Traffic Power
Traffic Power was a Las Vegas, Nevada search engine optimization company that engaged in black hat techniques. These spamdexing practices that violated Google's webmaster guidelines. As a result, some Traffic Power clients were banned from Google's organic search results.
According to a Wall Street Journal profile of the company, Traffic Power used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[1] Wired reported that Traffic Power sued a blogger, Aaron Wall, and the website Traffic Power Sucks, for mentioning that they were banned.[2] Google software engineer Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[3]
In January of 2009 Traffic Power's CEO, Matt Marlon, was jailed on accusations of fraud related to a foreclosure "scam". [4][5]
References
- ^ Startup Journal (Wall Street Journal), 'Optimize' Rankings At Your Own Risk by David Kesmodel at The Wall Street Journal Online, September 9 2005
- ^ Wired Magazine, Legal Showdown in Search Fracas, Sep, 08, 2005, written by Adam L. Penenberg
- ^ Cutts, Matt, Confirming a penalty, published on 2006-02-02 at Matt Cutts Blog
- ^ "Accused foreclosure scam artist behind bars". kvbc.com. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
- ^ "Traffic Power CEO in Jail". mattcutts.com. Retrieved 2009-01-20.