Search engine giant Google on Nov. 6, 2006, announced changes in its Search Engine Optimization—changes that would prove disadvantageous to some businesses during the holidays. “We’re improving our algorithm for evaluating landing page (the web page that a user is taken to after clicking on an online advertisement) quality and incorporating landing page content retrieved by the AdWords system,” the company stated. However, not everyone saw the changes as an improvement: Throughout November and December, adult blogs had complaints of “Google being broken” and “Google hating indie-porn.”
Sex writer, blogger, and educator Violet Blue wrote, “What’s disturbing to me, besides the harm it’s done to small businesses over the holidays, is that Google’s snafu seems to have dropped more [sex-positive businesses] than big-gun adult businesses.”
This certainly seemed to be the case with sex toy retailer Babeland.com. On Nov. 28, 2006, Babeland reported a 30-percent drop in sales as a direct result of Google’s changes. However, it wasn’t taken as an attack on the adult industry. “I like Google…I think they tweaked their code and we’re paying the price…until they system ‘rights’ itself,” wrote one Babeland representative on the company’s blog.
Whether the system corrected itself, or Google responded to an onslaught of complaints, most of the sites eventually returned to their original ranking, if not higher.
“The blip was major, but the time frame it took over was minor, and Google was really responsive admitting they had some bugs that needed to be worked out,” said Tony Comstock, owner of ComstockFilms.com. “I’m happy they fixed it and got some good advice on how and why my site could look like spam to the SEO. Now, we have double or triple the Google traffic than before this whole thing started.”
