I beleive my clients SEO "Expert" is telling him lies about my work. Can you verify?

programmer89 Peon

Messages:: 1

Likes Received:: 0

Best Answers:: 0

Trophy Points:: 0

#1

For privacy reasons I WILL NOT disclose any names, company names, or personal information in this message -

So basically I am rebuilding a website. My client's old SEO Expert also built his website & because it was not great looking last time he choose to go with me to design it this time. The old website was built purely in HTML and very old school (No CSS, and he was only using tables, etc.). I have designed the new website in PHP with an admin panel to do updates VIA CMS, all of the newest techniques, etc.

He is trying to say that PHP, CSS and other things I have done are all bad for SEO. I believe he can only build HTML strict websites and has not learned any other way to do it therefore he is trying to say all other methods are bad for SEO. It is clear to me that his old web guy is trying to make me look bad so he can get back his client or something. (Or maybe he honestly just has no clue what he is talking about...) But I just need some verification that the below statement is rubbish. I know it is A LOT but even after reading the first paragraph it should be enough for you to come to a verdict on if this guy knows what he is talking about. Some of the below paragraphs won't make full sense as there has been a lot of back and forth between myself and my client. Basically all I need to know is if he knows what he is talking about or not.

Hi,

As your friend and webmaster of 9 years, I must be totally blunt and direct to the point here...I would hope that you would expect nothing less...as I have have always held your best interests at heart...

One of the things that I originally told you which was absolutely critical is not to have your website redesigned in php which now (NAME) at (COMPANY NAME) says it is. You told me it wasn't. The reason is, php coding can be problematic with the search bots or spiders as they sometimes cannot parse the coding properly. I am not saying that it occurs all the time but it can be a serious problem. I just hope that it doesn't happen with your website because it will cause you to lose your tt rankings. With respect to his questions, I can't help him with php coding as I purposely don't use it, or xml or cascading style sheets because they can all be problematic with SEO. This whole scenario sounds a bit scary to me. In lieu of his 303 redirects, I hope that Google is able to find the correct pages and parse them quickly and correctly otherwise it will only be a matter of time before your complete optimization begins to fail. You are taking a big chance here. I can't believe this has taken so long to complete....I could have done it for you within 10 days but that does not matter now. A word to the wise, unless (NAME) is a true SEO specialist and has the credentials to prove it like I do, with over 40,000 highly ranked optimized pages on the web since 2003...in my opinion, the SEO is at great risk, especially with his using php or a derivative of php. (Please read below)

A number of other very important items...I just went back and looked at the actual optimized pages on his website from an old link in an email from 9/14/2012 (these pages were not done previously). I have never viewed them nor had the opportunity to view them before today. If these pages are in fact the finished product, you have got major problems. To start, the optimized pages are not done in html with the proper .htm extensions (which he even mentions below) to match up with the pages on the current site as I told you they had to be so there was a seamless transition with the new website without a failing in the SEO rankings. Secondly, there is enough java script in these pages to choke a horse. Java script is also problematic in SEO because, again, the spiders or search bots sometimes cannot parse the coding. The pages are all being done in a Wordpress template which utilizes 3 of the 5 markup languages that I said not to use (php, css and xml). Not to mention, it is done in an online console that takes an inordinate about of time to work in, not an html editor. The front page is still using the java script display for the state hyperlinks which also may not be able to be read by the spiders which could cause serious problems with the SEO. I mentioned this before. Another major problem, if the optimized pages that I just looked at are in fact the finished product, the meta tag coding and source code on all 250+ pages are not done properly. In essence, he has not copied the meta tag coding which I created to match the pages that they are for. In fact, the title tags do not even match up with your current pages which is highly critical that they do. He has inserted his own title tags, keywords and descriptions which are totally deficient and will not maintain the high rankings of the SEO pages that you currently have. Next, there is a portion of the source code that tells which page is "previous" and and which page is "next" in Wordpress sequencing for hyperlinked pages............these tags are giving the page names.....like (PHRASE) and (PHRASE) when you are actually on the (PAGE NAME) page...this could convolute the relevancy of the optimized page just in and of itself not counting all of the other problems I just mentioned. One last thing, when he says he is finished with everything as he does below, the optimized pages are not even done for Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana and Virginia, not to mention the cities for those pages. I didn't check all the city pages to make sure they were done. I also would have thought that he would have put a quick contact form on all of the city pages for increased new business development even though there wasn't one previously.

You are paying me as your SEO specialist to highly rank your website pages through my expert optimization, strategy and technique and I hope that you understand the comments that I have written above. I know that you do not want to hear it but there are serious problems here. I know that you want your new website up and everything to be fine but it will not be if you allow this website to go online as I have viewed it today.
Click to expand...

He mentions above that the meta tags do not match what he has on the current website. This is only because I have not put them in yet. Also, he mentioned that the old site has .htm after every page that the new website does not. This will be fixed with a redirect in the .htaccess file

programmer89, Oct 22, 2012 IP

ronmojohny Well-Known Member

Messages:: 729

Likes Received:: 20

Best Answers:: 0

Trophy Points:: 133

#2

Tell him the old way restricts the functionallity of the website. Also tell him that the top ranking sites in Google all have php, css, javascript, and many other technologies, and it is crazy to live in the past. Ranking has many factors, many are off-site.

ronmojohny, Oct 22, 2012 IP

quesera Peon

Messages:: 36

Likes Received:: 1

Best Answers:: 0

Trophy Points:: 0

#3

LOL, PHP & CSS bad for SEO hahah tell this so-called 'expert' to find a new non-IT career.

quesera, Oct 22, 2012 IP

emdadblog Member

Messages:: 86

Likes Received:: 1

Best Answers:: 1

Trophy Points:: 48

#4

Old SEO experts need to go to school to learn about SEO.

emdadblog, Oct 24, 2012 IP

Tearabite Prominent Member

Messages:: 4,629

Likes Received:: 429

Best Answers:: 0

Trophy Points:: 300

#5

I agree that he's wrong (unless he's referring to changing names/titles/etc of existing pages).. But my opinion, your opinion, and the opinion of others against his opinion dont mean much. I would take each one of his assertions, compare it to what the Google Webmaster Guidelines say about it, and use that as 'proof' .. otherwise it's just a pissing match..

Tearabite, Oct 24, 2012 IP

Log in or Sign up

I beleive my clients SEO "Expert" is telling him lies about my work. Can you verify?

programmer89 Peon

ronmojohny Well-Known Member

quesera Peon

emdadblog Member

Tearabite Prominent Member

Useful Searches