One of the consequences of Google's latest enforcement actions is not only millions of penalized websites, but also a similar number of opportunities for lower skilled seos who claim to have penalty unwind skills.
I have been reporting on this issue since the enforcement actions began earlier this year and recently spoke with penalty expert Bob Sakayama. He told me a story that is both compelling and appalling. It regards website owners who, once penalized by Google, become vulnerable to sales pitches from seo agencies with no real penalty experience. I was made privy to documents that reveal a stunning lack of knowledge, and an agenda more focused on extracting fees than providing help.
Geary LSF Interactive is claiming to be a full service seo agency with penalty expertise. They currently have no seo related natural ranks of value, and none related to penalties. The story involves a client who was not only penalized, but hacked and left for dead with a technically broken website.
Geary lsfinteractive correctly identified a hacking problem and other infrastructure issues prior to engagement with the client, but did not address these issues after over 2 weeks. Lack of attention to structural issues on a penalized site is like leaving a sick patient without care. For a business it can be a death sentence, because commerce is usually at a standstill until the penalty is unwound. Prompt attention to hacks, malware injections, and implementation problems is key to recovery, because these types of problems can actually be the trigger for the original penalty.
Instead, the initial work during the first week of the engagement involved a continuing sales pitch from Geary LSF Interactive's Chris Johnson for link building (big no no on a penalized site!!!) and then a pitch for the optimization of a secondary, inconsequential site. Basically, a sales effort, not penalty handling.
Bob's firm was brought in by the client to take over the penalty remediation process once it was clear that the primary harm was not being addressed, and that lsfinteractive had done literally nothing to remediate any of the issues. TNG/E corrected the technical problems within the first 3 days of engagement, and fired LSF Interactive after realizing how grossly they had oversold their capabilities.
The responsible parties from gearylsf.com and lsfinteractive.com are
Christopher Johnson, senior SEO manager
Jenna Allison, project manager
Dan Summers, SEO
Fumi Matsubara, sales exec
The take-away from this story is: Don't rely on retail seo agencies to unwind your Google penalty. You may end up poorer and still suppressed in the search.
Jance Opty reports on search topics and white collar crime.