Overstock.com No Longer Penalized by Google

Back in February, Google penalized Overstock.com in search results, after the site’s pages had ranked near the top of results for dozens of common searches, such as “vacuum cleaners” and “laptop computers”.
The Wall Street Journal exposed the story as the site’s rankings dropped to the fifth and sixth pages for a lot of the topics.

Overstock.com No Longer Penalized by Google

The rankings drop was the result of the site’s practice of encouraging college and university sites to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could get discounts. Still the penalty came after Overstock had already discontinued the program.


Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne was quoted as saying, “Google has made clear they believe these links should not factor into their search algorithm. We understand Google’s position and have made the appropriate changes to remain within Google’s guidelines.” Google, of course, would not comment on any specific site.
Overstock issued a statement today that it is back in business, free from Google’s “penalty box”.
“We understand Google’s position and we have made changes to remain clearly within their guidelines,” said CEO Patrick Byrne.