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Something REALLY WRONG here! Please HELP

by A S M
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey all

I can really use your help because this is absolutely driving me crazy!!!

Ill try to make this as clear and brief as possible :

We have our business website (approx 4-5 years old). About 5-6 months ago we decided to approach some well known SEO firms in order to get our main keywords in the first position (currently, most of them are in the top 5).

We spoke with Kokonut (I believe they were named "nettonic" in the past) and they gave us a very attractive offer. We delayed a couple of month to give them a solid yes or no answer because of some other issues. We knew they were getting annoyed , but they weren't giving up.

Last week we get an email from one of their representatives that they decided to run a check up on our site to see if everything is ok (for no reason) and they said that we got penalized by panda. 2 days ago we get an indepth analysis from them saying that we got penalized by panda and penguin....... This is very disturbing to me as we don't have much spam links or anything wrong with the site. It has rich content ... maybe some spam links from sites that everyone has (you can't control entirely who links to you or not) we couldn't delete but we have many legit and good backlinks to our site.

We only have around 600 backlinks from what i see on majesticseo... I checked a few keywords and they are still in place. We have the webstats for our site and for the last 3-4 months we have a steady 1600 uniques and around 2500 visits and this month seems to be a bit lower but no dramatic drops like they are showing us on graphs. We currently have around 550 uniques and 850 visits. By the end of the month, I assume it will reach that 2500 visits (althought it doesn't really add up to that 850x2)

The thing that is really bothering me is that , in their proposal ..... they added that they will recover our site from Panda and Penguin , ABSOLUTELY FREE!.... this makes me think 2 things:

a) They maybe spammed us with links ? They are a huge SEO company with massive networks... is it not possible they spammed us with links and they can easily remove them ? Hence, removing the penalty ?

b) They have good technique and sources to do it for us easily.

Its just so strange how all this happened right after we spoke with them. It's really causing a lot of stress to the company and marketing team here.

Please let me know any other details you guys require in order to give me some kind of solution here.

Really looking forward to your replies and hope to hear from a few of you soon.

Thanks

Aris
#wrong
  • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
    If the keywords are still in place and the number of visits are somewhat similar to previous month then you dont need to worry, you've not been penalised. They just want to take your money for doing nothing lol. I recently joined a company where they do all sorts of stuffs to book a client. Trust me i've seen worse! Dont panic, its just a scare tactic, which sucks i know, but nothing to worry really.

    You need to tell that company to stop sending you any more emails or reports. Be polite, you dont want them to start neg SEO on you. I hope they wont but why take chances?
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    • Profile picture of the author A S M
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      If the keywords are still in place and the number of visits are somewhat similar to previous month then you dont need to worry, you've not been penalised. They just want to take your money for doing nothing lol. I recently joined a company where they do all sorts of stuffs to book a client. Trust me i've seen worse! Dont panic, its just a scare tactic, which sucks i know, but nothing to worry really.

      You need to tell that company to stop sending you any more emails or reports. Be polite, you dont want them to start neg SEO on you. I hope they wont but why take chances?

      Thank you for your reply

      I am not scared.. it's just that ive seen somewhat similar stats as they gave me. But nothing has changed. They are offering free recovery which this is my main concern. Maybe they have already performed negative SEO ? I know majesticseo has a huge delay on showing updated backlinks, so there is no way i could know if it was done or not.

      I want to be sure nothing has been done to our site and that everything is ok. Just so i have something to show here.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
        Originally Posted by Aris Savva View Post

        Thank you for your reply

        I am not scared.. it's just that ive seen somewhat similar stats as they gave me. But nothing has changed. They are offering free recovery which this is my main concern. Maybe they have already performed negative SEO ? I know majesticseo has a huge delay on showing updated backlinks, so there is no way i could know if it was done or not.

        I want to be sure nothing has been done to our site and that everything is ok. Just so i have something to show here.
        I dont know of any google update in the last few days, if there was one then i really need to stop using facebook lol. and if there was a manual penalty, you wouldnt see your keywords still in place. If the rankings are stable then you're just fine. There obviously has been no neg seo of yet but they want to scare you so that you'd pay them what they're asking. dont fall for that crap!! my guess is there's been no neg seo and hence they've agreed to do it for free.
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  • Profile picture of the author blackli0n
    It definitely sounds like a scare tactic. I doubt that would actually spend their own money/time to do negative SEO. It's easier just to throw reports in that scare people. Ignore them and look for someone else more ethical....preferably an individual, not a company.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
      Originally Posted by blackli0n View Post

      It definitely sounds like a scare tactic.
      I'd drop that word and come right out and say it.

      It definitely sounds like a Scam tactic.

      Any SEO company that puts a link building sales page like this

      retarted(ww.).nettonic.co.uk/link-building-services

      Offering all kind of "Blackhat" techniques, and then goes on to feature it's current clients on itheir homepage?

      Ehhhh?

      RETARDS

      And clearly have no clue about SEO, and client confidentiality.
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  • Profile picture of the author A S M
    hmmm ... i did find 1 term now that i can swear was on the first page... top 5 if im not mistaken. .. It's now on the 2nd page....

