SEO Blunders - Does Zales sell diamonds or what?

April 30th, 2006 Jackie

I just submitted a new article to SEOChat.com which will be published on Monday, June 13, 2005 about how big brands can benefit from search marketing (I will provide a direct link to the article as soon as it is live on SEOchat.com. The article provides some examples of how companies like IBM and Lowe’s can leverage search engine marketing to help perpetuate brand awareness and contribute to their bottom line. In doing some research, I found some very interesting (funny/shocking/astounding) instances of big brands that were not appearing in the search results for brand-defining keywords. Zales.com, for example, is not in the top 100 listings in Google if you search for “diamonds.”

The article lists a few doozies. I just couldn’t list them all in the article and now I can’t seem to stop checking different companies and brands. In fact, I had so much fun with it that I want to continue the list here. I’ll probably update this post regularly. Keep in mind that this list is in addition to the companies I listed in the article. These companies should all be blushing!

THESE COMPANY OR PRODUCT SITES DO NOT SHOW UP IN THE TOP 100 LISTINGS IN GOOGLE FOR THE GENERIC TERM IN QUOTES.

Searches 1-10 were conducted on Google on 6/9/05. Results are subject to change (hopefully for the better). Send me an email if you have an update.

1. Providian.com for “credit card”

2. Holiday-inn.com for “hotel”

3. Perdue.com for “chicken”
(KFC.com is 4 and Tyson.com is 6)

4. Oscar-Meyer.com for “bologna”

5. Dixie.com for “cups” or “paper cups”

6. Kleenex.com for “tissues”

7. WSJ.com for “news”

8. Santa.com for “christmas”

9.Zales.com “diamonds”

10. Fortunoff.com for “jewelry”

Entry Filed under: E-Marketing Articles