A Bloomberg Businessweek article reported that Expedia has experienced a 25% drop in its website’s page rankings for travel-related searches on Google, according to Searchmetrics, a search-engine research firm. The decrease is presumed to be a result of Expedia’s “unnatural links” to Expedia.com that are posted on travel blogs and other websites.

Utilizing artificial search engine optimization (SEO) efforts including unnatural links, sponsored links, link farms and other paid linking aren’t considered favorable practices to Google, according to the Businessweek report.

Over the past few years, Google has launched efforts — such as Panda and Penguin — to both target and decrease the rankings of websites that artificially boosted page rankings.

As a result of its low search rankings, Expedia will most likely see at least a 20% decline in website traffic, Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’s founder and president, told Businessweek. Additionally, Expedia’s stock price dropped 4% on Jan. 21.

Click here for the full Businessweek article: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-23/expedia-books-a-painful-trip-down-googles-search-results