Trump.com and Lack of Search Knowledge

By Li Evans

Let's talk about big brands and their lack of knowledge of the Search Industry and how this can really affect a brand's reputation.  I present to you the latest in big names and their inability to really grasp onto how Search - Paid or Organic, can ultimately affect their reputation management.

I present to you Trump.com.  I also dare you to use Google and "google" the keyword "trump".

O.K.  now that you've stopped giggling, let me first give credit to Threadwatch.org for picking this up and first reporting on it ("Having fun at Donald's expense").  They have some screen shots about this, if you are reading this article a few days later and the "trump" query isn't bring you back a description of the site as "levitra|viagra|cialis|penis|small penis."

Matt Cutts of Google commented on the thread - "Our best guess when we looked at this several days ago was that the site was hacked. "

I wonder how many heads are going to roll, or how many employees in the IT department are going to hear "The Donald"'s now infamous "You're Fired" line?

On so many levels this just shows the lack of knowledge of a big company into the search industry and just how important this knowledge can be.  SEO wise - wow what a lesson to be learned, Reputation Management wise - yet another lesson, and Viral Marketing - this is likely to criss cross the Internet a bazillion times in the next week and beyond.  Too bad it's not the kind of "buzz" a company really wants to be related too - otherwise, you couldn't ask for better "free" marketing.

I'm sure within a week or two, the Trump organization will have an handle on this.  The problem though is that a week or two is way too late.  And if Matt's comment is any indication - it's been out there a few days more than from when Threadwatch first reported it.  This is definitely going to be a "must watch" for the next week or two to see how the organization handles it, and just how far it goes into the mainstream news.

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Comments

[Keith L. Dick]

I wonder how many heads are going to roll, or how many employees are going to hear "You're Fired"...

Yup I edited it but I think alot more are gonna hear this in the near future at other Companies...