SEO & Bull$hit

[cjd]

After many years of doing our own SEO, we eventually gave in and paid an "expert". This company came highly recommended from people we trust. We received this from them yesterday.

What do you make of it?

Dear (cjd)

Unfortunately with Google's recent algorithm updates it has become economically unviable for us to continue the service we provide. We have tried very hard to work round these issues, however it has become apparant over the last few days that the company cannot continue to operate any further.

We apologise for the short notice, however as a result, the company and brand is closing with immediate effect.

Your last invoice payment was for the period 16/03/2012 to 16/04/2012. We will be issuing a full refund for this invoice.

Our website, telephone and email will be closing within the next 48 hours. To contact us, please write to us at the following address:

{Address Deleted}

We are saddened and sorry that we have not been able to continue our business relationship, however we thank you very much for your business to date and wish you all the best in the future.

Best wishes,

{name Deleted}

 

[lynxus]

Seems legit?

Google are always changing how they do it and SEO people need to play catch up all the time.

If they didnt change it then google etc would be full of spam as people learn to manipulate the index.

Obviously this SEO guy has given up.

 

[fisicx]

It probably means their means of doing SEO has been knobbled by Google and their link building strategy has been compromised.

Remember, link building as a rank boosting activity goes against the guidelines issued by Google. It means that Google spends a lot of time trying to tweak the algo to negate the ways companies do their link building: links pages, link whels, directory submission, blog commenting, article submission, social bookmarking and many other methods have fallen by the wayside.

 

[Jameschillman]

CJD, Sounds like you have had an experience from the same company as many others : http://www.webhostchat.co.uk/genera...e-optimization-shrink-unfortunate-review.html

 

[KarlAustin]

Welcome to the club You'll see I mentioned it the other day in the private forums

 

[Harcourt]

Ah, Mr Warburton strikes again.

For what it's worth you're not alone, have a look at the thread on webhostchat

Can't post the link actually but search for "seo shrink review" and you'll find it

Harcourt

 

After many years of doing our own SEO, we eventually gave in and paid an "expert". This company came highly recommended from people we trust. We received this from them yesterday.

What do you make of it?

Taken on to much work and decided to cherry pick.

Found a better way to make money.

Retired to a caribbean island.

Poor health.

P.S a good SEO can fight in any arena.

Earl

 

[Mystro]

Personally i think that's a great message you received

How many would have kept taking your money until you cancelled.

Theres many sites offering SEO that cannot do SEO, they farm your links out take their cut and your none the wiser, in the long run This new update should weed out a lot of these so called too bob SEO Experts

 

[nitro23456]

How long had you been with them?

 

[UKSBD]

I've said it before all SEO's should explain very clearly what is involved (especially with link building) and give he client the choice on whether they "gamble" or not.

Others here have said I'm wrong and the client shouldn't really expect to know the ins and outs of SEO and should just leave it to the SEO.

Effectively most SEO's who achieve good rankings are gambling, fair enough if with their own sites, but all too often they are gambling with other peoples livelyhoods, again fair enough if they explain and make the client aware about the gamble.

The problem is, all these SEO's who have got away with it and have happy clients can suddenly be hit at any time, they then just walk away leaving the client to pick up the pieces.

 

[MerchantServicesBDM]

This seems quite honest and straightforward. With their Panda update about a year ago it took a lot of SEO businesses. They announced only days ago that they will be 'levelling the playing field', making it much harder for SEO companies to stay in business.

SEO is a full-time job done by hard working people using ethical methods to improve search ranking for their clients. Every time the search engines change their algorithms which can potentially wipe out months, sometimes years of optimizing and link building.

If I we an SEO business I'd seriously think of throwing in the towel or outsource to those companies who have the capacity to invest in the time to develop and implement newer techniques AND try to keep clients happy.

Like Facebook I think that they're trying to drive more business to paid search (Adwords and Facebook Ads) instead of organic listings.

 

[fisicx]

SEO is a full-time job done by hard working people using ethical methods to improve search ranking for their clients. Every time the search engines change their algorithms which can potentially wipe out months, sometimes years of optimizing and link building.

Sorry but this complete rubbish.

If you follow the search engine guidelines your rankng will be unaffected by changes to the alogorithm. The reason people are affected is because they attempt to manipulate there ranking mainly through link building. Google warns specifically against doing this.

