WARNING!!! Beware of a drop in ranks prior to being contacted about seo services.

Xtreme

New Member
I was on a SEO forum today and read a post there that has me concerned for everyone and it also gives SEO companies bad names.

Here is the basics of what he is doing to blackmail/extort fees from his potential clients.

A little knowledge first, a 301 redirect is a permanent way to tell the search engines that a page has moved to a new url. For instance, if you have a html site you will have pages like http://mydomain.com/roofcleaning.html and if you switch over to Wordpress or any other CMS that uses php language, your page will look like http://mydomain.com/roof_cleaning/

Well you use the 301 to tell the search engines and any links that you have out there where the new page is automatically redirecting the user and bots to the new page.

I don't know if you have heard about negative SEO but that is basically doing things in the link building process that will intentionally hurt the rankings of a site. It is there and it does work but is highly unethical and I would do more than sue someone that I caught doing that to my sites.

Well because this guy is apparently not very good at SEO, he creates a 301 redirect from one of his sites and spams the hell out of it, redirecting those links to your site causing it to drop in the rankings.

Then after a period of time he contacts the company asking if they need his seo services. Where he then removes the 301 redirect and as time goes by your site climbs again.

Just a fair warning, if your sites drop and then you are contacted by a SEO company, beware. I will attempt to help anyone that finds themselves in a situation like this to see if a 301 redirect is involved.
 

WoodDocJax

New Member
That's downright evil. I can't publicly say what I would do to anyone caught sabotaging my business in such a manner, but I would certainly take things into my own hands. That's not a game at all.
 

Xtreme

New Member
Jake, blanket statements like that really tend to piss me off. Pressure washing has some bad apples in the barrel also, but I would never lump everyone together in a blanket statement like that. You can say the same thing about most industries and it simply is not true. I would not be warning you if it was and I certainly would not offer free help to determine why the rankings dropped.
 

archie_MN

Moderator
I apologize Pat, no offense intended. I come by my statements with years of very good second-hand knowledge (family members and several friends in the field). From the popularity of "paid for" rankings in the 90's to the bots and hit generators of the early 2000's to the misinformation that floated around about the Panda update last year, I've listened to the complaints about all of them. I am suggesting that an industry with ever changing guidelines, very little regulation, and even less prosecution is always going to be a target for predators.
Again, in no way did I mean to characterize you in that way. I do appreciate all the helpful info you share with us here.

...Can I take my foot out of my mouth now?
 

Doug Rucker

PWN ADMIN TEAM -
Staff member
I apologize Pat, no offense intended. I come by my statements with years of very good second-hand knowledge (family members and several friends in the field). From the popularity of "paid for" rankings in the 90's to the bots and hit generators of the early 2000's to the misinformation that floated around about the Panda update last year, I've listened to the complaints about all of them. I am suggesting that an industry with ever changing guidelines, very little regulation, and even less prosecution is always going to be a target for predators.
Again, in no way did I mean to characterize you in that way. I do appreciate all the helpful info you share with us here.

...Can I take my foot out of my mouth now?

I think you just did...lol...take it from me Pat is stand up..I have been using his services for geez, couple years now is it Pat??? He is passionate about what he does and ethical to the utmost of highest standards
 

Xtreme

New Member
I know that you did not but other readers can take it that way. I do the same thing in any industry. Logging, oil, farming etc. There are good and bad in every industry. It is just sometimes hard to weed out the bad ones and the ones like I posted about give the entire industry a bad name. This is partially because they are the only ones you seem to hear about.

Yes Doug it has been about 2 years now.
 

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