SEO Agency Sabotage?
-
Here's a strange one ...
We have a customer that has done remarkably well with organic SEO for the better part of 8 years. We've made them tons of money with our SEO techniques. About a year ago they started to get calls from a certain SEO firm warning that they were losing landing pages and keywords by the hundreds each month. Revenue continued to rise so they did not think much of it. Either did we.
My customer finally relented and hired them for some limited SEO activites in Jan/Feb of this year - unbeknownst to me. The "other company" assembled some stats to demonstrate the drop in organic rankings, landing pages, keywords, and traffic going back about year. This data was matched to correlate with variuos Google updates and designed to scare the customer.
Long story short and my question - has anyone ever heard of an SEO company sabotaging a potential customer so they would hire them? We ran analysis and turns out our customer actually gained landing pages and keywords while this company was calling on them and claiming impending doom. Turns out, since my customer brought them on, the numbers have gone way south. Now, we look like the incompetent boobs and they will likely "fix something" to look like rock stars.
They claimed that the Penguin update is what killed the site, but the slippage started before Penguin, huh?
It would make sense to call on a prospect for a while, warn of bad stuff about to happen, make something bad happen and then say, "I told you so, hire me".
Has anyone ever hear of this? If so, any particular tactic I should look for?
-
-
Thanks EGOL, I appreciate your kind words.
-
I really like Paul's advice. Deserves more than a "thumbs up".
-
Might be worth bringing this thread to your clients attention, to show them that the tactic the other company used to falsely gain their trust, that it isn't unheard of and is in fact common practice.
Then diagnose the issues, come up with a solid plan and offer to bring their SERPs back up to the point they were, before the new client come along.
Reinforce that for years, you proved yourself again and again and no sooner had this new company come along, their rankings drop.
To be honest, if the client still cannot see the light, walk away knowing you've done all you can. Their fate will be in the hands of the dodgy SEO company.
They'll come crawling back some day, asking for you to fix their mess.
-
As an in-house SEO I've seen a variety of attempts to scare, trick or otherwise confuse our MD into using certain companies. It never ceases to amaze me the depths to which some firms will stoop. I understand the method you speak of is a fairly common tactic amongst IT security businesses, too. Cause a problem yourselves, then become the saviour.
-
It's surprising the lengths some companies go to, or maybe not.
What's your relationship like with the client? Who are they blaming for the drop?
I would offer to get to the bottom of what's going on, find out what the competitor SEO company have been up to (if anything), diagnose the reasons behind the drop and fix them.
-
Yes, we heard that... )-:
You right - Phone calls more often (not just when bad things happened) is a good tactic.
What we do @ Search3w is charging the hard cost money upfront and if the client decides to leave - Nothing can stop him, but we lose no money.
My tactic is to ask the client to share any emails or phone calls he gets that are SEO related directly with me (the CEO) and they trust me to provide them honest reply.
Yes, this is totally true - I told clients several times: Yes, this is a good deal. This company looks reliable, but just one thing - Keep me in the loop (for small retainer fee) to keep eyes on them. It works!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What Keeps In-House SEOs Up @ Night
We are writing a research summary piece on in-house seo strategies. We're not trying to solve the worlds problems - we simply want to know what problems you face and how you try and solve them. We've broken our research into three key areas (training, value, and measurement). We would greatly appreciate your insights, thoughts, and recommendations. We will share our final paper (with sources) when completed. Here are the questions we're asking: How do you train and support your seo team? How do you show SEO value in the wake of Google algo changes including (keyword not provided)? How can SEO show value to other parts of the organization including market research, product managers, channel managers, etc? What should you be measuring and who should reports go to? James Loomstein Digital Space Consulting
Industry News | | Jloomstein0 -
What skills I need for a valuable SEO job
Hello, I want to get a valuable SEO job, something part time - 20 hours a week about, a top notch position - not an entry level $15/hour position. I'm in Boise Idaho. Will you look at my credentials and let me know what additional skills I need to get a good position?: I've been doing SEO since the mid 90s A lot of experience with on-site optimization. One to two years experience with quality content marketing and link building. I regular help write content that is fantastic and use buzzstream and Citation labs to push the content hard. Two years experience writing content that is high quality. six years doing ecommerce seo moderate facebook and twitter experience. I've helped create many facebook pages, and I have moderate experience as to how to best post and optimize on facebook. I've been doing twitter for about a year and have recently learned how to use it to push content or to gain traffic. I know just enough google plus for authorship and building out an account. Lots of experience with keyword research using keyword discovery and Google's tools. A lot of web design experience, mainly html, css, a little javascript and a little php I know my way around Adwords, and I've done about 10 large campaigns. My PCC experience is lacking I know good writing and grammar skills for writing and developing content. Graphical experience with photoshop, fireworks, Adobe Illustrator, of course also excel and word. 6 years of ecommerce customer service experience A couple years of using Open Site Explorer including competitive analysis and link building I may have left some things out. But that's most of it. What areas do I need to master more to get a great SEO job?
