Matt, Does the good guys still stand a chance? We’re a small company that hired an SEO firm that we thought was legit, but destroyed our rankings w/ spam backlinks. We’ve tried everything but nothing helps. What can a company with good intentions do?
Daniel, Miami, FL
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Why does Google allow companies that do spammy SEO to advertise on adwords? I hired a company from Google Adwords that had got me blacklisted. As an amateur and new company I jumped through every hoop to make Google happy. My one mistake was to hire a company that Google is allowing to advertise for SEO. Now they are even marking my email as spam and I have never sent an once of spam through my email. Google hates small business and there appears to be no way to repair the damage from a company Google is allowing to promote their techniques through them. I have disavowed links, and asked them to be removed. But now Google even thinks my email as spam. It has gotten worse not better despite everything I have done to clean it up. My own email which is in my contact list goes to the junk folder. BTW my content is great and relative.
I believe in great content, white hat only SEO, and that's the only method I will ever take. I will not sell out to the black hat, spammy crap that's still quite prevalent. But that's just the problem: It's still quite prevalent. And the reason I know it's quite prevalent is because it's easy to find in search. There are competing websites that rank higher, and doing a quick search with various tools (like Open Site Explorer) shows me just how black hat and spammy they are. So while I want to believe the window is getting smaller and smaller, I'm really surprised to hear Matt say it's getting really small, because it's still so easy to find (even on page one of search).
My advice to Daniel would almost certainly be to start over. Fresh site, fresh server new content, fresh approach. Take your SEO in house and do PPC in the meantime.
Can I still utilize SEO, even though I'm using a website builder? Like Weebly
It's pretty easy to tell when you look at the actual page your getting your link from. Are there anchors that are keyword heavy, are there more than fifty links. Stay away then
Il faut produire du contenu utile pour les utilisateurs. L'experience utilisateur avec des textes répondant aux attentes des internautes reste la solution. #contentmarketing #UX
Matt states there is a chance. But he did not state they had a good chance. You need links from trusted and authority sites. But these sites will protect their brand first, well before linking to a new site or a small business. If you do something good as a small business, they will copy it rather than link out to you. They will put their interests first. Its called business. Just as Google will put their interests first.
"What"! May 2013? Really?
How condescending. The questioner clearly stated that they were hoodwinked, and you want to berate them? What is your problem?
I'm disappointed in Matt here. The questioner made it clear that he or she thought a good SEO firm was hired but found out later that they were not "legit" and he responds by mocking them for spamming.
What a crock. Shame on Matt Cutts for laughing at a company who was victimized.
Dear Daniel,
If you are doing SEO you aren't a good guy. The key to be a good guy is to not make SEO.
To me Matt Cutts does not sound very convincing with his answer. He thinks the good guys might stand a chance! might? In other words if someone cheats in a game of poker then unless they get caught then its almost impossible to win! Why would people not cheat when they can make 1000s and 1000s of dollars by cheating? If someone was totally convinced that good seo does stand a chance wouldn't they have answered the question by saying the bad guys stand almost no chance. I think this video will convince people that they might as well use black hat seo. Maybe im wrong.
Could you please (Google) make next videos with subtitles in English? There are lots of people who don't know English so well to understand everything you say Matt. I mean those ones, like me, who are from different countries like Italy.
Matt,
I think you really missed the point here. I'd ask the question why the small business owner felt the need to try to get help. As another small business owner, I'll tell you why. We want to focus on our businesses. But the world has changed and often our businesses rely upon being found on searches to be successful. Unfortunately for us, we don't have expertise in all the ins and outs of how to rank well and we don't have a lot of resources to spend on getting help.
You say in your answer something like "you spammed and got caught". The questioner says he thought the SEO was legit. Obviously he chose wrong, but he found the problem and is trying to correct it. You act on one hand like the simple act of asking for help is a sin, but you have made your algorithm so complex that it is hard to avoid running afoul of your rules without expertise. Even worse, you have, with site-wide algorithms, made the penalties especially harsh if you do make a mistake.
For example, if you are a small business, it might seem like a good idea to use wordpress. If you do, though, without knowing that it creates many forms of duplicate content (tags, categories, blog summaries, etc.), you break a rule. You might offer pages in PDF download format for user convenience. Again, duplicate content. You might get put on someone's sitewide blogroll. You might have a store that lists lots of similar products (i.e. blue shirt vs red shirt with everything else identical). Or you might have good content that gets harvested and end up with 7000 inbound links from a site you never heard of. Of course, none of these things could really be an issue, but that's the point. As a small business owner, it is confusing to try to get found online, and even more difficult to figure out what to do about problems.