Linking useful and relevant sites together to provide a better experience for people is fine. Link building employed to manipulate ranking is not ethical.

In any case, the search engines don't charge you a penny for the listing. It's up to them how they index and rank your website. If they decided not to list you at all then that's their business.

 

[moneysaverman]

If your offering SEO services, and you can't keep up with the market, your in the wrong market. The whole point of SEO is Optimising your website for Search Engines, Duh?

 

[RadiusBPO]

Many SEO guys and companies are now finding it impossible to achieve rankings. Good on these guys for putting their hands up and being honest about it.
I've had issues over the last month too. I was actually travelling around Asia when a couple of sites and methods started heading south so I cut my time short and flew back to really focus. Luckily I have 100s of sites and have enough cashflow to test a lot of things at the same time and I have a lot of smart peoples email addresses so I can throw ideas around. Now things are almost back to normal rankings and traffic wise.

If you have had reduced rankings and traffic over the last 6 weeks please ask your SEO why you dropped and what they are doing about it. I know quite a few are just sitting back and praying.

 

[RadiusBPO]

Sorry but this complete rubbish.

If you follow the search engine guidelines your rankng will be unaffected by changes to the alogorithm. The reason people are affected is because they attempt to manipulate there ranking mainly through link building. Google warns specifically against doing this.

Linking useful and relevant sites together to provide a better experience for people is fine. Link building employed to manipulate ranking is not ethical.

In any case, the search engines don't charge you a penny for the listing. It's up to them how they index and rank your website. If they decided not to list you at all then that's their business.

Yep if you follow their guidelines you will still rank outside the top 100 pages for anything meaningful.

 

[cmcp]

Many SEO guys and companies are now finding it impossible to achieve rankings. Good on these guys for putting their hands up and being honest about it.
I've had issues over the last month too. I was actually travelling around Asia when a couple of sites and methods started heading south so I cut my time short and flew back to really focus. Luckily I have 100s of sites and have enough cashflow to test a lot of things at the same time and I have a lot of smart peoples email addresses so I can throw ideas around. Now things are almost back to normal rankings and traffic wise.

If you have had reduced rankings and traffic over the last 6 weeks please ask your SEO why you dropped and what they are doing about it. I know quite a few are just sitting back and praying.

What caused your sites to drop and how did you rectify it?

 

[directmarketingadvice]

This seems quite honest and straightforward.

I agree.

As for why they can't do it anymore, it may be that they based their approach on poor quality links that Panda is ignoring, or they may have used a link farm that's been uncovered by google.

Just part of SEO, IMO.

SEOs who focus on off-page are in the business of trying to trick google into thinking the links are an impartial "vote" by one website to another.

Obviously, unless they're creating really good content to attract genuine links, the links aren't impartial votes.

As google gets smarter, the bar rises, and fewer and fewer SEOs can clear it.

 

[fisicx]

Yep if you follow their guidelines you will still rank outside the top 100 pages for anything meaningful.

Agree 100%.

But my comment was directed at MerchantServicesBDM who suggested all SEO was ethical. If you are going to do link building you must be ready to take the knocks when Google decides to change the importance of one ranking signal or another.

I'd also question your definition of 'anything meaningful'. A local business can easily rank well for specific set of keywords in the same way a niche business can rank worldwide without doing any link building. For them the keywords are very meaningful and lucrative.

 

[RadiusBPO]

What caused your sites to drop and how did you rectify it?

At first it looked like either too many links or over optimised links or an on page issue. Actually thinking back I was swayed more towards onpage because nothing else had moved and G has been mainly focused on onpage issues, eg panda or the ads above the fold update. There was the Venice update but nothing really came from that which effected anything apart from places.

Now the dust has settled and everything is fairly steady it was newer sites which were hit worst, this is probably because they really wanted fast results so I wasn't spreadbetting with links and only focused on keywords and guest bloging on some networks. Nothing was penalised, no messaged about un-natural link building from Google, just like all their links were deleted. Some networks have had all of their networks wiped out and some only 28%. For me and my sites it's only been these which have effected things.

How am I rectifying? spreading the links far and wide with only 20-30% being exact keyworded. Only using very HQ private invite networks for guest blogging. Using my own private network. Manual everything, unique everything.

