Sop13 - Profile

Yes, have heard many a horror story. A family friend is a partner at a small/medium solicitors.

They are suing their old SEO agency for loss of earrings and fees. After they gained good rankings, they plummeted. They since employed a decent, transparent, UK based SEO agency who confirmed the 'spammy messages, bots, dodgy IPs'. From what I was told, its a wonder they weren't slapped with a huge penalty from Google.

Claim ownership of the original verified Local listing

You'll need to click on 'claim your business' and search for your company name. Choose the local page. A box will appear saying somebody already verified the listing, at which point should can click on 'Request admin rights'. 

The request will be sent to whichever email address was originally used to set up the listing.

The trouble with option two is whether you have access to the original email.

Like everything, it will evolve. In 50 years it won't be SEO as we know it today. As long as we evolve too, everything should remain in balance. Look at SEO three years ago. Everyone swore by spammy link and article directories.

I just wish I could of been a marketer in the 'Madison Avenue' days - one liners and witty not tactical and punishable.

More often than I care to admit - writing the email subject can take longer than the email itself. I constantly find myself second-guessing the recipient with a will they/won't they open it attitude.

I've been lucky enough to work on some great accounts and always had an element of pride when developing a campaign - no matter what the product. So it is always frustrating when I don't get the click through rate I wanted. Perhaps your 'No Win No Fee - Google Manual Penalty Recovery' example just got lucky - it could have gone either way for me.

Probably like most things in marketing - take a risk - see if it works - if it doesn't, try again - if it does, job done.

Ah! I didn't see the date on this...apologies, I wouldn't have posted if I'd known it was 4 years old!

Love this!

Thanks for posting

Like everything in SEO it is fairly subjective - especially when it comes to 'old' link building tactics.

Here is the criteria I use:

*note: this criteria obviously doesn't apply to sites like Yell and Yahoo listings.

(1) Relevancy - does the directory have lots of categories and sub-categories spread across many different products and services. For example - solicitors to kitchen fitters to a wedding dress shop. I will only submit to site that are dedicated to one product or services.

(2) Domain - use common sense with regards to domain. For example - avoid wwww.buildmylinks.com or www.boostrankings.com instead if a directory (even if it is fairly small) has a relevant domain for example - www.suffolksolicitors.co.uk*

*note: these domains are made up.

(3) Cost - never pay for links/directory listings (unless Yell or Yahoo etc.)

(4) Use SEO tools like DA and PR rank. I try to avoid sites with a -50 DA and -5 PR

(5) As with everything, use common sense. Do you think the directory will actually serve a purpose? Would it rank for a search term? Would you click on the link if you came across it?

Hope this helps