We hate to admit it, but, unfortunately, some SEO companies are less-than-ethical, just like in any other industry. Of course, when an SEO company starts taking unethical steps to optimize your website, you could end up with an unnatural links penalty from Google. If this has happened to you, you need to act quickly to help your site recover.
Here’s a quick to-do list for fixing your site:
- Look at the Google Webmaster tools for your website and find the links Google has registered as pointing to your site. Export these links to a spreadsheet.
- Examine every link in your spreadsheet to find which links are spammy. A good rule of thumb here is that if the link doesn’t add value to the site it’s on, it’s probably spammy.
- Contact the webmaster of the sites with spammy links, tell them your situation and ask them to remove the bad link.
- If the webmaster does not respond or refuses to remove the link, use the Disavow Links Tool.
- File a reconsideration request with Google. Be as thorough as possible in explaining what happened and what you’ve done to fix it.
- Pray. These requests take some time to improve your sites visibility, and there’s no promise that the penalty will be lifted.
As difficult as it may be, we hope you don’t write off all SEO companies because of your bad experience. In our next post, we’re going to give you tips for picking a new agency after your last one cheated you.
At Fahrenheit Marketing, we pride ourselves on only using Google-approved tactics to improve our clients’ websites. Contact us today for a free consultation.