Google hands 'death sentence'

Monday 6 February 2006 - Google has handed out one of its most effective punishments to BMW amid allegations the German car manufacturer was abusing techniques for boosting its position in search engine results. The search giant has wiped out BMW's Google ranking on its domestic website, effectively demoting its website's presence on the internet, although Google declined to comment on the precise reasons why this action was taken.

At the centre of the row are allegations that BMW made full use of key word placements in order to ensure its website appeared above all others for certain searches. And while such practices are far from illegal they do overstep the line in the sand drawn by Google's rules of best practice and 'fair use'.

In past cases the punishment has proven to be so effective that many have taken to calling it the 'Google death sentence'.

A statement from Google said: "We can confirm that BMW.de has been removed from our search results. We never comment on the specifics of individual cases but we would stress that the quality of our index and search results is of the utmost importance to Google." The statement added: "We cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with relevant and objective search results."

Google may ban any site which uses tactics "designed to distort their rankings or mislead users", according to the statement, however they will be reinstated once Google is satisfied the site is no longer breaching its guidelines. At the time of writing BMW had not responded to a request for comment.