expediaSEO
Data from SearchMetrics shows a big dip in Expedia’s search visibility in the last few weeks.

Rap Genius made Google quite angry last month and paid the price, losing huge amounts of traffic after the search giant penalized Rap Genius for using SEO tricks to attract more views.

expedialogoNow, it looks like Expedia is learning a similar lesson — and seeing its stock price drop in the process.

As noted by SearchEngineLand, the Bellevue-based travel-booking website lost 25 percent of its search visibility on Google due to paid link penalties, which punish websites for buying links that can help improve search rankings. These are referred to as “unnatural links,” that often appear in random blog posts.

Based on data from SearchMetrics, Expedia saw big dips for keywords like “hotels,” “flights,” and “airline tickets.” In fact, if you run a search on Google for those terms, Expedia doesn’t show up on the first page.

Expedia’s SEO schemes were first spotted by NenadSEO, who wrote that Expedia is using “large-scale guest posting services for the sake of ranking higher” for keywords similar to the ones we mentioned. Now it appears Google has taken notice and penalized Expedia.

Expedia’s stock has dropped more than four percent today as a result of the search penalties, which again enforce the incredible power Google has on big businesses around the world.

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