This Google Adwords Certified Partner modified her site copy and ads and the ads ran fine for a long time. Then all of a sudden, Google suspends them stating the ads breach their landing page policies. My client by this stage is not being represented by the Google Adwords Certified Company(who have now gone out of business, then rebirthed under a new name). Try as she might she cannot understand or fix the problem created by this company and her account gets suspended.

This was not really a case where SEO was then be a better option than AdWords. If you look at the most important key phrase throughout client, Melbourne Hypnotherapy – no amount of SEO there was ever going to bring a great result. At the top of the page to this search term in Google there are three Google AdWords ads followed by 10 Google places listings. Though our client services the greater Melbourne area as their offices outside Melbourne city they have little or no chance of having a listing appear in Google places for searches on her services in the suburb of Melbourne. The best we could hope to achieve her was number one in Google natural search which replaced the site effectively a position 14 on page one. Hardly a place that can cause the phone to ring off the hook.

The only result that was going to work to the client here was getting that Google AdWords ban overturned. Enter the SEOGuys.

We looked over her content and ads – indeed they are exaggerated. We modified the site, moved it to a new domain modified the ads to be more acceptable and contacted Google to explain the problems that had occurred and the fixes made.

Initially, Google was reluctant to undo the ban. They wanted more changes, more proof that the site was now in compliance and would stay so. In total, we swapped 47 emails, and I made 9 phone calls to Google.

The end result?

The "Permanently Banned Adwords Account" has now been unbanned.

Of course, there is no room for error, any further problems on this site and the account will be banned again and this time permanently might just mean permanently.
But if you've been  banned, permanently from Adwords understand that there are two types of t permanent Google AdWords bans.

1. You've done something really wrong. Use Google AdWords trick people into buying something that was falsely represented. Use AdWords to send people to a page containing more ads. Use AdWords to send people to a page selling illegal products.

   A permanent ban of this kind is a permanent ban. No amount of appealing to Google is going to help.

2. Someone else did something very wrong on your site or your wrong was mistake rather than intentional. For example they may of hacking and planted malware on your site you could not find. Someone professing to be an SEO expert may have set up a campaign making unjustifiable claims about your products or services. You may have been unwittingly selling products that whilst legal, and allowed to be advertised using Google AdWords.

   In some cases this kind of permanent ban can be overturned. Google is not unreasonable and quite frankly, yes, they want your money. They now want to lose an advertiser who site has suffered problems with quality with those problems though breaching Google AdWords terms of service were relatively minor and where those problems have now been rectified.

So if you've been banned by Google AdWords, whatever the reason get in touch with the SEOGuys. We can advise what your chances are being reinstated and if you've got a shot will certainly go into bat for you.

At the SEOGuys we only do Google approved SEO. We can't see the point in doing any other kind. If a competitor catches you doing something wrong, or Google comes past to see if you are doing the right thing…. It’s so easy to spot things like

• Computer generated content.
• Syndicated articles generated solely for SEO purposes, articles that have been mangled and no longer make sense.
• Incorrect Google Places address details.
• Multiple sites owned by the one company, where many of the sites exist only to generate links to the main site.
• Paid Links

Your business may well be humming along and all of a sudden – no Google traffic. You'll be laying of staff and wondering what to do next.

I don't wish to go into intimate detail of the shortcuts that were being taken in this case by our predecessors but the bottom line was they were:-

• Highly risky and in breach of Google's TOS.
• Not working anyway. No Page 1 for our client.
• Supposed to be cheap, but because involved monthly payments that were getting them nowhere, they had turned out VERY expensive.

Initially this made out job harder, as we had to appeal to Google to forgive and forget before we could make progress. Google was very tough at first and for 3 months we made little progress. Then overnight at 90 days, Google removed all penalties and our good honest Google approved SEO took this locksmith client to page 1, at No.9. Then to 6, currently at 4. We are expecting position 3 by November and top 2 by the new year. Additionally, we have achieved top 10 rankings for a host of Locksmith + Melbourne Suburb related searches as well and these are bringing in as much traffic as the main phrase, Locksmith Melbourne.

So all in all, a very satisfying job for us. We did what our predecessors said could not be done… and at a fraction of the cost they were charging in any case.

Update: We've recently fielded two requests from other Melbourne Locksmiths to help with their SEO.  Please understand, we can only take on one business in an area, its not possible to represent competing clients fairly.

Update: we've taken on a 2nd website with TopLock, they opened a center of Melbourne Office to offer their speedy services to people locked out right in the city.

This website is here Melbourne Locksmiths with their Melbourne Locksmith Emergency Services Google Maps listing here.

The problem is they might well be on the first page of Google, but in fact have a Google Penalty. There may well be only 10 or so sites with information relevant to the search results, so holding position 10 is the same as holding down the last position. So getting a site to position 10 in Google's results may well be a success, or a failure, depending on the number of sites competing for the search term.

In this case, our new client has reasonable rankings, but they could be better, for Stradbroke real estate and accommodation based search results.  Our strategy is as follows.