The sad thing is a link has gone from £0.30 to around £3 or £25-200 for a top guest blog. How is any business wanting to get started going to want to pay £25 per link when they see their competition has 100s. They won't. Ok these networks were fairly abused but they worked well and helped people with low budgets get a foot on the ladder, they generally didn't link out to rubbish sites and these networks didn't cause search quality problems. All they done was give SEO a great ROI, way better than Adwords and I guess that upset Google.

For those people with penalties it's probably not the end of the world. All the top SEO companies are being penalised all the time for their SEO efforts but they generally get through it by 301ing their sites to new domains. If you've been screwed buying brand-name.com and redirecting your brandname.com site to it could help, there are a few other things that might help too. It's a shame the OPs company isn't willing to work out the latest issues and fix them but that's what happens when a company is run by salesmen.

 

[RadiusBPO]

Agree 100%.

But my comment was directed at MerchantServicesBDM who suggested all SEO was ethical. If you are going to do link building you must be ready to take the knocks when Google decides to change the importance of one ranking signal or another.

I'd also question your definition of 'anything meaningful'. A local business can easily rank well for specific set of keywords in the same way a niche business can rank worldwide without doing any link building. For them the keywords are very meaningful and lucrative.

The days of that are long gone IMO. Google instant and suggest have helped hurt long tail quite a bit and even the weirdest keywords will still require some site authority to rank well. But ranking well doesn't even mean a site will make money even with a large search volume.

 

[UKSBD]

The sad thing is, bad SEO's are only bad SEO's when things go wrong.

When you're number 1 on Google for competive phrases for 6 months your SEO is a hero and better than any other.

When you're languising down at number 8 and the SEO says I can get you higher but there is a risk involved what do you do?

Unfortunately, the SEO at number 1 probably doesn't even explain the risk and because they are taking the risks are getting better results.

 

When you're languising down at number 8 and the SEO says I can get you higher but there is a risk involved what do you do?

Find another SEO.

Only an idiot takes risks with a site that may be producing mega bucks.IMHO

Earl

 

[UKSBD]

Find another SEO.

Only an idiot takes risks with a site that may be producing mega bucks.IMHO

Earl

So, you don't tell your clients about the risks you take, you assume they are not risks?

 

So, you don't tell your clients about the risks you take, you assume they are not risks?

I don't do risks with valuable properties.

Why would I?:|

Earl

 

[UKSBD]

I don't do risks with valuable properties.

Why would I?:|

Earl

Just so I understand what you are saying.
You say there is no element of risk in any SEO work you do?

 

Just so I understand what you are saying.
You say there is no element of risk in any SEO work you do?

I may play around with new sites I start.but for established sites one abides by google et al T/C or you are an idiot.

Earl

 

[fisicx]

The days of that are long gone IMO. Google instant and suggest have helped hurt long tail quite a bit and even the weirdest keywords will still require some site authority to rank well.

I reckon we deal in different markets here because I still find that a local/niche business can do very well in the organic results without any link building. It's all about how you build the site and what you put in it.

But ranking well doesn't even mean a site will make money even with a large search volume.

And that's the key. Focus on what makes money. I've got a client who doesn't care about ranking, he spends £5/day on PPC and makes enough to pay the bills. He works 3 days a week and spends the rest rock climbing. Being #1 on Google won't improve his lifestyle - he doesn't want to grow his business, he just want's to climb mountains.

 

[Chunkford]

I may play around with new sites I start.but for established sites one abides by google et al T/C or you are an idiot.

Earl

Is that including link building?

 

[cjd]

Duplicate post deleted

 

[cjd]

How long had you been with them?

Two months or a little less.

Looks like my instincts were correct, I hated the whole idea from the start but felt we had to try. We won't be doing anything else that we're not totally in control of.

The whole SEO thing is a made up, temporay phenomenon and should be sold with a health warning. (imho)

 

[Consistency]

When it comes to SEO, I have had several calls and offers and e-mails and such with various promises. I have never used SEO and know very little about it to judge one way or the other but I know that I do not trust it enough perhaps because I do not understand it, to take any of its services.

What I have all found baffling is if there are 20 cleaning companies, they all pay for SEO, how can they all be in the top ten or whatever it is? There can only ever be ten listings in the top ten at any one time.

 

What I have all found baffling is if there are 20 cleaning companies, they all pay for SEO, how can they all be in the top ten or whatever it is? There can only ever be ten listings in the top ten at any one time.

So what is it you want cleaned.?

And what area are you.?

