Stage 2

Well today I spoke to both my seo companies for advice. Well I tried to anyway. One wouldn't speak to me. After much insistence, he sent me through the 'premium' links they've been paid to build over the past 6 months. 2 per website per month. He sent me 4 links, all linking to the same website, all with good PR. I clicked through to the links, and on looking at Google's cached copy of the links, surprise, surprise, none of the links were there on the last cached copy. As one of the cache's had taken place that very day, my assumption is that they just put them up this morning. I called twice, and left an urgent message for him to call me back with an answer to the question 'when were these links put up'. No reply as yet.



The other rang me before I got to him. He asked me if I had made any changes other than those he had noticed and could tell me about. He said he didn't want to shoot from the hip and make wild guesses as to why all my sites have dropped (he only works on one), and was obviously double checking some of his other client's links in Google while we were on the phone - all of which were fine. He told me them too so I could check, and repeatedly said all their link building was white hat and as no-one else had suffered like we have, he didn't think it could be that. He was much more honest, open and helpful, he asked me to let him know anything that sprung to my mind, however small, and told me they were looking into it in detail and he would come back to me.



It felt like he was on my side, and that was very reassuring. The contrast between the 2 reactions and responses couldn't have been more different. You can guess what I am thinking about the first company. I also looked at some of the links the first company had put up. 4 link to 'server error' pages, because they have left a trailing slash in at the end of the url. One entire set of keyphrase links all have session id's on the end, and so end up linking to a duplication of my homepage (unavoidable due to our CMS system, having 2 homepages, but naturally I desperately avoid linking to the /index.php version, of course, this is the version they have been linking to in error). I will endeavour to discuss this with him tomorrow. I feel very much as though I have been fleeced and they have simply taken my money and not done what they were contracted to do.



But I have no idea whether what they have and haven't done has had an impact on our rankings. And, as its across more than the 2 sites they were working on, the answer is probably not. Doesn't mean what it looks like they've (not) been doing isn't pretty bloody fraudulent though. Obtaining money under false pretences, methinks!



The second seo guy mused that the internal links between my 4 sites (all hosted on the same IP address) could be the cause. He said he wasn't sure, and told me not to do anything about that just yet until they looked into it further. By this evening, I felt totally powerless and had to do something, so all those links went. I obviously have copies of the previous pages so can revert back at any time, but I wanted to do something, and it did seem a pretty sensible suggestion, so I just went for it, right or wrong. In user terms, it does seem more sensible for the links to be there, but hey ho, no users are coming any more so first things first!


In terms of the changes I made yesterday and their impact so far: http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/easter-gifts-c-159.html

Easter Gifts: (12-4-11 not in top 100): same

Easter Gifts for Children: (12-4-11 6th): 6th - category page is not the result showing, its an article page instead

http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/30th-birthday-gifts-c-33_61.html

30th Birthday Gifts (12-4-11 22nd): 28th - meta info displayed by Google has reverted back to pre-change

http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/40th-birthday-gifts-c-33_62.html

40th Birthday Gifts (12-4-11 40th): 42nd - meta info not changed back in Google yet

http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/gifts-for-mums-mothers-day-gifts-c-23_100_179.html

Gifts for Mums (12-4-11 14th): same - meta info not yet updated


And the others

Gifts for Dads (12-4-11 77th): 79th, meta changes not updated


Get Well Gifts (12-4-11 20th): same, no meta update


50th Birthday Gifts (12-4-11 not in top 100): same


My gut feel for today is its probably not on page stuff like meta tags that has created this. But I'm still no closer to knowing what it probably is....