(1) Work with the developers of their property management software to ensure it follows all of Google's rules and suggestions regarding SEO.(They were great by the way.)

(2) Fix the site content, to ensure it was interesting and complete for both people and search engines.

(3) Make other sites aware of it that might consider linking to it to increase the site's popularity.

With many relevant targets to achieve, i will not list them all here but one of the main phrases is Stradbroke Island Holiday Accommodation and we are aiming fort Top 5 within 3 months, No.1 within 12 months.

Update  November 2011 – top 5 rankings for this and many other terms achieved.We are not done yet, but they are moving in the right direction/

1. Ran a piece of software over the site that found all instances of duplicate content. From their 650 articles, we got 150 of the worst totally rewritten. Some were short. Some were duplicates from other sites. In time, all problem articles will be rewritten but it’s a big job.
    
2. All detail pages for businesses that had no description were set to no index no follow, with links to such pages hidden from Google so thin/duplicate Directory page were no longer in the index.
    
3. No more short articles, all at least 450 words long, some as long as 1500 words… and no 500 words policy so the articles no longer look like an article farm.

We did NOT speed up pages.

We did NOT reduce adsense on pages, there remains 2 ads above the fold, 1 below.

As of Saturday the 18th of June, the site has recovered on a great many search terms, and traffic has more than doubled since the 15th of June. Pages that have been fixed have all increased greatly in rankings, but other pages not changed have also risen in rankings by many places showing Panda to be a per page, and site wide penalty.

We are very happy with this result, which confirms what we have been saying all along.

Panda is not to be feared. It’s a quality filter. If you've been hit with it, you likely deserved it.

1. Pages with too little unique content.
2. Pages with duplicate content.
3. Pages with low quality content.

This is what Panda targets. Fix this in your site and you will see a recovery.

Need help? SEOGuys can help. We are presently booked for normal SEO jobs until 2012, but are available to help if you if you believe your site has been pandalised.

For $149, we will look over your site, provide a list of your main problems and an action plan for fixing them.

If you want us to put the plan into action, we can provide a price for doing this as well.

So..why is YOUR site not on Page One of Google?

Site is shortly to be completely redeveloped to improve the user experience, and to make shopping for Christmas decorations even easier on their site.  The SEOGuys will have the task of managing this transition, which will likely involve changing urls of many existing pages without losing rankings.

Recent changes at Google have made obtaining rankings for local searches “eg Christmas decorations Melbourne, Christmas Decorations Sydney etc” a lot harder for businesses that trade online and ship to such areas, but don’t actually have a bricks and mortar outlets in those areas.

So… many challenges, and a short time frame.  We can achieve many things at the SEOGuys, but not put back the date xmas is celebrated so we need to get busy, fast.

Looking forward to the challenge, as of 31 May 2011 we are on the case.

Update – site hit No.1 for Christmas Decorations in November 2011 and continues to gain higher rankings for many other terms.

It was a seemingly small job, but once we got stuck in, we realised there was in fact a lot more to do than we first thought. The new design and content management system was done by Art Studio Byron. I'm a big fan of their work. Clean, balanced designs, beautfiul work without distracting the user away from the product or service being offered by the website owner, with too much cluttering fancy stuff. Nice. Andrea from Art Studio users a heavily modded Word Press System that is both blog, cms and art gallery all in on

We are on the case now with No.1 for Antique Floor Tiles the goal (Already achieved 19 April 2010) but to also achieve rankings for the site on many regional searches.

Update 20/5/2010 Site now at number 1 on Google.com.au for Antique Floor Tiles, but also ranking well for antique tiles, salvaged antique tiles, as well as regional searches such as Antique Floor Tiles Melbourne. Regional searches are important for this business as many people look for these rare tiles locally not understanding few local places will stock them and that searching for them around Australia is what they need to do. The SEO in this case was not just to get rankings for this or that phrase – we analysed the searching habits of people looking for the product and put together the regional SEO to match this analyis.

A good result.

Our job once again, is to obtain rankings for a client wishing to have their site rank at the top of Google.com, in the USA, even though the site is being operated from outside the US.  The beauty of the internet is that the location of your head office may well be irrelevant when it comes to getting rankings online.

So as of 1 December, 2009 we are on the case, with the top of Google our goal for the phrase "Art Retreats"

May 2010 – rankings achieved, site is is now top5 on google.com for art retreats, bouncing up as high as Number 3.

That’s fine if you are a winder washer, living in down town New York, not so great if your are providing more of a niche service, like our new client who provides angel readings.

The net however, opens up a whole new market for this business…. assuming we can bring the people to it.  So as of 1 November, the SEOGuys are on the job, our goal to take out client to page 1 on Google.com for Angel Readings.

December 10 2009
And we are in the game, with Ask Upstairs coming in at a modest 145 on Google.com

December 20 2009.
Quick gains, already up to 85

December 25 2009
Onwards and upwards, we are at 43

January 3 2010
Still climbing, up to 38 today.

March 3 2010

Hits No.10 on Google.com and no11 on Google.com.au, even though no contract to get rankings on .com.au.

