It's Cold Outside Backlinks

[spike1968]

You took on a client for SEO services and are asking on a forum how you should get that site to the top of the rankings? Where do I sign up?

No. I am asking for additional knowledge to help achieve my goals. I have never encountered this problem before hence the question.... obviously this isn't the forum to ask questions?

 

[spike1968]

Since the client is paying you for the service, how much are you prepared to pay for the information that will enable you to fulfill the contract?

Nothing.... I freely help other professionals when they get stuck with issues they have no answer and I do. So why should I not expect the same? Obviously I have come to the wrong place.

 

[mubin]

No. I am asking for additional knowledge to help achieve my goals. I have never encountered this problem before hence the question.... obviously this isn't the forum to ask questions?

You said you are an SEO that has done everything to get the client to the first page.

You have done your job, it is just a matter of waiting now. What is the site you are tyring to promotes age? Maybe the pages on the first few pages rank higher because of domain age and authority backlinks.

Have you done a link lookup on the sites linking to the pages above yours?

Site rankings fluctuate according to the server you access as well and because the GooGle alogrith is proprietry knowledge there is no one that can GURANTEE or tell you a fool proof way to get to the front page.

If your clients wants to stuff links to irrelevent websites that is upto him, but if you truly are an SEO you would walk away from a project like that.

 

[spike1968]

I'm not asking anybody to help me get to the front page.... I can do that and have done so successfully for all my SEO clients except this one.

There is something negative which keeps drawing the site down the rankings monthly... The site will reach page 2 then drop to page 4 in a 24 hour period and it always happens the end of the month on the same day of the week.

That tells me that something negative is happenning on a regular basis. I do need to investigate more.... is there a resource that you know of that can help me identify the negative SEO aspect so I can find out if this is a genuine problem or if it is just in my head.

Cheers

 

[fisicx]

It now all becomes clear.

What's the URL of the site? Do you do something each month or does the site jump back up again on it's own?

 

[SEO Positive]

Whats the URL?

If you post that here, I bet your customer will get lots of calls with people calling him, and saying here look at this post. Your SEO can't do the job, But I can.

Honest advise, don't openly post the URL to this site. It will do you NO favors.

Now im not saying that anyone who has contributed will do this, or even a UKBF member, but this forum is open to everyone on the internet. you never know.

So PM the people you want to tell the URL to for the advise.

Thats my little bit of help to you. I will PM you an invoice, he he.

 

[spike1968]

It now all becomes clear.

What's the URL of the site? Do you do something each month or does the site jump back up again on it's own?

I don't give out my clients url on forums... this would lead to numerous cold calls and would make my client unhappy to say the least....

We work on the site daily, it is very fluid and every day new content, relevant content, is added. On the days where the drop occurs nothing is being done differently. It happens on a sunday near the end of the month. The site will rise again to 2nd page then drop like a stone on that one day. I will then spend the month watching it rise to 2nd page and then drop again. It only happens for one keyword, we have many other keywords and phrases in first position, it's just the one.

My thought is that there are too many backlinks from a company like its cold outside using this particular keyword and this is doing the damage.

Does anybody know how this can be confirmed and/or rectified before I make the final plea to google.

 

[spike1968]

Whats the URL?

If you post that here, I bet your customer will get lots of calls with people calling him, and saying here look at this post. Your SEO can't do the job, But I can.

Honest advise, don't openly post the URL to this site. It will do you NO favors.

Now im not saying that anyone who has contributed will do this, or even a UKBF member, but this forum is open to everyone on the internet. you never know.

So PM the people you want to tell the URL to for the advise.

Thats my little bit of help to you. I will PM you an invoice, he he.

Many thanks for the input, glad there is somebody out there giving useful advise. Never got your invoice

 

[fisicx]

We work on the site daily, it is very fluid and every day new content, relevant content, is added. On the days where the drop occurs nothing is being done differently. It happens on a sunday near the end of the month. The site will rise again to 2nd page then drop like a stone on that one day. I will then spend the month watching it rise to 2nd page and then drop again. It only happens for one keyword, we have many other keywords and phrases in first position, it's just the one.

