HELP needed - Google - manual spam action

[apknight]

HELP!! - we run a very successful online business selling hot tubs, consumables and accessories. In June last year we enlisted the help of an SEO company who claimed they could help improve our natural listings for 6 or so search terms that we defined.

The result of their work is that our domain has recently received a Google 'manual spam action' with the result that our domain has been removed from their index. The only way that customers can now find us is if they type in the full URL (only) in the search bar! We know that the SEO company has unwittingly (or otherwise) submitted our URL to a load of Eastern European spam sites.

Our business turnover has reduced by over 70% in 2 weeks and, at the current rate, we are looking at insolvency if we don't improve our natural listing. We are obviously utilising mailshots and Adwords to improve the situation but these strategies are having a limited effect only.

Needless to say we are currently pursuing a breach of contract claim against the SEO company. Can anyone help with advice or details of people that can get this turned around quickly?

Many thanks

Andre Knight

 

[JonathanSEO]

No chance you're getting this revoked in 2 weeks. Could take over a month easily to resolve. Some companies even decide to rebrand as its quicker and cheaper for them but not an option for everyone.

What message did you get? Pure spam? Manual action or partial action?

 

[JonathanSEO]

You have some terrible links, getting built as late as August 2013. To have a chance of recovery they all need removing.

It would take a lot of cleaning up. I would budget £3k-£7k to sort it out. Or just move to a new domain if it's an option.

The only way you can expedite this process is if the links are part of private blog network that the SEO company own or have access to to quickly remove links in bulk. You would need to ask them.

It is most certainly a network as they all share the same registrar, nameserver setup etc. But whether it's accessible by the SEO guys who commissioned the links is another question.

The SEO company here are a joke btw, I don't know if they can be held accountable but they should be. Although I think it could be a fruitless journey to try claim damages but good luck.

 

[apknight]

Thanks JonathanSEO for yiur responses.
BTW the company that did the work is a company called i5Digital and we were led to believe they are experts.
The response from Google is a 'manual spam action'
Do you know anyone who could sort this out for us?

 

[JonathanSEO]

I would first find out if the SEO company are willing to remove the links free of charge...

 

[apknight]

Can you pm me and we can discuss this further at maybe a phone conversation?

 

[TODonnell]

Well, it would be pretty easy (he sez) to set up another site on the .co.uk of your .com (or vice versa). Then you'd be found in the listings again.

If you do, don't do a 301 redirect from the old to the new. At this stage, I wouldn't even link from the old to the new.

 

[JonathanSEO]

I can give some advice on clearing it up as I have a fair bit of experience recovering from a penalty.

Have you asked the SEO company about the links?

Not in a position to take it on as a project though.

 

[Alan R Price]

apknight

The IT techie stuff on here is beyond me however if you find you are falling into arrears with payments to creditors (or should you believe that situation is likely to occur imminently), the best thing to do is to contact the main ones, and those who are shouting loudest, and advise them what is going on. Tell them what you are doing to try to remedy the situation and get them to buy into your rescue plan. Some might not and you will have to decide how to deal with them if that particular bridge has to be crossed.

The thing to remember is that if you conclude at any time that the company is insolvent and cannot trade out of its difficulties, you should urgently take advice from an insolvency practitioner to avoid falling foul of the law and having to make a personal contribution towards the company's debts. IPs save companies as well as burying them.

 

[ukbf0001]

Did you sign any sort of contract with the SEO Co ?

If your turnover is down 70% - have you tried Adwords , it will cost but at least you'll have some exposure whilst you try and get yourself indexed again.

 

[Mystro]

Let me say, I had a site that had a WMT tool warning and i successfully had the penalty removed after 3 attempts which took 8 weeks and a lot of damn hard work

The site in question never recovered its rankings within the 6 months, As mentioned above move to a new domain, as Google seem very unforgiving, if you do a 301 you will recover your rankings for a while but then the penalty will filter through, however if you can get the penalty lifted and then do a 301 you could be back in business.

Theres a few tools out there that can help but unless you are familiar with them its going to be a hard slog or you will spend a small fortune on paying someone to get the links removed.

Look in your webmaster tools and under search traffic there will be a box that says manual spam actions... what is your message? as knowing this will help diagnose the severity of the action taken

If you need any help send me a PM and ill let you know what tools i used and how i went about it.

Pretty much if you do a 301 now you will recover your rankings to pretty much where they were, however within 4-6 weeks you will drop again, but it will give you that time to resolve your issue, but the penalty will 100% follow through, its not ideal but may get you out of trouble.

 

[DPOM]

If your entire site and domain has been de-indexed you might be better off starting from scratch. I haven't looked at it obviously but you've had the maximum penalty they can give.

Even if you removed the links, if you are going to be removing the majority of links that gave you any benefit (before the penalty) you're going to practically be at square one again anyway.

It might be best to start from a new domain and hit it hard from scratch with a clean slate without wasting time trying to recover from something that may be irrecoverable. At least that way you can concentrate on getting ranked rather than removing links that probably won't result in getting your rankings back. Obviously it needs looking into before you make any decision to confirm the best way forward.

