There seems to be a lot of random ideas out there on how to increase your search rankings, but the idea that getting bad reviews can help you get to the first page of rankings seems a bit farfetched. Oddly enough though that is exactly how the owner of DecorMyEyes.com thinks he shot to the top.
A little background on DecorMyEyes.com –
- They sell discount designer sunglasses.
- It appears they have ticked off a lot of people with their bad customer service and shady business (you can assume this accounts for their large amount of bad reviews).
Turns out this site does rank well for some desirable keywords, but not necessarily because of the bad reviews. An article from Search Engine Land points out that the site actually ranks well because of the amount of links to it from highly trusted sites. One link in particular is from The New York Times website – you would trust that site right? Google definitely does.
Search Engine Land also points out that many of the links to the site seem a bit shady and the bad reviews the owner of the company is touting as the reason he ranks well only account for a small fraction of the links that may be positively affecting rankings at best.
Personally, I think bad reviews are bad reviews and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you rank high if you can’t get any customers. So, what do you think? Yeah, they rank well, but if everyone out there knows your business is horrible does it really matter if you rank at the top of the list?