Open Site Explorer - SEO - Company Back Links not visible?

[Bodie]

Hi Guys,

I am relatively new to the SEO community and have what  is hopefully a pretty quick and simple question?

I have recently outsourced some of my SEO campaigns to an Australian SEO group which were referred to me buy a friend, and i do not have the time to manage all sites SEO.

On pitch the SEO company said they had in excess of 7000 domains, and they would implement a massive back linking strategy for me anywhere upwards of 200 links a month and all legit.

Initially there were some basic header and title tag changes needed on the site, and I am now in month 4 of my campaign.

Looking forward to using SEOMOZ service and specifically Open Site Explorer, I entered my URL but to my disappointment I could only see 4 links and two I was responsible for.

I spoke to the SEO company who responded Open Site Explorer wasn't a good indication of back links and that a lot of their sites were not on the network because of the structure of their linking being only one way.

I would appreciate a second opinion (external of this company) on this because of my short time learning and dabbling with SEO.

On a side note thoroughly enjoying learning SEO and my journey as part of the SEOMOZ community.

Appreciate any feedback or responses I get.

Kind regards

Bodie

http://www.berkeleyriver.com.au

[Bodie]

Hi Mike

Thanks for all your feedback and yeh i agree with your sales comment.

i have set a timeframe of 6 months before i start dissecting the analytics and working out my ROI as I was told its a minimum of three months before you start seeing real traction with SEO.

Thanks for all your help!  and you too Seattle!

b

[SeattleOrganicSEO]

Frankly, we've tried to keep rates as low as possible, but over time, we also have found there's a ton of work that needs to be done for some clients who come on board.  It really depends on what they do.

I do 2 things for clients: 1) provide them rankings, but 2) and most importantly, what the rankings translates into traffic.  I dive into the google analytics.  Do those rankings equate to improvements in traffic?  Do they help you evaluate your google analytics to show you that they do?

Rankings are not the whole picture.

Also, for some clients who do want to know more details, I provide details of the sources I pointed out above (OSE, Majestic & Google Webmasters).  I will tell them how their links have increased or rather prove it via those sources.  So, I'll give whatever a client basically wants within reason.  These have given us very positive ratings everywhere clients have rated us and happy clients as far as I can tell.  And for now, I think these are the main reports that show that we "did something" frankly.

Sorry, but when I reread this, this sort of sounds like we're selling our services, but frankly, all the above is what we do because we feel like it's fair communication.  An SEO or an SEO firm has an obligation to report their work as much as the client wants to know...and I'm sorry, but it sounds like you haven't had other standards to compare it to in the past.  Thus, the feeling of not getting what you pay for.

By the way, have you asked the provider these questions? If not, definitely do.

[3States]

When they report your keyword rankings every month, do they cover a variety of search engines or are they just giving you Google.com.au results?

It's entirely possible that your site could be gradually increasing in rankings with the few links you have depending on your targeted keyword phrases. This is especially true in Google.com.au. The less competitive your keyword phrases, the less you have to work on link building (most of the time) to show up in the SERPs.

I just used the keyword phrase "luxury resorts" (just as an example) in the SEOmoz Keyword Analysis tool and found that the same keyword has a keyword difficulty of 77% on Google.com and 64% on Google.com.au. So it's important to check which search engines are being reported every month.

In the end, it comes down to traffic and sales. Are you seeing a satisfactory increase in traffic for what you're paying the company? Is that traffic converting as well as you'd expect?

It's really tough to call out an SEO company for not doing any work if you're seeing some results. It's the ones that do a ton of work poorly that are easy to spot. You could be seeing ranking increases with or without the company. It's tough to say without a lot more data and monitoring.

As for how much SEO companies should charge, I'll defer to the experts on this one: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services

Mike

[Bodie]

Hi SeattleorganicSEO, (sorry i didn't catch your name)

i don't think they would be responsible for many of those links, 4 of the domains we own and at least 5 other links i am responsible for.

