Here is a good example for anyone thinking about taking up any ‘SEO’ work from a company that rings them up telling them their website isn’t performing as it should and / or isn’t ranking for it’s main search terms. These exchanges have been taken from a company that has now gone out of business and record the conversations between themselves (Website Designers) their Client and the SEO company.
Initially this is what they told us……
We feel like we failed here, the client has a very large website that we have built and promoted, his visitor numbers have increased and its a success but despite this the client (on receiving a sales phone call from an SEO company 400 miles away) has been talked into signing up with them to help ‘promote their website’. I hope this information in communication form between the main parties demonstrates how bad some SEO companies can be and how dangerous they can be to your website.
[SEO Company to Website Designers] We are just about to take on the website [website name removed] for an SEO campaign, as we will need access into the website to make some changes the business owner has asked me to contact you in relation to this – if these details could be forwarded to me that would be greatly appreciated.
[Essex Webdesign Company to Website Owners] I think we need to get together to discuss what you are attempting to do regarding SEO. I believe from what you have told me that one of your friends has ‘recommended’ an SEO company that contacted you, this company has been in contact with us today asking for website access. I feel this is wrong on so many levels and feel very strongly against what you think you are trying to achieve. Not only do we not grant access to our source code to 3rd parties we would never suggest or recommend this is done for an SEO company that is 2 months old, in other words a brand new / inexperienced company. On investigation it seems that they cannot even create their own website without it being full of errors and display problems. Not only that but their own website has some basic SEO problems that a beginner should notice.
What they are asking will be bad for your website – Some things simply cant be done without a lot of work and some we flatly refuse to do – I cant make it clearer than that, something he has asked are purely stupid and some simply demonstrate his lack of knowledge.The fact that he rang you out of the blue and now hassles you shows that they are amateurs.I tell you honestly that this company / guy is bad news for your website. I am on your side but think we are being ignored here even though we have build and promoted your website to initial success.
You need to come and visit us to let me show you what he is asking and why its no good for you as I cant seem to explain to you well enough that its wrong. Yourselves and ourselves have invested massive amounts of time and money in website and I cannot let you waste this effort / money.
In summary the site is optimised fully and even though there is always room for improvement on-site and off-site we believe that an SEO campaign by an unknown / new / potentially inexperienced company will do more harm than good, especially in light of recent algorithm changes announced to Webmasters that could penalise over optimisation.
[SEO Company to Website Designers] As per my discussion with the website owner just now I would like to confirm that under no circumstances will any site files be copied and the website will not be changed in any damaging way at all – the aspects that we will be focusing on will simply generate strong search engine positioning. Further to this once work is complete on page we will no longer need access into the website and all access details / passwords can be changed to make you feel more comfortable.
[Essex Webdesign Company] We have agreed to make the onsite changes you suggest / require but you will not be given access to the website / code / database. Simply send us a list of your changes and we will implement them within 2 hours
[SEO Company] On every page where we have the area search at the bottom of each page can we make this more prominent at the top please ideally next to each heading above the body text. Can we also list all the areas covered at the bottom of each page along with the main keyword in front so “[keyword] surrey, [keyword] cheshire, [keyword] lancashire” etc etc. [Delicious – So basically just a spammy mass of worthless keyword rubbish]
Attached is the source code for the caterers page, if this can be implemented pls.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
<title> [Website Name] – [keyword] Bedfordshire, [keyword] Berkshire, [keyword] Cleveland, [keyword] Cumbria, [keyword] Derbyshire, [keyword] dorset, [keyword] fife, [keyword] Hampshire, [keyword] Hertfordshire, [keyword] shropshire</title> [Delicious – I think this isnt exactly in Google’s Webmaster guidelines]
<meta name=”description” content=”[Website Name] is the UK’s premier directory for all [keyword] companies and [keyword] “/> [Delicious – this is more like what the title should say without needing to mention the website name]
<meta name=”keywords” content=” [keyword] Bedfordshire, [keyword] Berkshire, [keyword] Cleveland, [keyword] Cumbria, [keyword] Derbyshire, [keyword] dorset, [keyword] fife, [keyword] Hampshire, [keyword] Hertfordshire, [keyword] shropshire “/> [Delicious – oh dear me]
<meta name=”language” content=”Eng-UK”/>
<meta name=”author” content=”www.website name of seo company.com”/> [Delicious – oh dear me]
<meta name=”copyright” content=”Company name”/> [Delicious – This and the entries after are simply SEO fluff!]