How strange. As you suggest it could well be something that's happening externally, perhaps your competitors are being penalised during the month (for excessive linking maybe) then on that last sunday the UK datacentres update and you lose out because of a new crop of inbound links to your competitors sites.

If you rise steadily during the month is it because of the new content (the spiders visiting daily) or because your competitors are falling?

Have you tried not promoting this particular keywrd for a month and seeing what happens?

Have you pinpointed the time that it happens? You say that it is on the Sunday but is it in the morning, afternoon, evening? Does it happen onn google.com and google,co.uk, a worldwide search or uk only?

 

[spike1968]

How strange. As you suggest it could well be something that's happening externally, perhaps your competitors are being penalised during the month (for excessive linking maybe) then on that last sunday the UK datacentres update and you lose out because of a new crop of inbound links to your competitors sites.

I have considered that... but hardly any of the competitors drop just my client. But maybe they are doing more inbound links than me? That is something to consider.

If you rise steadily during the month is it because of the new content (the spiders visiting daily) or because your competitors are falling?

The competitors are not falling as most of the sites going above us are the standard info pages, you tube videos. You know, the type of pages that are really just rubbish info that anybody should rise above.

Have you tried not promoting this particular keywrd for a month and seeing what happens?

Considered but seeing as the client could never be found on that keyword in the past it is a risky strategy. Leaving that as a last resort...

Have you pinpointed the time that it happens? You say that it is on the Sunday but is it in the morning, afternoon, evening? Does it happen onn google.com and google,co.uk, a worldwide search or uk only?

Happens on google.co.uk worldwide and UK search, always in the morning....

Any ideas?

 

[Ali-v-8]

ignore the snipes spike1968. Yes the forum is to help even the best seo's
You have one problem which is that with out disclosing the URL there could be a number of issues.
I myself had an issue with a surfing site for one keyterm. After posting on here i found the issue (and i felt stupid i admit) and was very thankful.
If you need the website looking over ask Myself, Old welsh guy or sirl earl to take a look. No fee's

 

[DayTrader]

you should be in charge of your link building campaign and outsource only simple tasks like blog commenting or link building (thus you'd able to approve good links).

 

[helen@doorstuff]

Just found this about google penalising sites with paid for back links

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-b...-s-nilhan-jayasinghe-on-google-penalties.html

Very interesting link - thanks!

 

[hevs]

I have had exactly the same experience with this company and it has done harm to my site I am waiting for the links to come off but it seems to be taking ages

 

[FLAUK]

It's Cold Outside cold called me last week.

Their first quaestion was if I had heard about the white paper google had released, that advised buying backlinks to gain good position in the serps (not word for word but this was the jist of it).

I told them that I did not know of the white paper (beacause it doesn't exist) and was promtly transferred to a second level sales person. He talked about getting me x amount of links every month, but when I asked to see some examples of these links he froze up. After questioning him some more about the links he told me they would be from a single article posted to many sites, using multiple articles was not an option. That was all the information I could gain from the sales person, yet they were asking me to part with £500 to buy into these links on a monthly basis.

This company is out fishing for suckers - make sure you don't bite!

 

[bigbadbaldy]

I've been reading a lot of harsh things about this company and frankly I'm rather concerned. I was cold called by them and decided to give them a try. I found them neither rude nor pushy. They installed the infamous 'Resources' layer on my index page and began adding links to my site. After 6 months with them I noticed no difference and my Google analytics were showing no marked improvements, so I called them to cancel my subscription. They apologised and offered to halve the cost of my subscription... which I accepted. I had an Adwords account which cost me a small monthly fortune and so the price difference (with ICO) was welcome, for a similar monthly click-thru rate.
I've now been with them for around 18 months and sure enough my site is top of the first page on Google for all my main search terms. I'm not sure they know what they're doing and the quality of their links may be dubious, but they seem to be working for me and I get regular monthly calls to update me on my progress. So far no nasty emails from Google...


