SEO tactics that can ruin your business reputation

You’ve probably received dozens of emails offering SEO services for your business website. Part of the ‘get you on first page of google’ spiel involves offering different Search Engine Optimization tactics,  intended to get links to your site from other sites.

While there are many ways to build links to your website so that your site benefits from improved search engine rankings; this post describes how some underhand SEO tactics can backfire on your business.

Many businesses end up paying for SEO services that engage in sleazy spammy black hat link building tactics, unaware of the damage to their reputation.

Here is one such story;

We’ve been working hard to preserve  and improve on the ranking, for one of my client’s site. Spam comments, along with a link to the site that the spammer is promoting, can adversely affect the ranking of good sites. So it is always annoying to find spam comments and trackback spam on web properties that we oversee.

What particularly annoyed us was that the multiple spammy track back links led us to a SEO services company that, ironically, advertised themselves as an ‘ethical SEO services company’.

I tweeted;

After a while they came back with;

and

Did not make much sense, but they were apologetic and everyone deserves a chance

They came back again after about a month.

It took me a while due to other priorities, but  I did delete my tweet.  I hope lessons were learnt.

Moral of the story: Your SEO service company could be ruining your business reputation. Just because a company claims to be using white hat SEO techniques, does not mean that they are. Be careful of who you sign up with.

Written by Jacob Varghese (13 Posts)

I help my clients with digital strategies that grow their business. My digital marketing campaigns leverage appropriate technology choices, targeted communication methodologies and metrics driven marketing tactics (SEO, SEM, Social media outreach etc) to amplify brand/product messages, build brand/product-centric communities, establish partner relations and accelerate customer acquisition. For more visit: Digital Marketing Consultant, Ottawa, Canada.