The mantra is 'good content', but it is easy to do things that are good for the user but bad for Google's algorithm. Like the questioner, I am at a loss. I've seen traffic slip by 70% from Google over 18 months despite adding loads of new, unique, well-regarded content. Pages that once ranked on your front page have slipped off completely, despite still ranking well on other engines (with growing referrals there). I've never paid for a link. Never hired a SEO. Never did anything that would be 'black hat' (hidden text, etc.) Never sold links from my site. I've tried a lot to get back in your good graces, but no luck.
So, I'll rephrase the question to you in a different way that might actually be more relevant to a greater number of small business owners.
"Do you see your algorithm complexity as providing a competitive advantage to bigger companies with the resources to stay on top of your changes?"
Regards,
Jeff Hajek
http://www.velaction.com
Maybe a silly question but , what exactly is a "certified google partner" ? I get dozens to hundreds of these calls a month from people claiming to be "insiders" and wanting to give my business the hook up.Seems they're more interested in getting a hand or two into my pocket than really doing my site any good.
Hi, It's Daniel from Miami, FL. I'm so honored that Matt chose my question as one of his topics. Now I know Matt is really reading submitted questions!
Crochet Geek hit the nail on the head. We felt more like the victim, whereas we were very naive and knew nothing about SEO. I was busy running the daily routine of my business and trusting that when you hire a company to do the job, it is being done the correct way.
It has become 'Good vs. Evil' type scenario it seems.
The downside is, I believe our site is better than many other sites out there because of our niche. So in essence, I feel Google is not returning 'the best result'.
I understand what Google is trying to accomplish by removing spammy links which is great, but in defense for companies like ours, that were taken advantage of by a SEO company, there is a different point of view. We have spent a lot of money and time trying to clean up the mess that was made and taking responsibility, so hopefully in the end it will be worth it. Thanks Matt, I still love ya even though you painted me out to be the bad guy! 🙂
Respuesta corta: No hagas spam
Here's how I see it… You break the law, and your punishment is community service. After a month or two of community service, you ask the judge if you've paid for your crime. The judge says no, do more service. So you continue. Months later, you ask again and the answer is still no. The judge has exacting specifications for the service he wants you to perform. The judge gives you a few hints, but will not specify exactly what he wants. Nor will the judge give you a timeframe. Eventually the judge simply stops giving you examples and just says no… A situation like this would be unjust and wrong. But if you think about it, it's exactly the way Google treats sites under penalty.
If Google's goal is to stop the spam, they need to reveal the bad links. If they do this, we will gladly reach out and do whatever it takes to get the links removed. We will put incredible effort into fixing the sins of the past… So Google, put us on probation. Watch us like a hawk. But don't hide the bad links and expect us to poke around in the dark endlessly searching for links we can't find. Work WITH us to clean up the spam, not AGAINST us.
Can sites do well without using spammy techniques?
Yes ! even i say if we use spammy techniques that can be case of Google penalty and you will have to wait a long time to get your rank back for your website keywords.
The spammers are back and winning in AU anyway. The technique they seem to be employing is "blog" posts with fake authors a vanilla link at the top of an article and a single exact match somewhere in the middle. I wrote an article about it last week showing some specific examples. The other issue with building backlinks is that it doesn't get the client thinking about growing their presence and brand through creating great content. The good guys can win but seems to depend on the category you're playing in. If you are up against the cutting edge spammers it's a lot harder.
Thanks (:
The guy claimed being "good guys" outside of Google. His question clearly stated a company with good intentions. He never said "Good Google Guy". Then matt cutts laughed at him saying how can you be one of the good guys? This concludes: If you do something that Google loves, you are a good guy. This also concludes: If you are my BF who is also an social worker sitting next to me, you are bad because you do not contribute to "Google growth". We would like the faces of Google like Matt and Muller to be specific and guide us, not be judgmental and if they really want to judge people, make some sense. We come here to learn, not to feed ourselves with poor judgements.
Can sites do well without using spammy techniques?
By Matt Cutts
He has dodged the question. A small company with say a 100K turnover simply does not have the resources to take on the big directories that may be spending 100k+ a year to get up high on the organic rankings. So even though they want to be high in the rankings for a small local area they never will because the directory sites will always dominate the high spots forcing the small (Good) guy to advertise with the directory site. So in frustration they try to compete and because they don't have the resources quite often they fall foul of SEO offers just out of pure desperation.
Is it me alone that heard that Matt is saying they are going to do some major updates by the end of this summer???
Good simple advice that I'm sure we all know. But if links are a major factor then people will always try to get more of them…
a 20.000 backlinks spam site of 1 page has always a better position than an 100 pages site with good content but with few backlinks. Why?
Maybe Google should release a brand new seal for SEO companies same way it does for Google partners Adwords Analytics… I know this is against their interest as they don't earn money with SEO but could benefit to users as well !
Hi Matt, why the hell crap websites are always on first google page? I talk about website that are entirely made with google translator, just to spam? Are they what google consider a "quality website"?
I agree with Matt. Hard work and making your webpage interesting and useful gives sustainable results. It is slow but durable.