SEO courseModule 9 of 10: Playing It SmartLesson 9.1
Shortcuts That Get You Penalised, and How to Choose an SEO Provider
Tactics designed to trick search engines rather than help people (bought links, keyword stuffing, hidden text, fake pages, fake reviews), what happens if you use them, and how to spot an SEO provider who does.
Why it matters
Shortcuts like bought links and fake pages can wipe out years of work.
Why Google cares
Shortcuts can erase years of work
Do this first
Check Manual actions in Search Console, and ask any SEO provider exactly how they get links.
01What it is
Taking a shortcut in a race when nobody’s looking is cheating, and you can be disqualified. Search engines look for sneaky tricks, and can hide a website that uses them.
Think of it like
A shop that puts up fake "closing down" signs to draw a crowd. It works for a week, then the regulars stop believing anything it says.
02Why it matters
To the people searching
Fake area pages waste people's time, fake reviews mislead them, and a penalised site simply vanishes from search for buyers, tenants, sellers and landlords alike.
buyers
Fake or doorway pages waste their time and make you look untrustworthy.
tenants
Same, and a hacked or spammy site can put their details at risk.
sellers
A penalised site can vanish from search and look disreputable.
landlords
Same, and they'll find the warning signs if they look.
To Google and Bing
Shortcuts can erase years of workGoogle's spam policies list the tactics it acts against, including: buying or swapping links to manipulate rankings, keyword stuffing, hidden text and links, cloaking (showing Google different content from visitors), sneaky redirects, doorway pages, mass-produced content made mainly to rank, hosting unrelated third-party content to borrow your site's reputation, buying old domains to borrow theirs, and misleading structured data or fake reviews. The result can be an automatic demotion, or a manual action that Search Console tells you about. Bing works the same way. A tactic that worked five years ago may now be the thing that sinks you.
An agent example
A lettings branch paid a cheap provider for hundreds of links. A backlink check later shows a sudden spike from unrelated foreign sites, all using the same phrase. The branch stops, asks for the worst to be removed, and starts sharing local rental research that local sites choose to link to.
03Your turn
Check yours, then fix it
- Open Security & Manual actions, then Manual actions. You want "No issues detected".
- 1Your backlinks: sudden spikes, foreign-language spam, casino or pharmacy sites, lots of identical link wording (lesson 7.1).
- 2Your pages: pages made only for keywords, keyword-stuffed footers, hidden text (press Ctrl+A on a page to reveal white-on-white text).
- 3Your reviews and markup: anything you can't trace to a real customer, or ratings in your markup that aren't on the page.
- 4Your domain's history: check the Wayback Machine for what it was before.
- Go through any provider's reports and invoices for the tactics above.
Here is what my SEO provider has done for my estate agency: [paste their report]. Do any of these tactics break Google's spam policies? Explain the risk of each in plain English.
- 1Remove or rewrite keyword-stuffed, hidden or doorway content.
- 2Stop buying links, and ask for paid links to be removed. Use Google's disavow tool only as a last resort, with advice.
- 3Remove fake or incentivised reviews, correct misleading markup, and close any duplicate listings a past provider created.
- 4Remove or noindex unrelated third-party content hosted on your site.
- 5Keep a record of everything you cleaned up.
- Fix every issue it lists, then submit a reconsideration request in Search Console explaining what you changed.
- Use the checklist below before you sign with anyone new.
04Keep it up
Glance at Manual actions monthly, and use the checklist before hiring anyone.
Go deeperChoosing an SEO provider: ask before you sign
- What exactly will you do each month? Ask for a written list.
- Who will do the work, and who will I speak to?
- Whose name will the accounts be in? You should own your domain, website, Search Console, Analytics and Business Profile. The provider should be added as a user, never given sole ownership.
- How will you report? Monthly, in plain English, and tied to enquiries, valuations and instructions, not just rankings or traffic.
- How do you get links and write content? Judge the answer against lessons 7.1 and 4.5.
- Have you worked with UK estate or letting agents? Can I speak to a current client?
- What's the contract length and notice period, and what happens to the content, links and accounts if I leave?
Go deeperRed flags
Nobody can guarantee rankings, and a good provider will tell you so.
- Guaranteed rankings, "number one on Google", or secret tricks.
- "Guaranteed links", or links from networks they won't name.
- Won't explain their methods, or says it's all confidential.
- Wants sole ownership of your accounts, or won't give you access.
- Reports that only ever show rankings or traffic, never enquiries.
- Pressure to sign quickly, or claims of a special relationship with Google.
That's lesson 9.1
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