keyword spamming?

[fiddler]

I'm a simple webmaster with a client that is very particular about what he wants, which is ok, as sometimes it makes my job easier, and other times it makes it harder. Recently my client wanted to rank #1 with 4 keywords on the top search engines. Since I'm not an SEO expert, he opted to move his site to an SEO company. Again, I was fine with that, because my philosophy is, if I can't meet the client's needs, the client is better off elsewhere and I provided the new SEO "host" the ftp login info so they could download all the files before the dns was changed.

I had had my client for nearly ten years, and his site was very old, with a lot of outdated code. I had, on several occassions suggested that my client have me update his site, but he was happy with the look and didn't want to do anything, as the site was working perfectly as far as he was concerned.

The site was moved Nov. 1, 2008. Once it was out of my hands, I thought nothing more about it. Until last week. My "former" client contacted me because his site had not been fully functional since the new hosts had taken over and he was thinking about coming back to me if the new host didn't get the site working - he gave them a deadline of one week. The new host tried to tell him the site wasn't working because it had a lot of bad code it in. In reality, the site wasn't working because there were links to internal pages that didn't exist, while quite a few (of the existing) pages had javascripts of rotating photos and the new host didn't have the scripts (they are free and available on the web with a simple search), nor did they have all the photos that went with the scripts. When my client complained, the new host tried to blame me, saying the pages didn't work when I had it (believe me, my client is very much aware that those pages did work before the new host took over, and the new host "assured" him that they downloaded all the files from the server). I had to question why this company actually did nothing for 6 full months about getting the site to work properly. They had my email and phone number, as I was in contact with them several times before the transfer to make sure they had what they needed. My client spends his winters in Florida and didn't check his site for a couple of months because he assumed the new host would get the site working correctly (he paid them 4 times the amount it cost to host with me, but they were doing SEO work on his site, as well, so he expected to pay more). In addition, he sent them new material on March 22 to be posted on his website, but that never got posted. So now the client is back with me and he's trying to get at least half of his money back from this company. I've corrected the code and got all the pages to function as they should (which was simply a matter of uploading all the files I had backed up onto the server), so my client is happy again.

BUT, as I look over what this company has done in the way of SEO work on his pages, I have to ask if this is legit SEO work. They came up with 59 keywords for his site. Most of these keywords are the same, repeated over and over, only in different order (because I don't want to reveal who my client is, I'll give you an example: Texas Automotive Repair, Automotive Repair in Texas, Automotive Repair, Repair Automotive - that sort of multiple keyword "creation"). The SEO company used 20 of those keywords as the title for every page, then wrote content to place all 59 keywords throughout every page - some of it sounding utterly ridiculous because of the repetition. Furthermore, they placed all 59 keywords in the alt tags of every image on every page. They also placed all the keywords at the bottom of every page - in the same color as the background so as not to be visible to viewers, but which are visible to search engine spiders. With this repetition of keywords so frequent on my client's pages, isn't this a form of spamming, and doesn't search engines like Google frown upon that? The SEO company was not happy to lose my client, and they claimed he was rising in ranks on the search engines from the work they had done on his site, even though about half of the pages on his site did not even exist and those that did exist did not show the photos - which is the primary sales point as far as my client's viewers are concerned.

Much obliged for your thoughts on this.

[jimkelly7777]

This has been black hat for many years now. Back in 2002, any words repeated in the metanames over three times incurred a penalty.

Keyword stuffing is still a big no-no. Read the Google webmaster tools info on this.

[turftroll]

in the same color as the background so as not to be visible to viewers, but which are visible to search engine spiders

You can find this defined as spam by Google.

[morestar]

oh ya, black hat alright and i can't believe it myself sometimes. one of my maid service competitors did the same thing with white text on a white background, i reported them to google but to no avail and they still have the invisible text on the page with rankings just below my #1 spot.

anyways,

last night i did a search for a spidering script and found what I first thought was a nice and respectable site, just because of the clean look, nice clean and professional: sphider.eu

but look at the code, at the bottom...you will see...

I couldn't believe it...

[CableGuy]

Delete all of that stuff before your site gets sandboxed by Google. 1st priority is the ghosting of the text on the bottom of the page....delete today.

I worked with a lot of SEO's over the years and most are not good. Some as the one you described are bad news. We do our own and there are a bynch of things and rules....that change everyday.....that you need to do to make your site come up in the organic search results. Too long to discuss here.

[adtastichosting]

Well from what you have described is very much so keyword spamming/blackhat and at the least will cause the site to fall like a rock in the index. "SEO" like that is just criminal at best.
At the most things like hidden text are likely to get the site banned altogether in google. "If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages." (May usually means "will)
(See: Hidden text and links - Webmasters/Site owners Help)

[sofakingdabest1]

Tell your client he doesn't need SEO. His business is a regional service business. SEO is for world wide sales of services and products.

[B0B]

You’re fault. If it was a good client, you should have evaluated the new site as soon as it was up. If you have been doing this for 10 years you know that the majority of the webmasters are masters of nothing except getting a quick buck. A few minutes at Google Analytics, view source and a link checker would have prevented 6 months of a poor performing web site.

[SemAdvance]

I think you should replace the word SEO company with Fricking Idiots.....(being as nice as I can)

Keyword stuffing went out years ago.....

Might even want to have the client find a lawyer and go after them or report them here

If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: Federal Trade Commission and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:

Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580

If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, please file it at econsumer.gov - Your site for cross-border complaints..

and feel free to out those hacks here and anywhere else that pleases you......

Good luck!!

[asimkhaliq]

Why using same title again and again, better use one title for the home page and write unique page titles for other pages. The prupose of website is to get customers and then navigate them thru different service/products. And for those services/products make unique pages and offcourse with a unique title. Now if they have 59 keywords this doesn't mean they have to have 59 pages for all keywords. "Texas Automotive Repair, Automotive Repair in Texas, Automotive Repair, Repair Automotive" these keywords can be use in one single page title. You dont need to write one word again and again. Get your main keyword and write the variation in page copy. Get some good links for those Keywords and wait for good SERP. Also remove the hidden links from the bottom.

As far as SEO firm . I had an experience with someone, they offered me free optimization for my home page, so I can test them. They wrote the Title around 300 characters, meta description was around 500 characters and meta keyword around 1000. They were repeating one word again and again and showed me around 250 keywords for my website. Now when u get this kind of work...... All you can say... Its spamming.

Just get rid of all so called stupid SEO and try to make the page nice clean and search engine/customer friendly. Keep in mind for SEO -- anything which is customer friendly is or will be search engine friendly too. Google will be bankrupt if it shows garbage result in their search result.