Top tips to avoid falling foul of the Google police
Ouch! The Daily Telegraph sent at least one company into a bit of a tizz this week when it published a damning article about the “new industry” of search engine optimisation.
The Daily Telegraph said the internet had “blown away the rules of the game”, except one: “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”
It then told the story of a UK company - The Search Company - which found an SEO specialist on an internet message board, who managed to suddenly send the company into the higher reaches of search results on the likes of Google.
Unfortunately – surprise, surprise – the company came back from a Christmas break to find the Google police had blacklisted its URL.
The Telegraph had an interesting story, produced with undertones of how those pesky geeks are ruining it all for everyone.
PING! Within hours of the article appearing, Warren Cowan, boss of SEO specialist Greenlight, sends an email with a firm response and what is probably a useful set of guidelines for selecting an ethical SEO.
1) Stay away from SEOs offering guarantees for top search rankings.
2) Be wary of SEOs claiming to have special relationships with search networks such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
3) Buyers guides can be a helpful starting point for selecting an SEO.
4) Check the search ranking of the SEO company you are interested in appointing - they should be easy to find online.
5) Personal recommendations are ultimately the best guarantee of an ethical SEO company.
Cowan writes: “As with any professional service, there are some tell tale signs that can help businesses identify unethical SEO services. A little bit of due diligence will go a long way to protecting you."
[Read the Daily Telegraph article]
NB: The Search Company is still unable to make it to Google's first or second pages in natural search.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
2 comments:
I've worked on optimising websites since 2002, and the only way they would of been banned from Google is due to "black hat" SEO.
Google or any other search engine doesn't ban for no reason at all - and even if you bend on your knee's and beg, it'll be 6 mths to 12 months before they will think about indexing them.
What is this "black hat" SEO ive heard many people talk about. Surely if you hire an seo company to promote your website the search engines should take into consideration that its not the company who is at fault but the company contracted to carry out seo.
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