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SEO - Dirty trickery or 'just business'?

by Joe Dalton
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey,

Last week I got an e-mail from one of my info product customers asking "why the hell" her site isn't getting any traffic from the SERP's.

She said she'd followed all the usual basic advice i.e. put the correct keywords in the title, used the h1 and h2 tags appropriately and written decent content. The very basics

After working out a small fee to do some basic SEO work for her site she said that I was ripping her off and her web design company had offered to sort it out in 1 hour for £25.

I had a look at the site to see how they could fix the problem within the hour and found:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">

Does anyone else think this is a bit harsh on the unsuspecting website owner here? I actually emailed them stating my opinion that it was "out of order", and they've got angry with me - I'm now kinda wishing I never got involved.

#business #dirty #seo #trickery
  • Profile picture of the author edgray
    I don't understand - had her web design company placed the "NoIndex" attribute in her META tags?
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    • Profile picture of the author McBrett
      Joe - I've had a few clients like this in a the past as well. From my experience, try to avoid them like you'd avoid the plague. Not only will they consume a ton of your time, but they don't result in references and are ungrateful for the work you've done with their site.

      It sounds like you've genuinely tried to help this client. Dirty trickery or "just business"? Who cares.
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by edgray View Post

      I don't understand - had her web design company placed the "NoIndex" attribute in her META tags?
      I often do this for test sites so that Google won't accidentally index a work in progress for a client on one of my development domains. However, the web designer should have removed it when the site went live.
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  • Profile picture of the author css
    Let me guess, hum, Word Press?
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  • Profile picture of the author mrozlat
    could be an honest mistake...?
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    well, it might be a good idea to email this person back and let her know that the root of all of her problems was the design company itself and explain in detail what the meta tag means and does and that they, as the design company, are the only ones who could have added it in the first place... ie, shady tactics and a method to squeeze some more money out of her.

    of course, I have very little sympathy for people like this. if someone doesn't understand the basics then they need to get out of the internet biz.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      And is she guaranteed traffic and high SERPs now?
      Even with that tag, you get traffic.
      And removing it is not going to work miracles.
      If only it were that easy.
      Search engines do not work the way we wish all the time.
      They may index it or not, regardless.
      If it's on the web, it's on the web.

      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author ShanghaiTours
    Joe, cheer up. I once worked in a service company and met all kinds of difficult clients, even more harsh than this one. There was one site ranking in the first 3 pages for all of its keywords, most of them on ist page. However there still were not so many sales, and the site owner jsut blamed us like crazy. The fact is, for the crappy products the site provides, I admire those who even place an order.
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