Thomas Cook Group plc

LSE: TCG

Thomas Cook is a travel intermediary that not only operates several thousand brick-and-mortar shops but also the third most popular travel website in the UK. About one-fourth of its bookings are done online and SEO is a key element in its customer acquisition strategy.

The website consistently ranks near the top for travel-related keywords on Google UK like “holidays”, “cruises”, and “travel agents”. Their tactics, however, play off the weaknesses in Google’s algorithm and risk a negative impact come future algorithm updates, if not an outright penalty sooner for breaking the Webmaster Guidelines.

Specifically, Thomas Cook uses paid links directed to its website designed to manipulate search results. Disguised as banner ad images, the ad copy is actually CSS-styled text containing the competitive keyword as anchor text that links back to thomascook.com.

A Thomas Cook paid link on allthingslanzarote.com for 30-80 Euros per month

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