    Edit: its on the first page but 8-9th

    Our website is savvacyprus.com. Feel free to run any simple tests on it that you may have in mind. Will help us out a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author ibarena
    Why don't you take a second opinion from some other company? To me, it looks like a tactic to hook a client. They will keep saying that xyz doesn't shows correct reports.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I did a quick check of the site on SEO spyglass, looks ok. There's no spammed out anchor-text which is usually a sign of building junk links. Ahrefs also looks ok.
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    • Profile picture of the author A S M
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      I did a quick check of the site on SEO spyglass, looks ok. There's no spammed out anchor-text which is usually a sign of building junk links. Ahrefs also looks ok.

      Thanks man ... thanks to all

      If there's no sign of panda, penguin or any other fluffy updates .... I'll go ahead and schedule a meeting with the marketing team.

      Ok ? everything good ? wanna check one more time ?
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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    You seem to know your search engine rankings, and you seem to be well informed about SEO. Ask them how they came to the conclusion that you've been penalized. This is not trivial stuff, but surely they must be able to explain it to a client and point out something that supports their claim. If you still think that they're full of hot air, take their explanation and evidence to another SEO (or WF). It would be easy enough to see if there's something there.

    I've seen some very vague claims by so-called SEO consultants. Sometimes they're dumbing it down too much, but way too often they're just trying to BS themselves in.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
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  • Profile picture of the author online only
    First off,
    "kokkunut" / "nettonic" is not a a reputable SEO provider. Secondly, reputable SEO company doesn't e-mail spam you, nor send you random reports about penalties you don't have
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by online only View Post

      First off,
      "kokkunut" / "nettonic" is not a a reputable SEO provider. Secondly, reputable SEO company doesn't e-mail spam you, nor send you random reports about penalties you don't have
      ...or offer to work for free.
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    • Profile picture of the author ezybux4u
      Originally Posted by online only View Post

      First off,
      "kokkunut" / "nettonic" is not a a reputable SEO provider. Secondly, reputable SEO company doesn't e-mail spam you, nor send you random reports about penalties you don't have
      Spot on ^^^
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  • Profile picture of the author A S M
    Thanks for your replies but they are really pushing it now.

    I checked our stats directly from the server and from Google analytics and everything was looking ok. Traffic was stable over the last few months. I explained this to them as they reverted back to me saying that the traffic had a huge drop in October throughout December.

    And this is their new reply with facts:

    edit: I added screenshots of graphs and stuff but I couldn't post it for some reason.

    They sent me a link from fruition.net indicating a big red dot in mid December which means an extremely negative impact on our website due to the holiday google update.

    Next, they sent me this link http://joxi.ru/JLTVUhjKTJAFEyYCUDo which is a screenshot of the Barracuda Penguin tool 2.0 indicating drop of keywords and landing pages.

    Furthermore, they sent me this link http://joxi.ru/h6_VUv3JTJDgLT7prsU which indicated the drop of traffic mid December. Approximately the same time frame as the negative impact was shown on the fruition.net graph.

    Now, here's the thing.... it was christmas holidays. Obviously traffic is going to drop. We are not an ecommerce site or anything like that. So I can understand the drop. But why is fruition.net actually showing a huge negative impact in mid December?Is the site losing traffic (as shown in the last link above) from the negative impact ? or is it from Christmas? In addition, the Barracuda link i gave above, indicates the loss of traffic beginning in October........ Fruition.net doesn't show any negative impact in October -> November.

    Whats going on here? is it or is it not a scare tactic after all ?

    Looking forward to hearing from you guys soon!

    Aris
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
      Originally Posted by Aris Savva View Post

      Thanks for your replies but they are really pushing it now.

      I checked our stats directly from the server and from Google analytics and everything was looking ok. Traffic was stable over the last few months. I explained this to them as they reverted back to me saying that the traffic had a huge drop in October throughout December.

      And this is their new reply with facts:

      .
      Couldnt see the image you posted.
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      • Profile picture of the author A S M
        Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

        Couldnt see the image you posted.

        Yeah it wouldn't let me post the images.. i edited it and added an explanation regarding the first one because you need to make an account to see it and added the links for the other 2.
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by Aris Savva View Post

      Now, here's the thing.... it was christmas holidays.
      That's the obvious explanation. If you look at the second chart it looks like your traffic has been increasing, there was a little gap, and you might be back to the usual traffic pattern. The first arrow points to some sort of abnormal spike in traffic. That's just life, sometimes you're more popular for whatever reason.

      I'm not sure what the first chart is exactly about. Traffic?

      I'm not seeing the gloom and doom here, but maybe someone else does.

      BTW, please remove the non-working image from your post above.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
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      • Profile picture of the author A S M
        Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

        That's the obvious explanation. If you look at the second chart it looks like your traffic has been increasing, there was a little gap, and you might be back to the usual traffic pattern. The first arrow points to some sort of abnormal spike in traffic. That's just life, sometimes you're more popular for whatever reason.

        I'm not sure what the first chart is exactly about. Traffic?

        I'm not seeing the gloom and doom here, but maybe someone else does.

        BTW, please remove the non-working image from your post above.
        First graph (i couldnt link) from fruition.net is a chart showing how your site is affected from various google algo updates. December 19 its shows an extremely negative impact to our website.

        Do you see any non-working images above? i am quite positive they where removed before. Let me know
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