Hi Sean:

Makes a lot of sense. So what objective measures of quality can request when I hire an SEO firm to create links. I know there are page authority and domain authority but understand these can be manipulated as well.

My concern is that I will order 4-5 links for $2,000 and will be provided with 4-5 links purchased on FIVRR for $20.00.

How as a consumer can I protect myself from this scenario? Now I guess I can research potential links targets myself, but how do I ensure they are of decent quality? Should I ask the SEO to run initial research and then I can say what links I feel are OK?

Also, there will text embedded in links back to our site that the SEO will create. This text may contain a keyword, company name or other info. Should I specify text this should contain or leave it to the SEO?

Hi Sean:

Apparently I may have misunderstand.

Keeping in mind that I as a business person I am trying to spend the least possible for the highest quality, how much do you think is reasonable to budget on a monthly basis for 4-5 decent quality links?

Thanks, 
Alan

Hi NgEF:

So from what you say for about 4 for to 5 decent quality links around $800 to $1,000/month would be reasonable. But this would not include articles, infographics, content which I could either create or pay for. It would also not include featured blog posts which could run anywhere up to $1,000.

OK, so maybe $2,000/month is not that far off.

Do I understand this correctly?
Thanks, Alan

I simply want to understand what I am paying for. If a vendor takes 15 minutes a month and uses an automated systems to create links I would like to know. If the hourly rate the vendor is charging me is $4,000/hour I think I am entitled to know.

I am not fixated on $500, $1,000 or $2,000 per month. I am fixated on getting fair value. When one party (vendor) has more information than the customer, the customer is in a vulnerable position and apt to overpay. That is why I am asking.

It seems reasonable to pay an SEO what a CPA, a decent attorney or other professional earns on an hourly basis. But an hourly rate equivalent to a Fortune 500 executive or a neuro-surgeon seems excessive.

I am simply trying to determine what is fair and customary.

Thanks, Alan

We need about 5-10 high quality links to our website created every month. We need the link targets researched and outreach done to these sites.

The sites most be legitimate and high quality; decent domain authority, real sites, not phony low quality sites. Sites that would show traffic in similarweb.com with decent metrics. We absolutely want to avoid any link building schemes that could get us penalized. I have been told that such a project would take a qualified SEO about 8-10 hours per months (more during the additional month of research, less afterward).

As such, what is a reasonable cost for these 5-10 links per month? $300, $500, $700, more? I only want to work with a highly experienced SEO, native english speaker with extensive experience. What is fair? I don't want to overpay or to under pay.

Thanks,

Alan

Hi Donna:

Yes, on official domain change got processed via Google Search Console.

I ran a MOZ crawl of the site. Every URL including the home page has a domain authority of 1. Previously the DA of the home page was 23.

No wonder the ranking and traffic dropped of the cliff! Assuming redirects were implemented correctly, (they were) is such a drop in DA normal after a migration?

Thanks, 
Alan

Yes, 301 redirection was done. We only had a handful of 404 errors. At the start the process appeared to progress very smoothly. Ranking dropped on all URLs. Some important URLs experienced a lesser drop (say position 2 to position 10). Most pages dropped form say position 12 to 60.

No content was changed during the move. Only 2 changes were:
-Different domain
-Secure domain (HTTPS).

The old domain was www.nyc-officespace-leader.com
The new domain is https://www.metro-manhattan.com

Actually the number of daily visitors has dropped from 80 to about 10. The migration occurred on April 3rd, about 16 days ago.

The number of impressions Google is serving us is gradually increasing. But because the ranking is so low, the number of clicks is low.

So your suggestion is to incorporate keyword rich content into pages that ranked well previously? Do you think this will revive ranking?

Is it possible that this drop is normal and that ranking should recover in the next 60-90 days? 
Or should I be concerned something has gone wrong?

We moved our domain is http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com on April 4th. It was migrated to https://www.metro-manhattan.com

Google Search Console continues to show  about 420of URLs indexed for the old "NYC" domain. This number has not dropped on Search Console. Don't understand why Google has not de-indexed the old site. 
For the new "Metro" domain only 114 pages are being shown as valid. Our search volume has dropped from about 85 visits a day to 12 per day. 390 URLs appear as "crawled- currently not indexed". Please note that the migrated content is identical. Nothing at all changed. All re-directs were implemented properly.

Also, at the time of the migration we filed a disavow for about 200 spammy links. This disavow file was entered for the old domain and the new one as well.

Any ideas as to how to trouble shoot this would be much appreciated!!! This has not been very good for business.

What is the likelyhood of our domain having a Google penalty? 28 spam score is a real source for concern unless it is completely inaccurate. Score of 1 is no cause for concern. Wonder which one is accurate?

We are migrating our domain tomorrow and how we proceed will be greatly influenced by this. Thoughts?

Interesting.

The 28 spam score is appearing under Links V2 (beta) in MOZ. Please see attached. Do you think this could be inaccurate?

Thanks, 
Alan

Ne02X

In the last week domain authority for our site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) has increased from 21 to 31. We have been working on local SEO and making other improvements in the last month.

I have noticed that our spam score is now 28. I believe it was much lower in the past. Should we be concerned about incurring a Google penaltyY How likely is this with a spam score of 28? What actions should we take?

Also, we will be migrating the site to a new domain early this week. Can we use the domain migration as an opportunity to remove links from pammy domains? Will the removal of link from spammy domains increase or decrease our domain authority?

Thanks,

Alan

This makes a lot of sense. So I will not make any assumptions about my visitors and will test so as to obtain objective feedback.

We are redesigning our web site real estate (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). A key component of the site is the property search form. Currently visitors completes 5 fields and properties that meet the criteria are displayed to the visitor.

I have noticed that my leading competitors (www.42floors.com, www.squarefoot.com) use multi step forms that ask single questions of the visitors. In effect they are reducing complexity by asking a single question per form. However the visitor must complete additional forms. Before results are served, both competing sites require the visitor to release contact info. 42floors has a clever inducement for the visitor to release their info: "Their are 127 listings that haven't been posted yet, but are visible to members." Once the visitor releases info they get to view the listings.

While this is somewhat coercive, I suspect it is effective in obtaining customer date. While I understand it may result in some visitors bouncing off the site, the form completions are extremely valuable. Currently we provide listings without requiring registration but obtain very little data about visitors. In New York City, there are so many commercial real estate sites that visitors have a tendency to bounce from one to another without leaving info or calling.

Multi step forms would allow me to add questions that are highly pertinent. Like when do they need possession, how long a lease term. By being asked very specific, relevant questions I wonder if that would not in fact increase the likely hood of the visitor to release info

Any advice?? I am attaching several of the forms in question.

In the event that we proceed with a multi part form, their are certain services like Leadformly that integrate with Wordpress. I see the eliminate the need for a Capcha and have other advantages. Is it beneficial to use such a package?

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