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Need Some SEO Help

by SEOPadawan
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I work for a company that heavily relies on their eCommerce site to make sales. I recently hired an SEO firm who seems to look great on paper (google/yelp reviews). It's been three months of them adding competitive keywords to our meta descriptions and meta titles. Furthermore, they seem to be either creating accounts (ie pinterest) with our company name/info on it, creating a short page on a site like weebly and posting one of our random blogs, or creating accounts on other forums (most are relevant to our industry, but some aren't) and posting once saying stuff like Hey everyone I'm new!

I asked them if this was Black Hat they continue to assure me it's not- but I am not wholly convinced. Is this against Google's regulations?
#bad #practice #seo
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOPadawan
    Is anyone able to help?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack107
    Without knowing the full details this sounds pretty fishy. Besides title tag and meta description optmisations, the rest of those do not sound like solid SEO strategies. From what you have mentioned it does sound like black hat techniques.
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    I am self employed generating leads & sales for small business via Google Ads, SEO & Facebook Ads. Find me at JCOR Digital
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    A real SEO company would be creating content that EARNED links from other related, respected real websites - not creating their own links on websites or web pages they control. If you can place the link, yourself, it is almost always completely worthless for SEO. What they seem to be doing - at least as far as you described it - stopped working a LONG time ago.
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    BizSellers.com - The #1 place to buy & sell websites!
    We help sellers get the MAXIMUM amount for their websites and all buyers know that these sites are 100% vetted.
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    • Profile picture of the author SEOPadawan
      Hi Dave, so to reiterate, it is not necessarily black hat as it is a bit useless? Is there a way for me to send you our company link and you can run it through a backlink checker? (we don't use programs like AHREFS)
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  • Profile picture of the author salzingale
    Originally Posted by SEOPadawan View Post

    I work for a company that heavily relies on their eCommerce site to make sales. I recently hired an SEO firm who seems to look great on paper (google/yelp reviews). It's been three months of them adding competitive keywords to our meta descriptions and meta titles. Furthermore, they seem to be either creating accounts (ie pinterest) with our company name/info on it, creating a short page on a site like weebly and posting one of our random blogs, or creating accounts on other forums (most are relevant to our industry, but some aren't) and posting once saying stuff like Hey everyone I'm new!

    I asked them if this was Black Hat they continue to assure me it's not- but I am not wholly convinced. Is this against Google's regulations?

    Three months? Has sales increased due to site activity?

    Google wants nothing less than real and verifiable activity. Doing anything else, even similar to black hat, may get some short term gain but could hurt your site going forward.

    What about your current customer base at the site?
    Could they leave comments and make referrals?
    Could they share information about products within your store on social media platforms.

    Your e-commerce site is geared for specific people known as your target audience that provide potential customer's. Are those specific people showing up in your web traffic?

    Nobody is interested in oranges at an apple grower's convention!

    This SEO company that is helping you should not leave you wondering what they are doing.

    They should be showing you the results of their efforts and you should be seeing results in site activity and sales. Three months time is more than sufficient to see effective results, stop wondering and start asking or find someone else to help you.
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    Salvatore Zingale
    http://www.salvatorezingale.com

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  • Profile picture of the author michaelkoehler92
    Well the methods that they are using will surely come under greyhat if not blackhat and these methods wont help in long term run.

    Instead of that they should focus on getting links from real website that are performing well so that it can help your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author calvinmd1
    if you are using a wordpress site , need to install yoast seo plugin which will basically help you optimize your site. but before installing it would recommend you watch some youtubes on how to use it to the best of its ability.and read 1 or 2 articles online to get and understanding on what it and what it does
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  • Profile picture of the author digg how
    No I dont think this is black Hat
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  • Profile picture of the author Mattsaas
    It's not exactly black hat, but it's pretty tacky SEO.

    I'd recommend they find ways to add buying guides to your website, rank them well, and provide value to your customers. This is better for your brand than low quality blog posts on free website makers.
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    MonetizationMethod.com - You don't actually need a tonne of traffic to monetize your blog..
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  • Profile picture of the author gloriascott067
    Hi. how can i do negative SEO. i just want to know some steps. can you tell me.?
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  • Profile picture of the author dvz
    thanks guys this was help
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  • Profile picture of the author imsas
    I don't think this is black hat but at the same time don't think it's very helpful for SEO purposes. They should be focusing on guest posting, reaching out to blogs wihin same niche, etc. Would probably start searching for another SEO firm.
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    GablesFurniture.com
    furniture deals - home decor blog
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  • Profile picture of the author buzzinteractive
    The things you have mentioned basically are not a black hat but if you see any links which are not related to your niche you can say its not related and to transparent things further, you can ask them to maintain the spreadsheets to see the data what they are doing and you can go and check your self.
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