There is an old saying in marketing: “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” In late 2010, one online glasses seller took that literally. He told the New York Times that abusing customers helped his business, because all the complaints online pushed his site up in Google.
Google responded within days. On 1 December 2010, it announced an algorithm change to demote merchants that give customers an extremely poor experience. SEOs named it the DecorMyEyes update, after the store at the center of the story.
In this post I will explain what the Times reported, why the bad press may have helped, the options Google considered and rejected, what it actually shipped, and how reviews and reputation connect to rankings today. You can see where this change sits on our Google algorithm updates timeline.
The DecorMyEyes update at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Announced | 1 December 2010, on the Official Google Blog |
| Announced by | Amit Singhal, Google Fellow |
| Trigger | A New York Times story by David Segal published 26 November 2010 |
| Type | Algorithmic ranking change (demotion) |
| Confirmed by Google? | Yes |
| What it targeted | Merchants Google considered to provide an extremely poor user experience |
| Scale | The merchant from the article “along with hundreds of other merchants” |
| Signals used | Not disclosed; Google said it would not reveal them |
| Who was affected | Online stores with a pattern of very bad customer treatment |
What the New York Times reported about DecorMyEyes
On 26 November 2010, the New York Times published a long story by reporter David Segal about DecorMyEyes, an online seller of designer glasses run by Vitaly Borker. The Wikipedia article on Borker lists the piece under the title “For DecorMyEyes, Bad publicity is a good thing.”
The story described customers who had problems with their orders and then faced abuse and threats when they complained. The merchant's claim, in short, was that complaints generated links and mentions, and those links helped his site rank in Google. More complaints, more visibility, more sales.
Google opened its response by naming the customer at the heart of the article:
“We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez's dreadful experience.”
— Amit Singhal, Official Google Blog, Being bad to your customers is bad for business
The story did not end with Google. About a week after the article, Borker was arrested. According to the US Attorney's Office, he pleaded guilty in May 2011 to two counts of making interstate threats, one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud, and on 6 September 2012 he was sentenced to four years in prison plus over $96,000 in fines and restitution.
Why the bad press seemed to help his rankings
Here is where it gets interesting for SEO. Google looked into the merchant's claim and found it was only partly true.
According to Google's post:
- Many complaint sites, such as Get Satisfaction, used
rel="nofollow"on their links. Nofollow tells search engines not to pass ranking credit through a link. So those angry reviews were not boosting him. - Some of the strongest links came from mainstream news sites, including the New York Times and Bloomberg, which had written about the merchant.
- The Bloomberg article was neutral in tone. A simple “is this negative?” check would not have flagged it.
In plain words, the store was not ranking because people hated it. It was ranking partly because respected publishers had linked to it in stories about it. Back then, Google's link-based ranking could not tell the difference between “a link because this store is great” and “a link because this store is in the news.”
Search Engine Land later described Borker's boast that abusing customers helped his rankings as inaccurate, in its report on his sentencing. That matches Google's own analysis: the complaint links themselves were mostly not helping.
Three fixes Google considered, and the one it chose
Google's post is unusually open about the options it weighed. I find it one of the best examples of how Google thinks about a ranking problem.
| Option | Google's view | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Block the one merchant manually | Easy, but fixes only one business, not the general problem. The search quality team prefers algorithmic solutions. | Rejected |
| Use sentiment analysis to demote pages with negative comments | Would miss neutral news links, and could hide useful results about politicians or controversial topics. | Rejected |
| Show user reviews and ratings next to results | Still being considered, but would not demote poor merchants; users could still reach their sites. | Not shipped as the fix |
| Build an algorithm to detect extremely poor merchants | Catches this merchant and others like it. | Shipped as an initial solution |
Google's preference for algorithms over manual blocks is worth noting. It wanted to fix the type of problem, not just the one example a newspaper happened to find.
Why Google refused to rank by sentiment alone
Many people at the time asked a fair question: why not just push down any site with lots of negative reviews? Google gave two reasons.
First, it would not have worked here, because the most powerful links were neutral or not about sentiment at all. Second, it could do real harm elsewhere. If Google demoted every page with negative comments, searches about a controversial politician or a disputed news topic could end up hiding important information. Google put it like this:
“So far we have not found an effective way to significantly improve search using sentiment analysis.”
— Amit Singhal, Official Google Blog, Being bad to your customers is bad for business
Google added that it had strong research in sentiment analysis and would keep trying. But the takeaway for business owners was clear: a few angry reviews do not automatically sink a site, and attacking a competitor with fake complaints is not a ranking strategy. If you worry about that kind of attack, my guide to spotting and protecting against negative SEO is more useful.
What Google actually shipped on 1 December 2010
Google said it built an algorithm that detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in Google's opinion, provided an extremely poor user experience. It was added to Google's ranking as an initial solution.
Here is what Google told us, and what it did not:
- What it targeted: merchants with an extremely poor user experience, not sites with a few bad reviews.
- Scale: “hundreds” of merchants. No number of queries or traffic share was given.
- Signals: not disclosed. Google said people try to game rankings constantly, so it would not reveal the signals, data sources or how they were combined.
- Guarantee: none. Google said it could not promise nobody would find a loophole.
- Message: Google ended the post saying being bad is, and hopefully always will be, bad for business in its search results.
