My SEO Guy did this... will it get me penalized?

As much as all this sounds fishy, tough to bash a guy, when really no one has any truth or proof...

I like this line

So, then it begs the question... even if everything he says is truthful, what happens if google does start banning for this? Then you have to start scrambling to fix?
Or what happens if you never hear about G scanning for this technique?

G aims to close loopholes

 

Well yeah that's the thing, I mean I've obviously already seen results with him doing this, but unfortunately I've designed my site to be very sEO friendly and Google loved it before this joker got his hands on it. I didn't rank for any of my big keywords, but who does withing a short amount of time?

I just don't like the precedent and you are exactly right, what happens when and if G does fix this? then I dropoff the face of the web and have to try to come up with another way? It's an endless cycle.

At least if you're "completely Kosher" you don't have to worry about changing things quickly when something "less than kosher" stops working. You work isn't for naught if you're following the rule and 'doing no evil'

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I may not be a religious person, but i do subscribe to the church of G and one doesn't want to tee off the G Gods know what I mean?

 

That is nothing but Black Hat technique. Your site will be banned for a certainty. It's only a matter of time. Get rid of that code asap.

Col

 

thought I'd give you all another update, I told him I wanted thost hat contact info and responded that he'd get it for me.

Anyway, I just went through my site and removed all references to that junk because I'm not cool with it. I couldn't believe how many places he'd stuck that in, it was crazy, I just got done doing a 2nd find and delete and got rid of it I think.

I'm glad i came here, I knew it was fishy and the more I kept looking at my code the more I could tell he was just sticking a bunch or junk in there.

I'm not so sure he hasn't set up a doorway or two, I was going through my analytics and I see a few entrance and exit pages that don't seem to fit the regular URL and path that my site uses, I'm not sure how those things work or I'd investigate further, right now I'm about to get sick.

I want to pay an SEO to work on the site because I don't have time, but I do read up on these forums and others and I just wish I hadn't been sucked into this underbelly of the web!

ahh, anyway, i'm feeling better, but not about what I've already paid him. I'll also be sad to see my SERPS go back down to their rightful levels not on the front-page :-( but it's worth it in the long-run to be legit.

 

Wow 10,000 - he must really be spammin' and jammin'. It's very true that the method of hiding things via CSS can be totally legitimate and is becoming more and more common. Many of the techniques that "Web 2.0" and AJAX driven sites use (Mouseovers, popups, dialogs, Yahoo UI, etc.) are totally legitimate.

HOWEVER if you hide an H1 tag and label the class SEO, it couldn't be more obvious what the point is and any manual review should notice that.

So in the end, what are the odds of your site getting manually reviewed and penalized? Extremely small I'd say.

 

I'd say pretty small unless there are people here who have found it and already turned it in I've taken out the code though because it's not worth it. I have no problem making the regular on-page headings H1, because well, it makes it easy to read!

No sense in not having them of course, but I think it's always best to do what is best, and gray/blackhat isn't best! Especially since we can just adjust the on-page CSS to shrink the H1 size down a little to give us the benefit of that code but without the hidden/spammy crud.

Well that's my thought process anyway, I think it's just lazy to add in and stuff H1s all over the place and then hide them.

I've worked hard on that site to have plenty of content, and I've got a lot more content to put on. I was fully spidered within weeks without doing anything and started ranking for easy keywords shortly after that, and that's all natural...

anyway, I'm in the market for a new SEO because I do NOT agree with using tactics such as that when non-evil type of work is hard work, but you don't have to worry about justifying things or 'approving' techniques ay?

 

Even if Google can't catch you eventually a competitor will and report it to Google, and then you will get banned.

 

Being a member of this forum does not guarantee that one is better SEO than the other person who is not, I donot see a valid co-relation here..

But in any case, having such black hat techniques does not trigger the switch right away but if a competitor reports your site manually to G and then you are in trouble, as a human reader will easily find this misleading and pull the trigger!! I hope this helps!!

 

The guy is both right and wrong in his reply back.

Yes, google will not ban you for hiding text in divs using CSS. There are legitimate reasons to do it; as he noted in the email (menus, etc).

But, what he is doing is hiding text that has no other value at all. It's simply there for no one to ever look at. So that's deceptive.

You cannot compare hiding stuff because its part of a menu and hiding stuff for no reason at all.

Will google ban you or penalize you for that? If they see it, they will. Will they see it? Who knows.

 

Naming the file "seo" - after all he is not that good at hiding

 

No kidding! It's kinda like that entry at Cutt's site where he posted the Email from he SEO who got busted and responded to google instead of the client. Whoops! CLASSIC! lol

I haven't fired this guy yet but I haven't heard back from him either. And I removed his code, while it's unlikely that a competitor would find it and report it (we're not very competitive!) i don't want the risk, I want to grow the business fair and square.

 

Well I finally heard back from my SEO and se gave me the phone number of one of his clients who is apparently spending $4,000 a month for keywords using this method.. I guess he's trying to say they aren't banned? ... anyway, then he wnet on and put in google's phone number and said to call matt cutts.. he didn't give me Matt's extension though, who who knows how you'd be able to get a hold of him.

I'm sure there have been many people to try to get ahold of matt, and lots of people who'd like to pick his brain, but something tells me that's not what they're paying him for

anyway, just thought i'd update those of you following the story.

 

Yes, I like this too. Smart hiding. Some "SEOs" are really funny.

 

If your site is big enough, dont get risk of these types of black seo tactics in any way. But for very small sites (not related to your old sites: not on same server, different dns record...) you may try to risk them but i would not sicne iam looking for long term returns..

 

That's funny. Put him on a conference call and have him call, that would be entertaining.

 

yeah no kidding, can you imaging me actually getting on the line with Matt and asking "Hey matt, can I hide some CSS with H1 tags loaded with the keywords I want to rank for in Google?"

How long do you think he'd laugh before hitting his 'magic button' and banning me and all my sites from google forever? lol

 

that is only good in short term but long term gains are very negative

 

I was banned for that.

 

LOL .........

 

He's not being real quick on the replie any more, think he knows I'm unhappy ;-) He's of course the first one to email me when I start ranking for a new keyword though Oh well, I've got a few leads on a new SEO i'm following up with this week althought I haven't fired the old guy yet per say