Please Google Do NOT Rank Us For This Keyword or This Keyword or This Keyword…

We are working with a mattress retailer who would like to show up higher for mattress brand queries like “Tempurpedic mattress”.  So I thought it might be helpful to see what types of pages currently rank for that query. Here are the top ranking URLs. Check out result #4:

Here’s a link to the query so you can see yourself. If you look at the Mattress Firm URL, check out the not very visible copy block below the hero image:

For those of you whose eyes are not what they used to be, here’s what the copy says (emphasis mine):

“Mattress Firm, Inc. is not an authorized reseller of Tempur-Pedic products and is not affiliated with either Tempur-Pedic North America, LLC or Tempur Sealy, International, Inc.”

“IS TEMPUR-PEDIC^® MATERIAL THE SAME AS MEMORY FOAM?

Tempur-Pedic^® is known for using a TEMPUR^® material similar to memory foam, which has millions of movable cells designed to cushion the body during sleep…

Perhaps there is a legit reason to display this stuff – like they used to carry Tempur-pedic and now don’t but there’s still a lot of users coming to their site looking for it, but I can’t see any reason why Google should rank them for these queries. This also kind of flies in the face of engagement as a critical ranking factor. I can’t imagine this page is “engaging” for Tempur-pedic queries.

But hey it’s good for users and all that right?

UPDATE: And I guess link spam still works kind of well too: