Forum Moderators: open
This post is for SEM(O) client educational purposes and to be informative, and not meant as an attack.
Anyone reading this post (here and elsewhere) can appreciate what to look for... names need not be attached.
In contrast - I firmly believe I am not an authority on "spam" or "spam tactics" this is always opened to interpretation.
Based on Google's indicated "hard line" on ethics... they are in a better position to determine the validity of my call.
I have removed the names of the potential parties involved, but did submit a Google Spam Report (my first one actually).
I was recently approached by a client of another "highly respectable SEO Firm". The person asked a very simple question -- "will you take a look, I am not sure my SEO firm is acting in my best interest?"I believe wholeheartedly in "ethics". What I found - was not easily detectable to the untrained eye. As a client of this industry is competely at a disadvantage - as there is no real clear cut way to determine 100% if the company is acting in your best interests without hindsight.
This isn't about ROI, or manipulating technology -- this particular case is clearly and simply using the "lack of understanding" a potential client has and the services comapny "unfairly" manipulating that relationship to be nothing but self-serving. The results of what I uncovered - 423 clients all in the same boat.
1. The SEM(O) conveniently added an extra link to each page that transfers all associated PageRank to a single common page in the site's domain. That common page (as suggested by the consultant) re-generates through scripts the sites backlink and would then normally re-distributes that PageRank back through the backlinks, which sends a slight bit more PageRank back to linked pages. As number of backlinks grow - the PageRank at the common page grows as well.
2. Basically this page gathers all possible PageRank "natural" & "internally passed" to a common place and not easily visible to the outside viewing public (normally the mainpage has the most PageRank) but in fact this page would have as much PageRank as the mainpage if not more, depending on the internal link structure of the site.
3. The Scam - The common page itself has "robot" and "Googlebot" specific tags to "stop" Google (and others) from indexing the page but to continue following all links. Such as:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="FOLLOW,NOINDEX">
4. This means that no PageRank is passed to any external links including own site backlinks since all are generated as external references rather than relative ones. This happens to be all outbound links from the page, except for two internal site links which, these pages are <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">, transferring PageRank externally to SEM(O) web site almost exclusively.
5. What's more -- the whole scam is clouded by a topical theme of the pages "SEO ethics" and as these two pages actually belongs to SEM(O) (as far as text copy and links) they are highly relevant to the SEM site's theme. Each client's site has similar pages denoting different keyphrases of the SEM(O) targeted terms. The SEM(O) basically leaches PageRank and derive relevancy from clients for the SEM(O) own benefit - the client is never informed precisely what these techiques are used for -- only that they "help search engine spiders/bots find their backlinks".
6. Not to mention that the client gets to pay for this, as well as believing "how ethical and professional" this firm is.
7. As the pages are basically link laundering and out of plain view, the scam is quite unrecognizable unless you investigate very carefully and have knowledge of all the techniques used.
8. Actual site optimization consist of next to nothing, simple Meta title, description, and meta keyword, nothing more - plus the normal page content (as is).
8. The SEM(O) WOWs clients with "off-page" optimized links, banners and keyword-rich pages without the clients true knowledge or understanding of how this is achieved, and the implications right up until the SEM(O) service (which is fee based and ongoing) is discontinued and then (I suspect) all SEM(O) controlled links are broken.
9. In hindsight - the client drops like a rock in ranks and then realizing the error of their ways - re-hires the SEM(O) since "they obviously knew precisely how to get them ranked"... must be ongoing maintenance, right?.
10. "A leader in the field" WOO's clients with "SEO Ethics" - all the while pointing to Google's SEO page for support of "ethical SEO's" and at the same time... is one of the reasons SEM(O)'s all have such a bad image problem.
11. This isn't knowledge and skill, this isn't professionalism, this isn't ethical, this isn't acting in the best interest of the client(s), the industry, or the markets. This is feeding off a clients lack of understanding, and the only way they will ever understand -- is to become an SEM(O) themselves.
I couldn't believe that someone with a "gift" of being both web saavy and search engine savvy needs to extort clients and then claim how ethical this practice is.
As before... buyer beware.
fathom
I bet he charges the clients a small fortune for his expertise also.
Amazing what some people get away.
Craig
Is this a firm fathom or a freelancer?
Not important, nor will I elaborate publicly or privately.
At best - this will be read by a client - and the "cat" will be out of the bag...
or worse... a ban and alot of explaining to do.