Earl

 

[Consistency]

I don't clean only in the house sometimes and sometimes a bit of maintainance cleaning in areas, I was giving that as an example.

Added - Maybe look at for example house cleaners in Hove and see how many there are? What if they are all paying for SEO, they cant all be in the first five.

 

[Consistency]

I don't want anything cleaning, I misread your post.

 

[Chunkford]

Looks like my instincts were correct, I hated the whole idea from the start but felt we had to try. We won't be doing anything else that we're not totally in control of.

The whole SEO thing is a made up, temporay phenomenon and should be sold with a health warning. (imho)

SEO isn't made up, it's a much needed part of Google's existence. With out it, they would have no platform that makes them the billions following through their bank accounts.

If you want to stay in control then simply employ someone to do the onsite SEO only. This is core and lays the foundations for your site anyway.
It also helps Google (financially) by improving their indexing speed, relevance, their results etc and there are tons of things you can do in this area e.g. microformats

But at the moment, link building or more importantly building citations/votes, is really the bread and butter for ranking a website, and once you get players in your niche that are active in this area you have to do yourself to compete for the top level.

Now you can do this the Google way, and that's to create fantastic content, videos, tutorials, reviews etc.... stuff that will go viral and people will want to link too, but honestly, do you think everyone wants to spend the money and time that will be involved in creating such content.... and also might not even work?

Business owners see it from their point of view and are thinking and looking for the most cost effective and safest route to solve their problems.
When there are people for example offering it for a set amount of money, for a set number of keywords, it then it becomes very easy to comprehend and to compare service with each other.

It's basically supply meeting demand that ruins the other side of SEO, the proper side, which is the much need side for Google.

So what do you do?
Well, you can think laterally and for example set up an affiliates scheme for other people to create crash and burn sites so you don't take the risk of burning your site, but hope you get some good affiliates on board,
or
You can do what Google want you to do and buy links from them through their Adwords system

 

[Chunkford]

What I have all found baffling is if there are 20 cleaning companies, they all pay for SEO, how can they all be in the top ten or whatever it is? There can only ever be ten listings in the top ten at any one time.

Because there are loads of phrases people will search for and there are more places to rank than just the main listings

 

[cjd]

So what do you do?

Well I can tell you what we're going to do - which is what we've always done - and that's be honest, keep to google's rules on site building and write good, relevant content regularly updated.

The rest is the Bull$hit I'm talking about.

 

[Chunkford]

Well I can tell you what we're going to do - which is what we've always done - and that's be honest, keep to google's rules on site building and write good, relevant content regularly updated.

The rest is the Bull$hit I'm talking about.

Good for you, just remember Google is just one method of customer generation, and if you keep winning those awards that says your the best VOIP provider http://www.voipfoneblog.co.uk/?p=324you wont need to worry about being top of Google anyway (see what I did there)

 

[Consistency]

Because there are loads of phrases people will search for and there are more places to rank than just the main listings

Well let us look at (my picture is better than your picture by the way - that kid!) anyway, see I am put off now!

If we look at the house cleaner in Hove example there are only so many words that people would put in for that - home cleaner, house cleaner, home cleaning, private cleaner. So often, they are not that complicated.

If in some instances we are talking about a stationers, there may be paper, sharpener, typewriter, cartridge, etc and anything that they sell, so really if we are going back to a simple example, still 20 cleaners cannot surely all be in the top five.

 

[Chunkford]

Well let us look at (my picture is better than your picture by the way - that kid!) anyway, see I am put off now!

If we look at the house cleaner in Hove example there are only so many words that people would put in for that - home cleaner, house cleaner, home cleaning, private cleaner. So often, they are not that complicated.

If in some instances we are talking about a stationers, there may be paper, sharpener, typewriter, cartridge, etc and anything that they sell, so really if we are going back to a simple example, still 20 cleaners cannot surely all be in the top five.

Well you have Hove as well as all the terms you just said plus:
Brighton,
Portslade-by-sea & Portslade by sea
Southwick
Shoreham & Shoreham-by-sea & Shoreham by sea
saltdean
saddlescombe
poynings
upper beeding
steyning
southerham
newhaven
peacehaven
worthing
.....
plus to combine those place names with the terms you suggested in which ever order, then there will be terms that I will find to put in the mix as well.....

This not to mention about being top for forum discussions, blogs, news and places etc