March 22 2010

Hits No.7 on Google.com, and 8 on Google.com.au.  Sadly, this is where our job ends as client has decided to not try for number one.  We are of course happy with achieving the contracted result…. but No.1 was not much more than No.7 and would have resulted in much better profits for the client.

April 3 2010

Site hits 4 on Google,com

Well, having had a look at the site, and the competition, i think the SEO Guys are up to the challenge.

So, as of 5pm today, the 10th of June, we are on the case, and will report progress as we go.

Update 3 July 2009
Site is at No.3 for wholesale silver jewelry, but not without a great deal of work. The site in fact dropped a place to 5 shortly after we took over. Likely, this was a result of "lag" something already wrong with the site kicking in. The fixes applied so far.

• Optimise the site.
• Fix all html errors
• Ban search engines from seeing duplicate versions of the site.
• Start getting links from other sites. They are an ethical business, so its relevant for them to be listed in ethical business directories.
• Start getting articles published on other sites, that refer to the site. The site owners have done some funky things which are worthy of publishing in jewelry magazines online

Its a lot of work to go yet, but number 2, is looking very likely.

Update 19 July 2009
Site has reached its target of No.2 for "wholesale silver jewelry". No pay for us yet, we need to maintain this position for at least 2 weeks, and the reality is we are going to continue working on the site for some months to come.

Update 29 July 2009
No.1 position achieved, and we are very pleased. No.2 was our minimum requirement, but No.1 was always our goal. We will be working hard over the next few months to solifidy this position, its no good if we don't keep it there.

Update 18 December 2009
We've been given a new task, get the site to No.5 or better onf google.com for "Wholesale Jewelry".  It was 25 when we took over, its now at 12.  Watch this space

Update 4 January 2010
A drop, back down to 26.  We've ntoiced this witha  few sites, as of the end of December 2009.  After running some tests, we realised a whole heap of new problems had crept into the site, problems we have briefed the site owner on how to fix, and how to ensure they don't return.  Will report back on this, in 28 days, which is about the amount of time it should take to fix the problem and for Google to lift the fitler that is causing this drop.

When we took on this client, they had already taken some positive steps forward to attaining good rankings for their site, so we are unable to take all the credit. The site was No.23 on Google.com.au for “Pets”, but had been in this position for 6 months.

Page 3 on Google.com.au is like coming 2nd in a winner takes all race. You are ahead of many, many sites, but almost no-one turns to page 3 of Google, all the action is on Page 1. So no prize for this client.

Enter the SEO Guys in October 2008. There were many code problems which we fixed, which made some difference. Thee forum had been set up in such a way that it caused the site to incur penalties. Up to No.13 the site went, but no further.

We realised the main problem was content, the site owner simply had not written enough information about pets, and the site really did not deserve to be on page 1. The competition was way ahead, and no matter what we did, Google was too clever and would see her site was lacking and not rank it.

Soul searching was done, and eventually our client agreed to write 30 more pet articles, which took her 3 months -the site is a hobby site with the owner writing articles in her spare time.

The articles were then edited by us to ensure maximum impact and loaded onto the site and “Boom” onto page one with a bullet at No.9, then No.6 and then BAM! No.3 on www.google.com.au for the single word "Pets".

Single word phrases such are the hardest to gain rankings on, and as a result are the most valuable.

One very happy client. As always, we do not promise No.1 rankings, but in this case, we are quietly confidant that its going to happen. 

10 August 2009 
Stop Press. Site is now at No.1 for "Pets". Pets, is a very competitive, single word phrase so we are very happy with this achievement.

25 November 2009
Stop Press.  the SeoGuys have been called in because of a slide in rankings, our job is to find the problem.  Site has dropped to 7 on Google.com,au for "Pets".  Its clear on looking at the site, a whole heap of new problems have crept in.  Duplicate and old content being the main problems.  I think its important to note here that getting a site to No.1 on Google.com,au is an achievement, but unless you match what the competition is doing?  Your site will not stay there for long.  Will report back when we know more about what is going on.

18 December 2009
As I suspected, idle website development is the problem here.  Dead links, dated content, empty pages…. Google no longer feels the site is worthy of the top spot and the reality is?  Google is right.  We are working with the client now, to improve the site content and remove the dead links, and expect to see a recovery of the site in January, or February 2010.  Watch this space.

3 March 2010
Now back as the No.1 site in Australia for Pets.

17 February 2011
Site is is by Google Panda and is wiped off the map.  We'd not been involved for some time – this client does a lot of her own SEO.  Sometimes SEO though can be like betting on the horses.  You get a good streak going.  You try some low risk bets, they come off.  You up the stakes and try some riskier stuff.  It pays off.  You think you can't be touched.  You start doing riskier and riskier things and then BAM along comes Google with Panda and you are wiped out.

As of today, 14 April we are on the case.

20 June 2011
Site is back on page 1, at No.7. Still a long way to go, so many problems.

27 September 2011
Up to No.2 and doing better on long tail searches.  About 60% recovered.

5 December 2011
No.1 position now regained and site fully recovererd.