I'm no expert on SEO (as you can gather) but I tinker with my site regularly and add links myself in addition to ICO's contribution. I've also validated my W3C and fixed most errors, which may have helped. In all honesty I'm not sure why my site is well ranked, but the talk of Google penalising me for 'Keyword Cramming' has got me worried, so I have just removed the 'Resources' layer from ICO and will see if it affects my ranking (3/10) or page positions..... (caricatures-uk)

I'll keep you all posted. :|

PS: I welcome any layman's tips for SEO

 

[helen@doorstuff]

Thanks for this post.

I'm not in SEO myself either, but have posted previously about ICO and so was interested to read your post.

Out of interest, can you explain in more detail what you mean by "I've ... validated my W3C "?

Best wishes, Helen

 

[bigbadbaldy]

Hi Helen

I purchased a number of website templates to build my own sites and notices they were all W3C verified. On closer inspection I found that this referred to the HTML code within the sites and this link/tool helps identify the HTML errors on your site, errors which may effect the ease with which Google or other robots read your pages .

Just Google W3C Validator

Once I got the hang I managed to rectify most of the code... though it is mind numbing! Give it a try... there's also a link to check you site links too.

Best of luck Gg

 

[Rickh]

bigbadbaldy - seems like you're doing the SEO yourself and paying ICO for nothing.

I'll be careful about what I say here as I know for a fact that ICO will read this stuff. However, since I'm stating facts I can say what I like

I used them for the links and realised almost immediately that [in my opinion] it was worthless and felt I had no choice but to cancel. They went as far as to issue a threatening solicitors letter with a bloated bill but as soon as I retaliated they terminated the agreement and gave a full refund. I don't believe they had an alternative. That's all I have to say about ICO - the facts speak for themselves and I am not obligated to keep them to myself.

If anyone is dissatisfied with service they have purchased from a company my advice is to challenge everything in writing and otherwise and not to part with a penny. Cancel direct debits, demand refunds, seek legal advice, threaten legal action. Do not sh*t yourself because you get a bill or a nasty letter or phonecall or even a solicitors letter. If you know you've been ripped off no-one can take you to court. Generic debt collecting letters from solicitors cost £2/3 to issue so it's very unlikely indeed that it will result in follow up action. It's just a tactic to scare people into paying up. Use your head, if you didn't get a service, don't pay for one.

 

[NextPoint]

I purchased a number of website templates to build my own sites and notices they were all W3C verified. On closer inspection I found that this referred to the HTML code within the sites and this link/tool helps identify the HTML errors on your site, errors which may effect the ease with which Google or other robots read your pages .

A common assumption is that HTML that doesn't validate to W3C standards affects a website readability to search engines - this generally isn't the case unless you have really bad structured HTML. Search engine spiders look for markup suggestions to the importance of mentioned keywords and phrases such as H1, strong and list tags. You could miss these out and have your HTML valid by W3C standards, which would be of no use to the search engines.

In general, W3C rules are too fussy and in the real world are a waste of time to strictly stick to - 1 minor mistake can often produce 100 errors, which is a bit silly really. Neither Google, Apple or most of the other big companies have websites that validate, which speaks volumes.

 

[Rickh]

So this thread is at the top of google for "its cold outside seo". 8/10 sites are forums rammed with appalling reviews, no.2 is their own site and then finally there is this beauty: www dot globallinkalliance dot com/SpecialReports/PRE24284.html (copy and paste as a normal url)

 

[KingKev7]

Its Cold Outside - Avoid Avoid Avoid this company at all costs. They are a disgrace, will take your money and do nothing. Do not use them if its the last thing you ever do. Give me my money back It's Cold Outside you thieves

 

[SusanBryant]

I know it is difficult to build up good quality backlinks but the time and effort involved is much more cost effective than the use of services such as this.

Not only does it actually hold little value, it is my opinion that these can also lead to your website being penalised and for the minimal (if any) positivity they may bring I wouldn't consider it worth it.

Good luck,

Susan