GSD&M keyword stuffing metas using former client trademarked names
Since the GSD&M site has zero text on the page, they had to resort to keyword stuffing their metas…a limited SEO attempt at ranking for keywords. Our problem is that they are using clients names that no longer retain them as their Advertising Agency. Plus, who goes on listing clients names in their meta information, somewhat at the expense of listing their own information.. like the services they offer?
A question we were e-mailed was if this was even legal? Throwing in trademarked names in the metas for the sole reason of ranking for them.
Listed below is their meta information. Don’t believe us… visit their page and view source.
Title : GSDM Advertising
description : content=”GSD&M provides sustainable marketing results for brands that have a genuine purpose
keywords: content=”GSD&M, GSD&M Advertising, purpose-based branding, austin, texas, advertising, interactive, integration, creative, roy spence, steve gurasich, judy trabulsi, tim mcclure, omnicom, television, radio, print, direct response, email, southwest airlines, wal-mart, walmart, chilis, brinker international, pga tour, fannie mae, fannie mae foundation, lennox, mastercard, sbc, dreamworks, sams club, us airforce, kohler, aarp, american legacy foundation, tostitos, frito-lay, fritolay, unitedhealth group, unitedhealth care, unitedhealth foundation, medicare complete, krispy creme, united states olympic committee, discovery channel
Now what makes it comical is GSD&M refused in 2006 to re pitch for the Wal-mart Business.. and of course speculation at the time went wild on why GSD&M didn’t want to re-pitch. What makes it more comical, is that GSD&M thought it worth while to list Wal-Mart twice.. both Wal-Mart and Walmart in their metas….so that former client gets a double whammy… feel honored.
It’s one thing to have a press release or story about the company.. a history of how you used to do business with them…. but to throw them up in the metas, hoping to rank for their name… but with no corresponding article regarding it is pretty shady in our opinion. The sole purpose of throwing keywords in the metas is to rank for those terms…. and that is 1000000% legit if their is a corresponding article regarding it… but in this case.. they just wished someone would type in Wal-Mart and land on their page… Rest Assured that GSD&M is not SEO’ed to any reasonable extent other than the meta tag keyword stuffing, and we have a hard time finding the site if the keyword isn’t their exact company name when searched in Google, so the chances are limited… very limited.. that they would rank for Wal-Mart in Google.
Maybe a better question worth asking, would you jam your clients names in your metas or would you use that resource to list what you are good at?
We don’t know what to think about it… Why keyword stuff their Meta’s with former clients names? It just doesn’t make sense.
EDIT - it appears that W+K is spamming as well, with misspellings to boot.
description = “Wieden+Kennedy is an independent, creatively led advertising agency that exists to create strong and provocative relationships between good companies and their consumers.
keywords = advertising, Wieden, Kennedy, wk, nike, espn, coke, ea, honda, target, nokia, branding, commercicals, broadcast, media, planning
For heaven’s sake, commercicals is spelled commercials
Not to defend them, but I don’t think they are necessarily keyword stuffing. I would chalk it up to pure ignorance. They have no other signs (at a quick glance) of anything search on their site. My guess is their webmaster is still stuck in the ’90s. But, which is worse - stupidity or ignorance?
The metas listing ‘wal-mart’ and then ‘walmart’ are classic… but my real problem is listing the former clients in the meta… like what did they expect to accomplish by that? Shouldn’t they be listing THEIR services in there and not just a list that includes former clients.
thats why i would chalk it up to ignorance. it was probably just the webmaster who did it without any direction from anyone. he/she probably doesn’t even know who their clients are.
Of the 24 “clients” stuffed in there, only seven are actually still with the agency.
See my problem with this is that would your agency stuff their clients name in their metas?
This is GSDM’s old website which they should just kill.
Check their new one - there’s almost no tags @ all.
Just a webmaster who made the site and then forgot about keywords.
If they run their own site like this, how can they effectively run client accounts?
Mar 31st, 2008 at 11:55 am
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