This morning we were approached by a dentist who explained that his practice website had fallen off the face of Google and he couldn’t understand why. A quick check showed that the site was languishing back beyond page 10 whereas previously he had enjoyed several page one positions.<\/p>\n
Following deeper discussion and some searching questions, it became apparent that the guy had tried to save money on his SEO by switching service to an off-shore provider who had cold mailed him with what looked like a great offer. He forwarded the original mail to us and the link-building offer went something like this:<\/p>\n
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You may have seen similar emails? All for $150 per month. It became clear very quickly what had happened. Initially the guy’s site rose in the rankings as the effect of the new links kicked in; however within 3 weeks his site had gone. Google caught up with him, detected the false, poor-quality links and the rest was inevitable – a huge slide in rankings as his site got penalised. Inevitably, his website enquiries fell away to virtually zero.<\/p>\n
A quick check of the website’s link profile showed the worst – hundreds of very low quality links from irrelevant sites all built in just a couple of months. A real mess.<\/p>\n
Recovering a site from this type of damage is possible but is a long, drawn-out affair and very time consuming. Not only do the bad links need to be removed but at the same time the “trust” of the domain needs to be re-built. This typically involves building good links, boosting the social profile and generally building a broad and trustworthy web presence. Only then can you expect Google to re-evaluate the site.<\/p>\n
Recovery timescale? This can take as long as six months depending on the degree of damage that’s been done. Recovery cost? Significant – the time taken and knowledge needed to manage these recoveries is substantial.<\/p>\n
The days of being able to out-fox Google with cheap SEO and lots of poor links are well and truly over. However, lots of SEO providers, particularly those that rely on cheap, outsourced labour to build links, continue to peddle their wares with little regard for the damage they know they will cause. They have not been sophisticated enough to change strategy and rather than go out of business, continue to push the same old rubbish.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the uninformed fall for it and suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n
SEO, particularly following Google’s clamp-down in 2011 and 2012, has become far more sophisticated and time-consuming. Finding an SEO partner who can screw up your site is easy – there are still lots of them around. Finding a dental SEO provider<\/a> who can consistently achieve results is somewhat trickier.<\/p>\n If you feel your website has been penalised by Google or if your current SEO provider is not delivering, please call us on 01332 672548<\/strong> to discuss how we can help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A sobering tale of how *not* to choose your SEO partner This morning we were approached by a dentist who explained that his practice website had fallen off the face of Google and he couldn’t understand why. A quick check …<\/p>\nDo you need help with your SEO?<\/h3>\n