spamming?
The challenge is that Constant Contact may argue that people legitimately enter those URLs. I wouldn’t try setting up several domains like that, but I can see how their IT or marketing teams could make a case for “legitimately” having several URLs.
(c) 2006 by Andrea Coutu. Vancouver Marketing Consultant. All rights reserved.
24th January 2008
Thanks for the linkage. I don’t want to be a big nitpicker, but I didn’t actually say they were “spamming” Google. That’s a highly charged word, and I intentionally avoided it. Mind you, an SEO expert in the comments did say that, so I don’t think we should shy away from it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people owning all of the extensions for the domain. However, I don’t think they should all be featured so prominently in Google. Constant Contact and Google thus ought to share the blame on this way. CC is obviously actively trying to own rankings for their name, and Google ought to be on top of that behaviour.