You've seen them. Everyone has. You open your phone, swipe over to the Google Discover feed, and there it is—another "article" from that bad company you absolutely despise. Maybe it’s a predatory payday lender, a low-quality content farm, or a brand with a reputation for terrible customer service. It feels like a glitch in the matrix. Why does Google keep rewarding a business that everyone seems to hate?
It’s frustrating.
Honestly, the gap between "good business ethics" and "good SEO" is wider than most people want to admit. Google’s algorithms are sophisticated, sure, but they aren't moral arbiters. They are math equations. If that bad company knows how to solve the math, they get the traffic. It doesn't matter if their Trustpilot rating is a dumpster fire or if their "About Us" page is written by a disillusioned bot.
The Google Discover Trap
Discover is a different beast compared to traditional search. While search is "pull"—you ask for something and Google gives it to you—Discover is "push." It’s based on your interests, your browsing history, and, most importantly, high-engagement triggers.
That bad company thrives here because they master the art of the "click gap." They create headlines that aren't quite clickbait, but they sit right on the edge. They use high-resolution, emotionally charged imagery. They tap into "negative interest" cycles. If you’ve ever clicked on an article just to see how wrong it is, you’ve told Google's AI that you want more of that content. You’re essentially feeding the beast.
Google’s 2024 and 2025 core updates were supposed to fix this. They introduced more rigorous Helpful Content guidelines. They talked a big game about E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). But let’s be real: authority can be faked with enough high-quality backlinks, and expertise can be simulated by hiring cheap writers who know how to summarize a Reddit thread.
Why the Algorithms Get It Wrong
Let’s look at the technical side of things. Most people think Google looks at a site and thinks, "Is this a nice company?" It doesn't. It looks at signals.
- User Signals: If a million people click a link from that bad company, Google sees "relevance." Even if those million people leave the site angry, the initial click and the time spent on the page (even if it's just to find the 'X' button) count as engagement.
- Backlink Profiles: If a company has been around for twenty years, they have a massive web of links. Even if they've turned "bad" in the last five years, that legacy authority carries them. It's like a tenured professor who stopped caring a decade ago—they still have the title.
- Technical Optimization: These companies often have massive budgets for SEO engineers. Their sites load in milliseconds. They have perfect Core Web Vitals. They use Schema markup to tell Google exactly what their content is about.
There is a psychological element here too. Negativity sells. A company that creates controversy stays in the news. When news outlets report on the "bad behavior" of that bad company, they often link to them. Those links, even if the surrounding text is scathing, are gold for SEO.
The Economics of Being Bad but Visible
It’s a volume game.
Think about the way content farms operate. They aren't trying to build a brand you love. They are trying to capture "low-intent" traffic. If they can rank for 50,000 different keywords, they don't need you to come back tomorrow. They just need you to see the ad on their page today.
I once talked to a former SEO lead at a major financial services firm—the kind of place that regularly gets fined by the SEC. He told me they didn't care about "brand sentiment" in search results. They cared about the "Cost Per Acquisition." If it cost $10 in SEO efforts to get a customer that would eventually generate $500 in fees, the fact that the customer hated them was irrelevant to the spreadsheet.
This is the cold, hard reality of the internet. Google is trying to prioritize "helpful" content, but "helpful" is subjective. If you search for "how to get a fast loan," a predatory company providing a fast (but expensive) loan is technically being "helpful" to the specific query, even if it's a bad financial move for the user.
Can Google Actually Fix This?
They try. Each update to the "Spam Policies" and "Helpful Content System" aims to prune the weeds. We saw a massive shift in 2024 where many "bad companies" in the niche site world were wiped out. Yet, the big players—the "corporate" bad companies—usually survive.
Why? Because they have "Real World Entities." Google loves entities. If a company has physical offices, a Wikipedia page, and is mentioned in the New York Times, it’s an entity. Google is much more hesitant to de-index an entity than it is to de-index a random blog.
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We also have to consider the "Freshness" factor. Google Discover thrives on what is happening now. That bad company usually has a massive content team that can churn out "news" faster than a high-quality boutique site. They trade quality for speed. Speed wins in the Discover feed every single time.
How to Actually Clean Up Your Feed
If you’re tired of seeing that bad company in your personal Google Discover feed, you have to train the AI. It's a chore, but it works.
- Don't just scroll past. Use the three dots on the bottom right of the card.
- Select "Not interested in [Company Name]." Don't just say "Not interested in the topic." You have to target the source.
- Clear your cache. Sometimes your history is just too bogged down with old searches that make Google think you still care about them.
Moving Forward: The Future of Trust
The landscape is shifting toward "Search Generative Experience" (SGE) and AI-led answers. This might actually be the downfall of that bad company. When an AI summarizes information, it tends to look for consensus. If the consensus across the web is that a company is a scam or provides poor service, the AI summary might actually reflect that, rather than just showing you a list of links that the company paid to optimize.
But for now, the system is rigged toward those who know the rules. It’s a game of signals, and as long as a business can mimic the signals of a "good" site, they will keep showing up.
Actionable Steps for Navigating the "Bad Company" SEO Landscape:
- Check the "About" and "Contact" pages. If they are vague or non-existent, the site is likely a shell for a larger, less reputable entity.
- Use Third-Party Verification. Don't trust the reviews on the site itself. Use Google Maps, Reddit, or specialized forums to see what real humans are saying.
- Monitor Your Search Data. If you are a business owner, look at who is outranking you. If it's a "bad company," look at their technical SEO. Don't copy their ethics, but do copy their site speed and mobile responsiveness.
- Report Misleading Content. If a company is appearing in Google Discover with blatantly false information, use the feedback tool. It feels like shouting into a void, but massive amounts of feedback do trigger manual reviews.
The internet isn't a meritocracy. It's an attention economy. That bad company understands that attention is the only currency that matters to an algorithm. By understanding how they manipulate these levers, you can better protect your own browsing experience and, if you're a creator, build something that actually deserves the rank it gets.