In a nutshell,   every month I get a 'Summary Of Your Rankings email', this email compares Initial Rankings to Current Rankings.

They show where I placed for the five initial keywords when we started and now where we are for those keywords and a whole bunch of other keywords that stem from those targeted ones. (which I know are really useless because I have checked the keyword volume tool to collate their worth. They have no search volume.

i am not doubting they are getting results as for these five keywords we are moving up through the ranks of google and approaching a first page spot.

I guess my main questions or concern is how can they be getting results if they are doing little or no link building?

The only onsite changes they have implemented are header and title tag updates.

I just don't want to be taken advantage of, as i stated earlier i am pretty new to the SEO game.

Also what do you think is fair for a monthly fee per site for SEO?

Appreciate any feedback moving forward.

Kind regards

Bodie

[SeattleOrganicSEO]

Hi Bodie,

I use Majestic SEO and Google Webmasters to verify my links a bit quicker.  The links typically show up on those much faster than they do on OSE.

I see links from:

|

http://www.kimberleyaccommodation.com.au

| http://www.hotelkununurra.com.au |

| http://www.morgenpost.de/reise/article1873557/Palaeste-Strandhuetten-und-andere-neue-Hotels.html |

| http://www.australien-news.com |

| http://www.bha.broomeaccommodation.com.au |

| http://www.gourmet-report.de/artikel/340712/Westaustralien-Luxusurlaub-ohne-Strassenanbindung.html |

| http://www.lookcook.net/index2.php?artikel=7416&typ=news& |

| http://australien-info.de/serendipity/authors/1-Newsletter-AUSTRALIEN-INFO/P1.html |

| http://pindanpost.com/2011/12/19/the-berkeley-river-experience-coming-soon |

| http://www.mikullagoldmann.de/Newsdetails/items/westaustralien---luxusurlaub-ohne-strassenanbindung.1321.html |

| http://www.kimberleyhotel.com.au/?id=37x71378420738950769 |

| http://www.tourismtopend.com.au/accom_result1/berkeley-river |

| http://australiabig.com.au/?p=291 |

|

http://www.reisegezwitscher.de/reisetipps?format=feed&type=rss

| http://www.eastkimberleydirectory.com.au/search/?link=Accommodation&category=ekdbusiness |

| http://content.yudu.com/A1usv7/SLHDEC11/resources/47.htm |

As your unique domains linking back.

However, 4 months and not seeing movement or a growth in the backlinks is a pretty big red flag.

Let me know if you ever need a quick check on Majestic.  You can get a free glance of the total domains and backlinks for free

though via SEObook's SEO tool bar.

Can't validate Michael's concerns 100%, but it does seem a little fishy given that you've been with them for 4 months.  No reports?

How do they communicate that their work's been complete?

|

|

[3States]

Hey again Bodie,

I checked your site using a bunch of SEO tools and, I'm sorry to say, but I don't see any evidence that any link building has been going on with your site. OSE is not a perfect tool by any means, but it's just so remote that only a couple of links would show up after 4 months. Alexa shows the same amount of links and my personal script shows only 1 more.

I'm not going to say that the company you're using isn't building any links, but I really don't see it.

This is a shame too because link building to your site would be very easy. You have a great design and well written content. I could see pitching "Top 10 Hidden Australian Luxury Resorts" articles getting picked up no problem for guest posts. Even doing viral content like infographics and high-powered articles on travel sites wouldn't be too difficult.

I would recommend switching companies if only based on the fact that, when you questioned them, they could have easily given you a spreadsheet of every live link they had for you. That's just basic SEO reporting. The fact that they didn't do that makes me even more suspicious.

Mike

[Bodie]

Hi Michael,

Updated and looking forward to your feedback.

Kind Regards

b

[3States]

Hello Bodie,

I suspect I know what's going on but I don't want to jump to conclusions. If you'd kindly include your URL, I can check what's going on with your backlinks.

Mike