Abused seo unintentionally, now need a way out

[wickedsunny1]

Hello,

I have been in contact with a smo to optimize my site for search engines and social media sites. my site was doing great from last 4 years.

but suddenly it started dropping in ranking. then i came and joined seomoz pro to find a way out.

i was suggested to categories content in form of subdomains ... well that put a huge toll on my rankings.. thanks to suggestions here i have 301 them to sub directories.

Now another huge question arises. i found out that my smo guy was taking artificial votes or whatever youc all them on twitter, facebook and g+ ...twitter and facebook's are understandable but i am getting to think that these votings on g+ might have affected my site's ranking ?

here is a sample url http://www.designzzz.com/cutest-puppy-pictures-pet-photography-tips/

if you scroll below you will see 56 google plus 1s...

now the big question is, i have been creating genuince content. but nowt hat i am stuck in this situation, how to get out of it ?

changing urls will be bad for readers.. will a 301 will fix it ?  or any other method.

thanks in advance

[SoftzSolutions]

_I have checked some of the posts of the Home page and I see certain patterns and this is quite predictable:

1. Most of the posts are basically complication of images already available in other sites. Though the content is unique, the images are nothing new.
2. I have found two content heavy posts in the home page and what I believe that they are guest posts. Now, guest blogging is great but what I mean to say is that you should not be too dependent on guest blogging here. You need to come up with two or three posts [I prefer content heavy posts] before_

_3. Seems like you are publishing reviews. Make sure if these reviews are paid, you should be adding no follow tag against them. Though it is the linked sites that should be penalized for this, I prefer to be safe than sorry.

I know this may sound a bit harsh. I hope you would not mind. _

[Devanur-Rafi]

No problem friend. You are most welcome.

[wickedsunny1]

Great, thanks alot dude :}

[Devanur-Rafi]

That's true Ayaz. 301 does not serve the purpose in this case. As you have stopped this, sit tight and let us see how the 301 from the sub-domains to the sub-directories setup works. As far as my experience goes, adding new, unique, original and fresh content will speed up the process to come out of a penalty if there has been applied any.

Wish you all the best.

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi.

[wickedsunny1]

Devanur,

I got this stopped couple months ago as i wasn't feeling comfortable with that at all.

At firs ti thought of adding a 301 to new urls. but then i noticed. 301 mvoes the g+ count as well.. so ofcourse it won't work.

oh well lets see how it goes now.

thanks for all the help

[Devanur-Rafi]

Ayaz, by now you should have asked those guys to stop this thing. If you have not, please do so quickly. Coming to undoing these, even I don't have a clue. Most of these would be some fake accounts or accounts created for only this purpose. The best thing you can do as of now is to stop this from growing further. Moreover, we are not sure about if these inflated social signals are the cause for the drop in the rankings. Gut feeling says, there is nothing that you should be worried about and these are not the ones responsible for the loss. Having that said, please stop this immediately and consult your SEO guy who did this and find out what he has to say about this.

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi.

[wickedsunny1]

Thanks Devanur.

But this leaves me clueless now what should i do :{

i need to undo these penalities i am suffering from.

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi Ayaz,

Though I cannot tie a knot with a proof between the drop in your rankings and the artificially inflated social signals in this case, I can definitely say one thing that Google can sniff things like these very easily and it would be too late before you even realize the axe coming down on you. As we know that social signals have strong impact on the search engine rankings in certain niches, we should not try to play with these with an intention to get a boost in SERPs. Next time when you hire an SEO or SMO please make sure to get a list of deliverables from them. Black hat or acts of cheating search engines might work temporarily but you should run away from them by all means if you want to be safe.

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi.