Anyone paying for SEO - Do your research!

[duanermb]

Google's $4 million revenge...

he had only thought to dabble in what's known as "SEO" after noticing that his parents' flower shop had done a tidy gift basket business thanks to its organic Google rank.

I should add the more relevant article from Inc.com.

Without the Google penalty, we wouldn't be anywhere near as far along as we are. You have two choices: You can roll over and die, or you can grow beyond it.

 

[CHR]

I read that article and shot Ryan an email - he's a friend and my website is actually built on site architecture he had crafted over top a BVAdmin base. I told him he would probably now be the G poster boy for 'resurrected' link buyers. Ha! (Loved the analogy of calling a reinclusion request the 'confessional'.) He told me he'd had twitter exchanges with Matt Cutts about the article today.

Gotta admit the article headline drew eyeballs. It even made Search Engine Land's Daily Recap list.

 

[theRKF]

Let's put this into perspective, though.

1) He makes a perfect target for a Google poster boy. Little "m" millions in revenue, so the figures are big enough to get attention without really taking down a big player.
2) Google has been given plenty of evidence about bigger companies like FTD/TF/1-800 who buy links all the time, yet Google does nothing about it.
3) Google rarely does anything manually, preferring to adapt or create algorithms to catch the problem. This means either:
a) He was REALLY buying stupidly obvious high PR links
b) Google hand-picked him to be the whipping boy and create fear

Takeaway: Google hates paid links, but knows they can't catch them or filter them. As a result they have to try and scare the majority of business owners into compliance with the occasional horror story.

Remember when FTD used to publish picks of poorly designed test orders - yet they still tolerated people working out of garages with no cooler?

The occasional threat or example is required when you can't actually enforce something.

 

[duanermb]

Let's put this into perspective, though.

1) He makes a perfect target for a Google poster boy. Little "m" millions in revenue, so the figures are big enough to get attention without really taking down a big player.
2) Google has been given plenty of evidence about bigger companies like FTD/TF/1-800 who buy links all the time, yet Google does nothing about it.
3) Google rarely does anything manually, preferring to adapt or create algorithms to catch the problem. This means either:
a) He was REALLY buying stupidly obvious high PR links
b) Google hand-picked him to be the whipping boy and create fear

Takeaway: Google hates paid links, but knows they can't catch them or filter them. As a result they have to try and scare the majority of business owners into compliance with the occasional horror story.

Remember when FTD used to publish picks of poorly designed test orders - yet they still tolerated people working out of garages with no cooler?

The occasional threat or example is required when you can't actually enforce something.

Still a good reason to seek out a trusted brand like Strider for your SEO.

 

[theRKF]

Still a good reason to seek out a trusted brand like Strider for your SEO.

Thanks

I'm pre-caffeinated, so I forgot to add to my previous post that you should always ask your SEO firm for details on the type of link building they are doing.

We're not opposed to link buying in the right situation, but it really has to be clear that the client understands the risks. In the case of this article, I really don't buy that he was as ignorant as he claims. In 2007-2008 there was a big debate going about link buying, and Google was really trying to put their foot down by squashing sites like Pay Per Post and Text Link Ads. You couldn't go to any SEO discussion anywhere without hearing about it, and Matt Cutts was at every conference preaching about G's war on manipulative paid links.

In the past, I'd done all our search-engine optimization myself. But as we grew, we started paying companies to reach out to relevant sites and ask them for links.

It's important to remember, too, that even though the Gawker article was published yesterday, the smackdown on this site happened in 2008.

Oh, and how are Pay Per Post and and TLA doing today? TLA sold last year for $45 million. I guess Google really hurt their business model Oh, and PPP was so crushed that they've expanded their model into social media and online contests as well, and are bigger then ever.

 

[duanermb]

It's important to remember, too, that even though the Gawker article was published yesterday, the smackdown on this site happened in 2008.

Oh, and how are Pay Per Post and and TLA doing today? TLA sold last year for $45 million. I guess Google really hurt their business model Oh, and PPP was so crushed that they've expanded their model into social media and online contests as well, and are bigger then ever.

It was around that time, that I think a lot of sites got nailed for a few things. The big flower boys in Winnipeg disappeared for about a year opening the door for us and others for a while.

The biggest take-away from this whole thing:

Before the penalty, we had zero social media presence. We sort of looked at it like, "It must be nice to have the time to do that." Now, as part of our whole strategy of never buying a link again, we blog about anything. We're up to 3,200 Facebook fans. We Twitter every day.

Why wait for a penalty!

 

[theRKF]

Why wait for a penalty!

Exactly

Plenty of experts will advise targeting a 3-way split in your traffic sources.

1/3 Search
1/3 Referral from other sites (incl social media)
1/3 Direct traffic

Any time you have 80% of your business coming from one source, you had better kiss up REALLY nicely and toe the line, or start diversifying fast!

 

[CHR]

Search Engine Roundtable shows some of the Twitter exchanges that took place yesterday.

FTR, I know who the SEO was, and his blog now cautions readers who peruse his pages about link buying:

Proceed with Caution:
Some of these techniques and methods for building links are not recommended today

Ryan - you are absolutely right about big name brands getting away with literally anything, while medium and small guys get whacked. I'm a fan of Aaron Wall and love how he pokes and prods Google regularly for their lack of consistency.

 

[theRKF]

FTR, I know who the SEO was, and his blog now cautions readers who peruse his pages about link buying

Ya, I was wondering if that was Boykin's work. There's another example of Google making an example of someone.

Jim Boykin owns "We Build Pages", a service well-known for their link building prowess. And yes, they bought a lot of links for a lot of people. Google went after Boykin and a lot of his clients. (After all, Google does profile SEOs!)

Side note: This is why we almost never disclose client names. If we are working for Acme Corp for a time, and then either during or after our contract some young IT guy reads a post on DigitalPoint and figures hidden text is the latest and greatest thing, that company gets whacked. And the fallout is that the SEO gets blamed and any other clients of that firm become targets.

Jim Boykin made a big deal a while back about publicly declaring WBP is out of the link buying game. That was right about the time they made a big push and hired 3-4 celeb internet marketers incl Lisa Barone, Rhea Drysdale and Pat Sexton. That lasted just a few months before things blew up, the new hires and some other folks left. I have nothing beyond conjecture, but I seriously doubt WBP is really out of link buying, I just think they are being very selective and careful.

Rand of SEOmoz also makes a big deal about getting out of link buying ... but of course, that was around the time he got a big chunk of VC money, and then prompted got out of doing client work entirely so he could sell tools to entry-level SEO folks.

 

[theRKF]

Something else I had thought of but neglected in my pre-caffeinated state this morning:

If link buying lead easily to penalties, we would all be buying links for competitors in no time