It's going to be a long road before you get back to your former glory I'm afraid, best start now and make sure you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

 

[JonathanSEO]

If your entire site and domain has been de-indexed you might be better off starting from scratch. I haven't looked at it obviously but you've had the maximum penalty they can give.

Even if you removed the links, if you are going to be removing the majority of links that gave you any benefit (before the penalty) you're going to practically be at square one again anyway.

It might be best to start from a new domain and hit it hard from scratch with a clean slate without wasting time trying to recover from something that may be irrecoverable. At least that way you can concentrate on getting ranked rather than removing links that probably won't result in getting your rankings back. Obviously it needs looking into before you make any decision to confirm the best way forward.

It's going to be a long road before you get back to your former glory I'm afraid, best start now and make sure you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Not deindexed. Just don't rank for brand name, it will be manual action.

They only deindex when you get "Pure Spam" which isn't very fun

Moving domain is a big ask but an option.

Depends how much branded traffic the OP gets and how many marketing materials they got out there. Print etc isn't cheap. But neither is link cleanup.

I think rankings will come back to an extent with this one, as it was clearly performing ok before the SEO company came along to "improve" it. Dmoz listed etc, just had a ton of crap built to it over the last few months.

So if all that gets removed, and penalty revoked there will be a bounce back for some phrases.

 

[DPOM]

Ah i see, I understood that it was Pure Spam as it was de-indexed (sure he mentioned that somewhere here).

Good point on the printed materials but if it's not deindexed then my point is mute.

Good luck to the OP, hope you get it sorted.

 

[ZeroDouble]

Not sure how any SEO company could be stupid/reckless enough to point SAPE type blog network links directly at a site that their client relies on to make a living, but anyway.

In the OP's shoes I would proceed like this;

- Find a decent SEO, not a Google T&Cs evangelist, but one who actually knows what they're doing and isn't scared to tread the line.

- Build a new (churn n' burn) lead gen or review site, and rank it quickly to get keep the leads coming in.

It shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to see page 1 in your niche (maybe less if the SEO knows what they're doing), and you can keep cloning and ranking them until you get your ecom. store back up and running.

- Either try to recover the penalised site if you absolutely can't live with out it, or better yet (as you will probably be beating a dead horse anyway) clone the old site, move everything sideways onto a new domain, and rank it properly with a decent back link profile.

The above process will hopefully see you back on your feet in no time, and keep things ticking over until then - Just remember not to rely so heavily on google in the future.

BTW in case anyone's wondering, I'm not an SEO and have no interest in selling anyone anything - Just trying to help out a guy who's down on their luck.

 

[MASSEY]

You should never put all your eggs in one basket, specifically a search rankings basket.

I wouldn't bother trying to chase the company for money, all you will do is waste your own time and money.

I think you should reg a new domain and upload your site to it. I think getting involved in trying to get mass links removed and then hoping your penalty is lifted could take longer than starting fresh and concentrating on better quality links.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

As stated above, move the content to a new site, push it up the rankings, spend some time trying to get the old site penalty revoked, wonce it is revoked, 301 it across and get any remaining benefit transferred that is probably the quickest way.

As the other guy said, there is also the opportunity to build churn and burn niche sites to bring in business in the meantime, but they would have to be kept a million miles away from you as in not using any google tools, not even visiting while signed into a google account or using chrome (which tracks everyone everywhere.)

 

[sebdean]

Sorry to hear about your site suffering in this way, it has happened to a lot of people over the last year.

I think you need to think very carefully from a business perspective as to what action is best.

These are the two options that I would suggest you choose from:

Option A - Remove bad links and keep existing site

Removing the links is a laborious process and it's annoying to me, as I'm sure it is to all the other ethical SEO providers on here, to see that an SEO company has effectively ripped you off and damaged your business.

You will need a tool that finds all of the 'spam' links and you will have to manually go through these removing them.

This will take time and it may be worth getting another domain and building a simple page to purely generate leads for your business whilst you wait for the main site to recover.

You can point Google Adwords and also Facebook Ads at this page and that will get the leads flowing again.

It all depends on how important that specific website address is to your brand. If it would be easy to change then I'd recommend getting a new website and starting from scratch with an ethical SEO company.

Option B - Get a new website

The second option is to get a new website on a new domain name and start from scratch with an ethical SEO provider.

SEO is a slow-burn process and it will take time to get your rankings back to a point where they're generating the sort of business that you need.

In the meantime, again, you could build a lead generation page and point some adverts at this.

It also depends on how visible your website address is on your marketing materials. If you are still getting lots of traffic to the existing website then it would be a shame to lose these potential customers.

If you took this option I would suggest that you replace the main page on the existing site with the lead generation page, this will get the phone ringing. Or leave the page as it is, whichever you feel works best.

As people have said, make sure you speak to suppliers if you feel you are going to miss payments and explain your situation and work towards a solution that doesn't involve insolvency.

Good luck with it all and feel free to PM me if you need any more help. I hope what I've advised has helped you.