Proflowers - Added more cities/towns

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Mac

Mac

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Jun 11, 2007
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Angels Camp
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Within the last 3 months Proflowers has added more city/town pages to their site. Previously, they were just focusing on the major cities but now they are targeting every zip code in the US....in the same way Wesley Berry is doing.

It's new so you may not see them coming up for your city yet...but you will.

To check, copy and past this: site:www.proflowers.com [add your city name here]

....And the specific page that they intend to rank first for your city will show.

P.S. ....you know, since Proflowers is 100% percent an online entity, if they were to incur a Google penalty they would quickly be sunk. Ever heard of Google Bowling?

I haven't ;-)
 
Even some internal linking would boost those pages into competition. As we've shown in the seminars the past couple weeks, the level of competition in the floral marketplace is sadly low.

Proflowers has decent enough internal link juice, not to mention the other QVC properties. Imagine regional ticketmaster pages sporting an ad for flowers to that city?

Ryan
 
Yep. Copy and paste link:http://www.proflowers.com/california/state-flowers into Yahoo and sure enough, paid links:

http://bdpollution.blogspot.com/ (look for: "California Flower Delivery")
http://www.coffeytalk.com/ (look for: "California")

Looks like they intend to beef up the State Pages with the hope that energy flows further out to their town pages.

If someone were to say....slap a few sitewide paid links of their own from Casino sites to those State Pages.....I have hunch a little negative SEO might trigger one of Google's automated filters.

At least that's what I heard might happen from the little whispers in the wind I keep hearing. Could have been hearing things though. That happens sometimes.

I'm sure Google doesn't have a loop hole of this magnitude in their system.

Or do they?
 
Those adds are distributed through TLA. Google got wise to TLA months ago and just stopped crediting their links. Deleting all the sites that sell PR through TLA would be giving feedback to TLA to help them refine their system. Instead, Google just gives the links no credit.

I switched away from TLA (thank goodness) right around the time that Google really slapepd them and their customers. Now they are virtually a non-entity for quality links in this format. Yahoo! may still consider these links but I doubt Google is giving them any credence at all.

Ryan
 
Google is still lacking in identifying what are paid links. Many obvious paid links slip through their filter. Even ones that explicitly say "Sponsor" before it.

Proflowers seem to migrate toward buying links with a 3 or 4 PageRank which may be a little under the radar of Google's filter.
 
These are the really old-school TLA links. Google solved their footprint. I'm really surprised PF hasn't moved away from TLA to a more under-the-radar broker. Even the new TLA links are inline in the content, like most other link brokers.

What does "slip through" mean? That the sites aren't obviously penalized? That the site buying links continues to rank?
 
I was referring to obvious paid links passing Page Rank un-noticed by Google. That's why they solicited the public to help them.

In contrast, Google bowling would involve intentionally buying sitewide links on spam sites using anchor-text that Proflowers is already trying to rank for (e.g. "flowers"). The idea would be to put Proflowers clearly IN the radar.

No web-presence....no Proflowers.
 
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So, maybe the question would be : How do we REAL FLORISTS, step up and compete, and how much is it going to cost us ?
The reality is right there, before our eyes ?

This economy dictates action, nothing less, and we need top make a positive and aggressive move toward the future.

Comments welcome !
 
My question is why do they need to?

Perhaps they can't keep up the battle on their PPC Campaign against the others? Not cost effective enough? Or better yet they can't sell any roses anymore because they ruined the market?

What ever the case thanks for the heads up.
 
Eric S said:
My question is why do they need to?

Perhaps they can't keep up the battle on their PPC Campaign against the others? Not cost effective enough? Or better yet they can't sell any roses anymore because they ruined the market?

What ever the case thanks for the heads up.
Click to expand...

PPC is never a replacement for organic SERPs ranking. It's an effective augmentation, but not a replacement. Additionally, there is a boost in branding and purchase intent when a business is ranking in both PPC and Organic.

MANORVILLE said:
So, maybe the question would be : How do we REAL FLORISTS, step up and compete, and how much is it going to cost us ?
The reality is right there, before our eyes ?

This economy dictates action, nothing less, and we need top make a positive and aggressive move toward the future.

Comments welcome !
Click to expand...

Here's step one, Kevin: Start making your own sites unique, so that you are competitive within your market. If florists in each area took their online marketing seriously, Proflowers would take a serious hit.

Ryan
 
MANORVILLE said:
So, maybe the question would be : How do we REAL FLORISTS, step up and compete, and how much is it going to cost us ?
The reality is right there, before our eyes ?

This economy dictates action, nothing less, and we need top make a positive and aggressive move toward the future.

Comments welcome !
Click to expand...

Perhaps instead of the FC Review Brigade, we have an FC Link Brigade. Don't get crazy and buils huge link farms, but a few links from each other's sites with the right keywords to each other's sites would go a long way.
 
RJD said:
Perhaps instead of the FC Review Brigade, we have an FC Link Brigade. Don't get crazy and buils huge link farms, but a few links from each other's sites with the right keywords to each other's sites would go a long way.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Nothing to crazy just a few links. I have been trying to do this with the blog but it seems that too many do not understand this.

What would be the best way to do this? Also from what part of the website should these links be placed. Linking from our front pages would be better but how will this effect our own natural results?

Perhaps a label called independent florist webistes with a list of linking names? Also do we link to WS sites or just keep it to independent only?
 
I'd say link to your friends and the people you respect, but the site must have a real URL, not a "florists.ftd.com/whomever" URL. Ryan and Mac are probably more qualified to speak on the technical particulars of where to place the links, and such.

It might even be time to ressurect realflorists.info as a known directory of real florists, and everyone include a link to that site, too.
 
Avoid the .info domains :) They were so cheap that spammers really grabbed them up. Recently Google dropped all .info domains from the index for a few days. They are so filled with spam that Google doesn't give them a lot of credit.

We used to have a semi-automated linking system in place. Florists could submit their URL to the system, then receive some auto-generated code to place on their site that linked to a couple florists randomly selected from the list of participants.

Care to guess why this didn't last?

...

Lack of participation :)
 
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