Today a news story over at Search Engine Land had us all celebrating. Matt Cutts, Head of Search Spam at Google announced on Twitter that they had penalised a German Agency and their Clients for links schemes.
The temptation for quick results can kill your website:
There are many SEO Companies that claim they can increase rankings & sales overnight and the majority of them will do so via operating outside Googles Webmaster Guidelines. Unfortunately many websites fall for these promises as the prospect of boosts in sales and traffic becomes incredibly tempting.
The truth is, whilst in the short term, websites may see results, a Google penalty could potentially destroy the websites visibility for good as google demotes an offending website in search results or worse, excludes it completely.
Reversing a penalty is not easy, it can take months of hard work and sites rarely get back traffic levels they’ve become accustomed to often resulting in websites failing to prosper again.
Unfortunately, the SEO industry is littered with companies that are happy to mislead clients into taking on services that could ultimately destroy their businesses. We can only hope that Google continues and expands it’s actions on these types of SEO companies to clean the industry up.
Don’t take the risk.
SEO is marketing, it requires creativity, skill and patience. It is not a sprint but a marathon and can take months or even years for a website to become a leader in its field. But it does work and long term is incredibly cost effective.
What isn’t cost effective is embarking on schemes to rank quick and then having your business decimated by Google Penalties.
