They then spent some more budget on a SEM outfit. Despite their site being well optimized, they have actually lost position until now only entering their domain name gets a ranking.
Is it possible that Google are penalizing them for non-payment of their Adwords account? The site has been up for about 14 monnths.
I wish the world worked so elegantly, but it generally seems the one hand of Google doesn't know the details of what the other is up to. So, I doubt it.
Of course, karma is an accumulative sort of thing, so someone who acts this way likely does so in many little ways, leading to bad consequences. Which one was the straw that broke the camel's back? Any one of them, might as well call it this one.
The Google search engine is a service Google provides and it is up to them to decide who can use it and who can't use it. So if it was indeed a decision of Google to exclude your client from search engine results, I would fully understand. But I have no idea if Google actually does things like this...
Not paying a bill is a pretty clear indication of black-hattery and dubious value to end users.
G may regard this as an expensively-acquired but fairly solid data point about an entire set of targetted landing domains and domain owners, etc, and indeed login IP addresses. I would. It should be a longish-lasting taint too, though with some allowance made for the possibility of cock-up rather than deliberate sin, and of deliberately trying to blacken the name of a third party.
Rgds
Damon
I can't get my client to pay (easily anyway), as Google deleted the account after about 6 months.
All I'm getting is flak from the client as to why they don't do better with G. They are still there, but rank poorly. It's as if non-payment of G's account is part of G's algorithm...
Just tell them the truth:
Google's motto is "Do no evil." While there's some question of their ability to live up to this, many parts of the company are trying. Not paying for services received is evil, consequently Google's search results doesn't "do" your client's pages.
Now, for a large fee, definitely IN ADVANCE, you can pay off their debts and improve their karma.
I can't get my client to pay ...
All I'm getting is flak from the client as to why they don't do better with G.
I also agree with a previous post that his history of not paying bills for services rendered doews not bode well for your payment- make sure you get paid in advance.
I had one client (law firm) and they just didn't have time to deal with the Internet stuff. Think the credit card they had on file expired and there was a $50.00 balance or so that couldn't be charged.
They're still doing great in the organic results but may have since paid their bills.
I can't get my client to pay (easily anyway), as Google deleted the account after about 6 months.
Google will refer the client to debt collection eventually, so the best option is to contact Google Adwords directly about the payment. They will be more than happy to sort it out. Tell them that the client was taken into hospital for months and the card got maxed out with all the monthly bills (or something)...
Have them pay their bill and see if it makes a difference. Even if it doesn't improve their rankings, it will increase their karma balance.
So, the bottomline: good karma balance = empty pocket?! :)