Industry News | | BobGW0 -
What would an SEO be paid with these skills?
Hello, What would an SEO with these skills be paid (per hour in a larger company in a lower income state): 9 years in the field of SEO
Industry News | | BobGW
Beginning and moderate link building skills
Excellent on-site optimization skills
Moderate Google Analytic skills
Complete HTML skills
Good to advanced CSS
Some PHP
5 years experience as a small business web designer
6 years experience working with eCommerce SEO
beginning to somewhat moderate Social media skills
beginning to moderate PPC, mainly Adwords
A foundation for local SEO
All the platforms that go with the above, like Wordpress, MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, etc. etc.0 -
Has anyone been to SMX or any other SEO Conference?
Hello All, I have been given the opportunity to go to several conferences. But like most SEO guys, I have a tone of work, and need to use my time sparingly. The one conference that has peaked my interest is SMX. I was wondering if anyone has been to SMX before and if they recommend it. Also if anyone has any other conferences they would recommend, preferrably on the east coast, that would be interesting please let me know. Any answers are appreciated. Thank you.
Industry News | | Asher1 -
SEO-contests like “hochgeschwindigkeitsSEO” worldwide?
In Germany people out of the SEO industry seem to love SEO contests - the latest one being to bring up the keyword “hochgeschwindigkeitsSEO” on Pos. 1 on Google until a set time (contest entry example here). There obviously is a price (newest iPhone) and a sponsor (Randolf Jorberg), but for the most part it's a contest which holds the Olympic thought: Being there just means most of it 🙂 So I was wondering: are there any other countries where such contests are being held? I have not heard of any examples and I am quite curious if any other SEO communites out there have something similar going on 🙂
Industry News | | blueSummit1 -
How to handle spam SEO companies soliciting your clients?
My clients keep getting spam email or messages in the contact form, about how they could be ranking better, they're not hitting keywords they should be, etc. Typical scare tactics trying to solicit new clients. How do you deal with this?
Industry News | | CFSSEO0 -
Is using Turkish characters like ş, ğ , ü in the URLs better for SEO?
My web site is Turkish. And my keyword is "yurtdışı üniversite" I want to know, using Turkish characters like ş, ğ , ü in my URLs better for SEO? http://www.studyzone.com.tr/haber-detay/2011/06/21/yurtdışı-üniversite-kayıtları-için-acele-edin! OR http://www.studyzone.com.tr/haber-detay/2011/06/21/yurtdisi-universite-kayitlari-icin-acele-edin!
Industry News | | apesteli0 -
New business acquisition for digital agencies from SEO and CRO
I have a nice simple question to ask all you mozzers out there, specifically if you work for a web design/digital agency. Does your agency get any new business clients through your SEO and CRO efforts? I'm asking this to try and build up a qualitative data set. I am responsible for all SEO and CRO at our agency for all clients along with our own website. Having increased traffic by over 200% in the last 12 months, and obtaining page one of Google for all our targeted keywords, we are still without any new business or ROI. We are fortunate enough to get a lot of great clients via word of mouth, a great sales team and client retention, I'd really like to know what the bigger picture is here? If I get enough data back, I'll make it into my first Youmoz post and share all the data with everyone :¬) I've now added a survey so you answer anonymously: There are only 5 questions in all, your time is greatly appreciated. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/New_business_acquisitions_for_digital_agencies Any feedback gladly welcomed. Regards Sean
Industry News | | Yozzer0