Help to identify that this SEO agency is doing a TERRIBLE job
-
Hi folks,
I am working with a group for which I do SEO etc. for one part of the group. Another part of the group hired an SEO agency to carry out their SEO for them (before I joined).
In short, they are doing a terrible job by building links in very dodgy directories (ones which get taken offline) and via machine generated 'articles' on horrendously bad 'blogs'.
Please take a look at these 'articles' and leave your thoughts below so I can back up the point that these guys are not the kind of SEOs we should be working with.
- [List of links to articles removed by moderator]
Many thanks in advance,
Gill.
-
Hi folks!
The original question in this discussion basically asks the community to condemn an SEO company. A request of this nature is a violation of both our Community Guidelines and TAGFEE Code. As such, we have removed all links that could lead to the identification of the SEO company in question; and we are closing this discussion to additional responses.
We apologize for not taking action on this sooner.
Thanks so much for your understanding!
Christy
-
For sure! At least with social it's almost instantly evident when they don't know what they're doing, for SEO too much wool can be pulled over the eyes of the none technical
-
IMO, that is the worst part of being in SEO/Social Media. There are so many providers that do a less than lousy job for their clients: making things worse, rather than better.
And even fewer people who do a good job with local.
-
Thanks for the comments.
[Comment removed by moderator.]
As Igor says above, those 'articles' are terrible for these reasons:
- Spammy over optimised anchors
- Many identical anchor texts
- Zero value
On top of that the 'articles' are machine generated which I confirmed when I mystery shopped one of the 'blogs'. I assume they are hosted in bad neighbourhoods and there are not something I want to be associated with.
Need to weed out these kind of people and expose them as crooks.
Thanks again,
Gill.
-
Yes, they're not great. As you know, backlinks like this simply have zero value; you wouldn't even want them if they were free so, they're certainly not worth investing in (with either time or money). As it stands, none of those examples are particularly toxic, nor do they appear to number in the thousands, so they'll simply end up getting ignored by Google. Thankfully, you do have a decent spread of high-quality inbound links. [Link removed by moderator.] That said, they want to put a stop to the "spammy link-building, before the balance shifts.
They've got a great-looking website. If all of the" effort"* invested in building these links was invested in building just one piece of great, link-worthy content then they'd be considerably better-off.
They need to realise that when it comes to link-building, quantity is no substitute for quality. You're absolutely right to take a stand against this, let's hope they heed your advice.
*granted, they don't represent a great deal of effort
-
Agreed! Thanks very much for taking the time!
-
Yes, these don't look great, to say the least. [**Comment removed by moderator.] **Anchors are spammy and all of the "optimized" anchors are coming from websites with low domain quality scores.
This is not good:
[Link removed by moderator]I outlined two examples (there are more), see that 8 domains link to your website 55 times with an identical keyword anchor. That is as spammy as it gets and may results in being filtered.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Multi-Store SEO
I am currently developing a website which will have a multi-store function, i.e. one for US & ROW customers and one for UK & EU customers. The domain names will be along the lines of: Original domain: www.website.com UK & EU domain: eu.website.com US & ROW domain: us.website.com When a customer visits the website they will be redirected to one or the other depending on their location. Can anyone see any problems which this may cause in respect to SEO? I know there may be a duplicate content issue here also, how should I best deal with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Looking for Adult SEO company
Hi guys and girls, I am looking for a company that is willing to work with us to improve our SEO. Our website is www.reallovesexdolls.com and we keep on going all the way UP to fall rock bottom hard again (like waves in the ocean). It's really weird, we never invested much in link building and such. We are so busy with other things that it would be nice to outsource this task. You can contact us by phone, or by email. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MartinePeters0 -
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
Hey I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social. One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite. My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve. I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Help... To Optimize Category Page or Not?
My question is about whether to optimize a category page or not, but it’s a rather odd situation. Here’s a bit of background to start. When we relaunched our site, about six months ago, we had primary, secondary, and tertiary categories created. A user could reach all three levels by clicking through the site. Then we decided instead of linking to the tertiary categories, that we’d turn them into filters which can be applied at the secondary level. Thus, there is not actually a direct link to the 3rd level categories on the site. An important side note, I did check and confirm they are still included in the sitemap file. My initial thoughts were to forget any further optimization of those 3rd level categories, but as it turns out we still have rankings for some of them. Now the question… Because some of these pages are ranking and are found in the sitemap, should I include them in my SEO plan to build up and optimize, or because they are no longer linked to directly on the site will they eventually fizzle out (and I shouldn’t do anything further). This is such a unique situation that I am really looking for some insight from the community. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Are pop-unders bad for SEO?
Hi all, I run a travel site that specializes in hotel bookings. We're working with a third-party advertiser to launch a pop-under unit when someone searches for hotels on our site. (This unit is of the "also try your search on these competing sites" variety.) I'm worried, however, that this might affect our SEO, especially in light of this on their site: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721313?hl=en Would Google even see these pop-unders? (Are pop-unders treated the same as pop-overs?) And, if so, would G see them as unwanted and treat them as a nuisance? Could it lead to negative SEO consequences? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks! Tom
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomNYC0 -
Glossary SEO Tactics
A B2B client has a glossary of about 300 terms on its Website. It was done to enhance SEO value. The pages are rarely viewed and the text is often short. What are the best (and wackiest!) ideas to leverage this content for SEO. Here are some: Add videos, images Cross link to content pages Open up comments and get students in this sector to review terms and add their own What else do you suggest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarrAuto0 -
Technical SEO issue
Hi Everyone, I have encountered a major issue in one of my clients website(kitchen appliance website). This client has 2 main websites (A & B) linked with each other representing 2 different categories of appliances. We are trying to create some brand pages that this store carries. One brand page has been created and when searching for it on SERP, the results found should be under URL A but it is under URL B. I don't know what is going on? Can someone explain me what happened? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google Adsense Good for SEO?
Is there any merit to the statement that Google will give some SEO value to sites that display Adsense? Or is there absolutely no SEO value for or against a site that displays Adsense Ads? Clearly, it would benefit Google's finance to give at least a small boost to sites that display Adsense, but do they do it? My guess is no, but I'm wondering ...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold0