Help: Should I fire my web company

I hired a company to do my web design about 4 years ago. They have always done AWESOME with seo.

Last year, we got sideways: I asked them for a quote to put a simple popup on my site for folks to sign up for a free trial. Out of the blue, I got a $400 bill. When I called to ask what for, I was told it was for "research" into what an exit pop was and how to make one. I didnt feel I should pay for someone to learn what a popup is, especially when I had asked the price to make one up front and was never given it and never gave a "goahead" on the project.

Since then I bought a software to make a slide in, and used popup domination for exit pops. Of course the company wont give me access to my site so I made it and sent the code and pay them $60/ hour to install it. It worked great for a while.

The past few months my leads have tanked. It never occurred to me to check the site b/c they have always done phenomenal keeping me at #1 for all words and cities. I did do a check and to my horror I am non existent in almost all key words. Some I am still #1, others I do not exist at all like I used to for the past 3-4 years. It made me feel sick.

I emailed and they told me that google was banning me b/c of my popups, that consumers were probably reporting my site as spam and it's basically my fault b/c my site isnt user friendly. I disagree on this: people come to my site looking for fitness and a popup offers a diet ebook, dvd and free trail, just as many in my marketing group do, without problem.

I am skeptical: why would google ban me for certain words and not others. I read online you can do a test to see if google is penalizing you where you compare your days organic searches and it should be 0% change. I did that and it was evident (if that test is correct) google is not penalizing me. I feel it's just their messup and they dont know what they are doing. We had a conversation up front on the exit pop bc he thought i wanted an exit pop that when people clicked out of the page a new page opened...he told me this was a black hate deal. I told him that was not what I was looking for and explained I wanted an exit pop that pops when someone scrolls the mouse off the page, but that wont prevent them in any way from leaving or open new windows. It's a standard popup that many sites and folks I know use. He told me that was not black hat and made it, now he's telling me google is penalizing me for it. I think maybe he did something wrong installing it. He is clueless as to what an exit pop is. I am continually having to explain it.

I am really concerned they are incompetent, especially since a single page sales letter I made myself on wordpress with entry and exit pops is outranking them for certain words


What do you think?

Will google tank you for certain key words and not others?

How can I tell if googles penalizing me or if they just dropped the ball?

Thanks in advance

 

I read up till the company charged you $400 for a exit pop up...

If they do not know how it is done, they should not call themselves a web company, and a company should NEVER charge you for doing "research" on how something is done.

 

You do know that there was a major algorithm update few months ago, and many sites tanked, many blog networks were wiped and people lost rankings?

Actually, does the company you work with know this? Ask them, and see what they answer. It is a best shot to try and fix the things together with the company that has well served you, and if that doesn't work you can think about finding alternatives.

You might also hire few other companies just to perform a seo analysis and see what flaws these new companies can find, see if the current company is aware of any of these new algorithmic changes and if they do try to get a plan from them how they intend to get this resolved. And if they have no clue.. well, you know what to do.

 

If company taking charges for R & D. they are not professional company . They should quote you all charges before the start work.

 

Poor performance of your web company. In first place you should have full control over your hosting account - it's YOURS not the company's!
Change your hosting provider as fast as possible. Change "whatever company" you are talking about. With a decent, full controlled hosting account and a serious SEO company this should not happen.

 

I am looking to change companies now. I paid in full every year for the past 3-4 years for hosting and seo (combined). As per their last email they basically said it was my fault the site tanked b/c i have a popup and said they may not be the right company for me (they do not believe in popups and dont know what they are). So in light of his remark I said "you are right please refund me"

I am likely going to build the site myself with wordpress and instabuilder or optimize press and hire someone for seo

any suggestions for wp themes, seo, etc are greatly appreciated

and yes they charged me for R & D. Early on I asked them to put a twitter box and they charged me for R & D on "how to do that" as well. They seem to take offense that I dont feel I should pay for any of it at all


I am equally aware of the new google updates and I think that is the real problem.

 

Pls help I just got a msg that they are going ot shut down my site b/c I asked for a refund. They said they will give me the file.
It's hosted on their server. Does it need to be "shut down" or can it just be transferred to mine and stay live? What should I do quick to make sure this stays right?

 

Do you control the domain?
Do you have other hosting?

 

I have read through your messages and I would say that by all means get away from that company. They should give you copies of your files that you could transfer to another web host. If they won't give you the files, it would take a lawyer to tell you what to do. You should be in control of your site.

Popups have not been really popular for some time. People are upset when a popup comes up that interrupts what they are doing. They really should have explained that to you to begin with. Instead they charged you $400 for research!

 

I do have control of the domain and hosting. I'm going to start building a wordpress site on a subdomain.

They did say they do not agree with popups but I took that with a grain of salt b/c they didnt even know what it was or how to build one. They confused "white hat" popups with "black hat" stuff and I had to explain everything. I know some are not a fan of popups but my single page site with 2 popups offering free stuff has hundreds of times the conversion.

Some folks dont like popups, but people come to my site looking for a service. I dont think offering a free trial, DVD and Ebook would offend them unless they didnt really want my services in teh first place...

 

I GAYS I HAVE TWO YEAR EX PRINCE IN SEO & WEB DESIGNING I NEED FREELANCER JOB ....MORE DETAIL CONTECT ME ON EMAIL :-

 

the first think i woiuld Do is "take a full backup" of my hosting accunt and download it on my hard drive or at a safer offsite onlline backup provider.
then i would find a web host (Not just another shared host but the one who actually cares, not always big companies but small folks with personal support) and move my site ASAP from THEIR servers. Nothing worst you can expect from a pissed firm who have full control of your website.

Then i would try to look for any backdoors inside my site placed by them (Designers do that all the time) ,can be a user account or something of that sort.

next once i have everything under my hand i will try building the site in a test subdomain and once satisfied move to real home.

Nothing is wrong with popups if its good and informative, not scammy. All over the people does it.

 

I can't imagine being in your position with these knuckleheads holding your site hostage. Go to the site in my signature and give me a call. We can help you with the site and getting ranked again. Call the number on the site and we can go from there. This is just amazing how these types of people are in business at all! WOW!

 

It sounds like they have no idea what they are doing. Find another host quickly !

 

That's pathetic. Your web company seems to be a cheapo! They should satisfy clients rather than threatening them. Get a new one and write negative reviews for their unprofessional attitude. As far as the hosting is concerned, You can have a full backup and store it in your local drive until you get a new hosting provider.

In case you need a complete package like hosting, design or SEO, i can recommend hostingshouse.com. They offer sound quality services and the customer relationship officers are really cooperative. Not like your web design company who responded such an arrogant way!

Wish you luck and let me know how your experience goes with hostingshouse.

 

The web company is just using you for money, you really paying too much.
About website : check on home page and other pages if you have used any nofollows.
Go to google check for site:www.yoursite.co, then if it showing results from your site it means your site not penalized.if you site is penalized then google will stop indexing that and check if you doing any 302 redirect.
if you need any kind of free SEO help PM me.
Good Luck