Because the signals were secret, any list of “what the DecorMyEyes update measured” is speculation. I would not trust anyone who claims to know the exact inputs. Bruce Clay's history simply noted that Google “tweaked its algorithm to respond to cases like this,” and the Wikipedia timeline describes it as an update to penalize sites that provided a bad user experience.
What the update meant for ecommerce stores
For most honest stores, nothing changed. The update aimed at an extreme group, and Google never suggested ordinary shops with a mix of reviews were at risk. But it did send three signals that shaped ecommerce SEO in the years after:
- Customer experience became a ranking concern, not just a sales concern.
- Links are not everything. Google was willing to override link strength when other evidence showed a merchant was harmful.
- Reputation off your site counts. What others say about your store can matter to Google, even when you do not control it.
A worked example. Picture (hypothetically) two eyewear stores. Store A has 2,000 reviews averaging 4.4 stars, with a few angry complaints that it answers politely, and a clear 30-day returns policy. Store B has 300 reviews averaging 1.6 stars, repeated reports of fake products and threats, and refunds that never arrive. The DecorMyEyes update was built for Store B. Store A's handful of complaints is normal business life. If Store A tightened its returns and replied to every review, it would be improving the exact things Google later rewarded in Merchant Center, not dodging a penalty.
For more on how later updates hit stores, see how Google updates affect ecommerce sites. Beginners can start with our Learn SEO lesson on reviews and local citations.
How reviews and reputation connect to Google rankings in 2026
The DecorMyEyes update was an early, narrow step. Today, several Google systems and programs touch on reputation and customer experience. Here is how I would map them:
| Google system or program | What it does | Link to the 2010 idea |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews system | Rewards high-quality, insightful reviews, per Google's ranking systems guide | About review content, not merchant behaviour |
| Reliable information systems | Help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content | Same principle: trust over raw links |
| Search quality rater guidelines | Raters research a site's reputation; Google says rater data is not used directly in ranking | Reputation research is a formal part of quality evaluation |
| Merchant Center Store Quality | Rates shipping, returns, browsing, purchase and store rating; top stores can earn a badge | Customer experience measured openly for shopping |
Google's guidance on helpful content says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T, and suggests asking whether someone researching your site would come away thinking it is well-trusted. And Google Merchant Center's Store Quality program rates stores on shipping, returns, browsing, purchase and store rating, with a “Top Quality Store” badge for those rated Exceptional overall in some countries.
So the spirit of 2010 grew up. Being good to customers now shows up in many places Google looks. For more depth, read my guides on how Google's reviews system works and Google's reliable information systems.
In the same month, Google and Bing also confirmed they looked at social signals, which I cover in the December 2010 social signals confirmation. Earlier in 2010, Google Instant had changed the search box, and Google Places had made business listings and their reviews far more visible.
Questions store owners ask about the DecorMyEyes update
Do negative reviews hurt my Google rankings?
Not directly in the way many people think. In 2010 Google said it would not simply demote pages because of negative comments. But Google did build a system to demote merchants with an extremely poor user experience, and reviews influence clicks, trust and local visibility. Bad treatment of customers is a real risk.
Did bad press links help DecorMyEyes rank?
Partly, according to Google's analysis. Links from complaint sites like Get Satisfaction were nofollowed and passed no weight. But some of the strongest links came from mainstream news sites, including the New York Times and Bloomberg, which wrote about the merchant.
Why didn't Google just use sentiment analysis?
Google said demoting pages with negative comments could hide useful results, such as information about elected officials or controversial topics. It also said it had not found a way to significantly improve search using sentiment analysis.
How many sites did the DecorMyEyes update affect?
Google did not give a number of sites or queries. It said the algorithm detected the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that provided an extremely poor user experience.
What happened to the DecorMyEyes owner?
Vitaly Borker was arrested in December 2010, pleaded guilty in May 2011 to threats and fraud charges, and was sentenced to four years in prison in September 2012, according to the US Attorney's Office.
Protecting your store's reputation and rankings this month
In brief: on 1 December 2010, after a New York Times story about a merchant who bragged that abusing customers helped his rankings, Google shipped an algorithm to demote hundreds of merchants with extremely poor customer experiences. It refused to rank by sentiment alone, kept its signals secret, and set a principle that still holds: being bad to customers is bad for business in Google.
If you want a simple starting point, check your returns policy, answer your recent reviews, and look at your Merchant Center store quality ratings. If your store has a reputation or ranking problem you cannot untangle, we can help. See our ecommerce SEO services or request a free quote.
Google updates around the same time
Before this update:
- Google Instant (September 2010): Search Results as You Type (Sep 2010)
- Google Places (April 2010): Local Business Pages Become a Ranking Battleground (Apr 2010)
After this update:
- Social Signals in Ranking (December 2010): What Google and Bing Admitted (Dec 2010)
- Google's 2011 Scraper (Attribution) Update: Protecting Original Sources (Jan 2011)
Or browse every Google update on one timeline, newest first.
Sources for this DecorMyEyes update history
- Official Google Blog: Being bad to your customers is bad for business (1 December 2010)
- Wikipedia: Timeline of Google Search
- Wikipedia: Vitaly Borker
- US Attorney's Office, SDNY: Borker sentencing press release (6 September 2012)
- Search Engine Land: DecorMyEyes merchant Vitaly Borker sentenced to four years in federal prison
- Bruce Clay: Google updates, a history of SEO from 2000 to 2010
- Google Search Central: A guide to Google Search ranking systems
- Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Google Merchant Center Help: About the Store Quality program
