The Other Search Engines

**irondoll** · 11-14-2004, 10:39 AM

Greetings, I recently hired a SEO firm to optimize one of my sites and they had me chang some keywords but two things I don't understand maybe you can help answer.

1. why did they need my user name and password to my server if I was uploading all of the changes? They had me add different meta tags and ad keywords and I uploaded to my server so what did they do that THEY would need to access my server?

2. How did they get my site listed and move up the Serach Engines pages with in a week? I have been submitting for years and have not seen this fast of a move up the pages.

3.What voodoo did they do?

**Anacrusis** · 11-14-2004, 12:06 PM

Any answers you recive here would only be speculation, your better off asking these questions to the SEO firm that you worked with. Once you receive answers from them, you can come back here to see if the answers you got are valid and make sense.

**irondoll** · 11-17-2004, 12:04 PM

Thank you Anacrusis for your response. Speculation is at the very heart of an intellectual conversation which is all that I was hoping for.

Generally when asking questions to the SEO I get a response that indicates they do not want to "reveal" their magic tricks. I suppose this might be out of fear of losing business. Logically, why would they tell me their trade secrets, it would be a form of sabotage success on their part. Anyway, they are tight liped with my previous questions so I quit asking.

Feel free to speculate. I enjoy learning things from many points of view. Taking bits and pieces of articles on SEO amd Web authoring combined with people with "real life" experience is so very beneficial.

Is it speculative for the SEO to need access to the server if I am the designated person making changes to Meta tags, keywords and ftp?

**Jamesanderson** · 11-17-2004, 05:04 PM

Any SEO who will not share what it is they are doing to give results is is in my opinion not providing an ethical service. As a client you have a right to know what techniques are being used. If an SEO company will not explain what they are doing it may be because they are using black hat techniques or other methods that the owner would not be happy with.

I would have to disagree with you that they are just trying to protect themselves. You have a right to know what is going on with your own website. The best ways of getting a site to perform well in the SERP’s are well known by the majority of SEO Consultants so if they are protecting themselves you have to ask yourself why?

Also if the site in question is the one in your sig I would not be happy with the spam contained on the bottom, it’s classed as keyword stuffing and could get you penalised.

You need to ask the company again what they are doing and be a bit more forceful.

**puretalk** · 11-18-2004, 05:07 AM

I am only interested about the cost you paid and results you get after optimized.

**Jamesanderson** · 11-18-2004, 08:21 AM

Please don’t view my post as scare mongering (because after reading it that’s what it sounded like).
Anacrusis is completely right and the views and opinions of my above post are exactly that views and opinions of a situation that I do not have enough information on to give a proper diagnoses.

Also puretalk comes up with a valid point, if your site is ranking well under the keywords you wanted it to perform on then they are optimising the site. However if the company is using black hat techniques you may only be ranking well for short period of time. But there again the company may be using completely ethical techniques, thus giving no risk of receiving penalties.

More importantly are they offering any kind of guarantee (not results but the work carried out), do you have a service level agreement. If your site is penalised and dropped from the index can you claim any damages. Do you have a contract that stipulates this?

These are all good questions that should be answered before using any company to conduct an SEO campaign.

Also I think you are right to be wondering why they have taken FTP if your the one implementing the changes. Changing Meta tags will not optimise a site alone and accounts for the slightest amount of weight, they have to be using another method if you have noticed any improvements.

Most of the major search engines use link analysis to configure the order of results which is not a big secret. In order for most sites to rank well they will need a varying amount of backlinks. Have the company added a resources page to your site where you can find links pointing to other websites. If so than this may be why they have taken the FTP, but they still may be using other techniques as well.

I would not feel comfortable using a company that will not disclose the techniques being implemented on my own website. The company I work for as an SEO Consultant actively encourages our clients to get involved. This is because if SEO is to be performed well it needs a large amount of research and work, work that needs to be done by both the owner and the SEO Company.

As I said at the top of this post the views and opinions here are just speculation and while some of them can be applied to any situation, they cannot offer any closure to the situation you are in. If you post the URL of the site and say what search phrases you are doing well on, I can tell you how it is being acheived.

**irondoll** · 11-18-2004, 02:03 PM

Thanks for your input and you bring so many good points to the discussion. I clearly understand any apprehension and caution while posting. Furthermore, I do not take anything that is said as a "black and white" answer. I know that there is not enough information to truely resolve this and I am not looking for the ultimate resloution. Simply reaching out to likeminded/business people (webprenuers) to acquire ANY information is my goal. So thank you for contemplating the situation.

Due to my own personal ingnorance, schedule/time constraints, courage (or lack therof), I probably do not have a clear understanding of what would be a good quesion during the SEO process. They are professionals talking to a non professional and talk down to me or over my head. It is rather uncomfortable and I don't have the time for it frankly.

The SEO worked on a different site then the one that is my link. The linked site on my signature was optimized by a different company that I no longer work with. Glad you mentioned the issue about being penalized relating to the spam text. Showing my ignorance and trust.

With my other site, I do have a contract one which I can cancel at any time.

Interesting points in your post...

What is the difference between backlinks and linkexchange?
What is considered "black hat" optimizing techniques?

Nice to talk to you, thank you for the discussion.

**Jamesanderson** · 11-18-2004, 04:26 PM

A backlink is a link pointing to any page from within your site or another site (backward link)

A link exchange is the exchange of a link between two sites creating a backlink for each.

What constitutes as black-hat SEO? Depending on who you speak to you will get differing responses, so I will just give you a couple of links to help you decide for yourself.

The first is Google's info for webmasters looking for SEO

http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/seo.html

And this one is a White Paper : The Classification of Search Engine Spam

http://www.ebrandmanagement.com/whit...lassification/

Hope this helps.

**irondoll** · 11-19-2004, 05:45 PM

jamesanderson, I love how diplomatic AND helpful you are. I appreciate your links and discussion, I learn so much in this forum. You all are helping take some of the mystery out of optimization. Thanks.

**DevelopedWeb** · 12-04-2004, 04:34 PM

As puretalk said, I'm interested in finding out who your SEO firm is. You mentioned that you noticed changes quickly--how quickly, and what kind of changes?