As of today, at least some of Interflora’s rankings are back, just in time for Mother’s Day. It’s been about two weeks since Interflora got penalised by Google. Here is what I am seeing with location set to UK:
| Keyword | Google.co.uk position | Google.co.uk URL |
| interflora | 1 | www.interflora.co.uk/ |
| flowers | 10 | www.interflora.co.uk/ |
| roses | 10 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/roses/ |
| balloon bouquet | 2 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/balloon-gifts/ |
| bouquet flowers | 2 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/flower-arrangements/ |
| bouquet of flowers | 1 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/flower-arrangements/ |
| bouquets | 4 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/flower-arrangements/ |
| bouquets of flowers | 1 | www.interflora.co.uk/category/flower-arrangements/ |
| buy flowers | 1 | www.interflora.co.uk/ |
| buy flowers online | 2 | www.interflora.co.uk/ |
(The keywords I checked the rankings for are just a random sampling of what Interflora used to rank for before the penalty)
However, these results are not quite stable at the moment and keep fluctuating, and also differ a bit by specific location.
Why has it got back? I highly doubt disavowing links has anything to do with it as, even if it had been done, and did have a positive effect, the results wouldn’t have been visible so fast.
What about link removals? According to MajesticSEO, Interflora did lose quite a few links as of March 1:
Among these links, I see quite a few blogs but as we established, it were not the blogs that caused the trouble in the first place. As for local newspapers, I could only spot Yorkshire Times, but by the looks of it it hadn’t been one of those advertorials – more like a banner ad as it had no anchor text.
Those into cheap sensations probably wouldn’t fail to spot a lost link from Branded3 and speculate about things. However, no sensation here – this doesn’t look like an attempt to hide any traces of association with Interflora (it’s still listed as one of the clients, although there has never been a link from the clients page). Rather, this was a result of a common “housekeeping” maintenance, the link being changed from the main domain to a subdomain blog.interflora.co.uk as it seemed more fitting, Branded3’s blog post quoting a blog post on Interflora’s blog.
Looking at the anchor texts of the lost links, one certainly does not see the keywords Interflora got back ranking for among the top removed ones (e.g. just two links with the “flowers” anchor text). Here is the pivot table:
| AnchorText | Total |
| . | 1 |
| a friend sent me a link to the my interflora creation tool | 1 |
| anniversary gifts at interflora | 303 |
| anniversary’ gifts at interflora | 4 |
| blog post | 1 |
| blogged about the ruling | 1 |
| 网站律师 | 1 |
| christmas flowers from interflora | 1 |
| christmas hampers | 9 |
| den lösningen togs dock fram | 1 |
| florists in london | 1 |
| flower delivery | 1 |
| flower delivery nottingham | 1 |
| flower shops | 1 |
| flowers | 2 |
| found in favour of interflora | 1 |
| get this deal | 1 |
| gifts for her at interflora | 307 |
| give your valentine a beautiful gift basket | 1 |
| here | 1 |
| http://www.interflora.co.uk | 1 |
| http://www.interflora.co.uk/flowers-florists-delivery-swindon/town/ | 1 |
| interflora | 29 |
| interflora case | 1 |
| interflora florists brave the weather to keep on delivering! | 1 |
| interflora flowers | 1 |
| interflora for sending them | 2 |
| interflora has a fantastic range of wedding flowers | 1 |
| interflora offer many gifts for her | 1 |
| interflora thank you gifts | 302 |
| interflora vs marks & spencer | 1 |
| interflora wedding flowers doncaster | 1 |
| interflora’s christmas hamper ideas | 1 |
| luxury christmas hamper ideas from interflora | 1 |
| m.interflora.co.uk/product.aspx/1… | 1 |
| my interflora creation | 2 |
| perfect gifts for her from interflora.co.uk | 1 |
| so let’s talk about valentine’s day gifts | 1 |
| thank you gift from interflora | 1 |
| valentines day | 1 |
| valentines gifts | 1 |
| wedding flowers | 1 |
| www.interflora.co.uk | 3 |
| Grand Total | 996 |
So what has really happened? Well, we’re now entering the murky world of undocumented (offline) connections and ungrounded speculations, and I don’t really like making things up. The idea here is pretty clear however – Google does like making a large brand a showcase for its public relations campaigns every now and then, but can you honestly expect a 100-year-old company NOT to rank for whatever they are doing?