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow”>
<meta name=”revisit-after” content=”7 days”/>
<meta name=”document-class” content=”Completed”/>
<meta name=”document-classification” content=”[keyword] uk “/>
<meta name=”document-rights” content=”Copyrighted Work”/>
<meta name=”document-type” content=”Public”/>
<meta name=”document-rating” content=”General”/>
<meta name=”document-distribution” content=”Global”/>
<meta name=”document-state” content=”Dynamic_text”/>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Language” content=”EN-GB”/>
<meta name=”Identifier-URL” content=”company website name”/>
[SEO Company] Just to keep you in the loop we are bringing everything a day forward because of how well the off page has gone today – what that means is basically I am keeping the programmers here today (its now 5.55pm) so that the 1st phase off page is done by the end of the week. Before the end of play today I will be sending your website design company over the website code work that I want going in the 1st page we’ll be targeting and also the reminder about moving the areas to the top of the page to make them highly visible – can you do me a favour please and just email me exactly what you want to happen with the contact form diverting to the other e-mail, I will be getting this over to him 1st thing in the morning but I want to make sure I have it right.
Can you also let me know please as soon as the invoice is paid – our accounts team is headed up by a royal pain who will be badgering me tomorrow morning I imagine.
[Essex Webdesign Company to Website Owners] I confirm that I think this SEO Company is fake / trying to rip you off. They have a ‘testimonial’ from a multi-million pound company (wonga) on their website even though they have only been around for 3 months and also their website text is copied from another website.
I will confirm officially that there is no ‘on-site’ SEO required on your website. You have a huge amount of unique / valuable content and that could always be improved but the ‘improvements’ that are being suggested are simply worthless and at worst they are harmful. There is always off-site work to do to improve your websites ranking by adding yourself to directories and adding yourself to social / networking sites like twitter / facebook / LinkedIn, but I confirm that your website is highly optimised and if you want to improve anything I would recommend that the forum (that you requested and we produced to match the site) is used to add valuable content to try to attract members. Additionally I recommend adding links to other directories and link building in general. You should create a facebook page as well as a twitter account and post within your pages with interesting / unique and useful information to attract relevant / targetted traffic.
[Website Owner to Website Designers] I’m going to try this no matter can you do what he is asking so he won’t have to keep ringing me or just give him control. Not tomorrow but today I want him to do the changes yesterday and you are holding everything up with your ‘concerns’ that website has been done for a year. And were am I! Now it’s time for me to do something else if that don’t work then it’s the last thing I am going to try. The changes ain’t done fully there no way any one understand it’s not explained and hidden there’s no banner it’s the last time give it over to him if your not helping him then I don’t want to know.
[Website Designers to Website Owners] I think you need to come and visit me so I can show you what they want as your ‘SEO’ company have sent through a couple of suggestions / ideas / requests that are simply useless and could harm your website. I thought that once I demonstrated that they are showing fraudulent testimonials and using a copied website that would make you think they were not worth bothering with. I will give him access to your admin, where he can make his changes, but am in no way responsible for when he messes up the site, we all think you are totally bonkers to allow them to do this. This really is crazy, if you think we have done something wrong, then I’m at a loss, we drop everything to get your changes done and always go out of my way to help, you have obviously been stressed about this, come and see me tomorrow and your can tell me what’s bothering you,
This is what we sent to the new ‘seo company’ today
Here is the back end access to Joomla
I repeat that we are not responsible for any changes they complete and have repeatedly informed you that we believe this company is incompetent or some sort of scam company and shouldn’t be allowed access to your website. We have seen other clients taken advantage of in this way by fake or amateur SEO Companies and really hope this doesn’t adversely affect the website. As always I am on your side and want the best for you and your company / website.
its gets better …………..
After one week of ‘work’ and after we confirmed that no changes have been made on the website this is received
[SEO Company] Changes all being uploaded on site and we’re just waiting for the spider revisit to crawl all additional info on the website and then 1st pages are there. Bit of a waiting game at the moment unfortunately but it won’t be for long.
it gets even better …………………………
After two week sof ‘work’ we asked the SEO company for an update
[SEO Company] Its going really well, initial off page is pretty much done (can run a report off for you if you’d like to have a look) All on page source is now drawn up for the deep page SEO, reckon that will be going in either later today or 1st thing Monday and then its a bit of a waiting game for a few days until the recrawl. Time to keep the eyes peeled now – positions are going to be dropping in as off tomorrow afternoon – as soon as a new one hits in we will have confirmation and i will get this over to you.
We have checked the database / code / back end and nothing has been changes / updated / tweaked or even monitored (no analytics data has been requested)
In summary the client has paid hundreds of pounds to a company that are unproven / have fake testimonials / no track record and they have done exactly nothing on the site or off the site (link building) to change / improve / update. Not the best business decision I think you would agree.
