An experience story that when paying 9 million yen and using 'SEO agency' to improve the website, the site became messy and no results were obtained
In order to increase the number of visitors who access websites and web services,
The SEO scam: 62,000 dollars later
https://tinloof.com/blog/the-seo-scam-62000-dollars-later
According to Tinloof co-founder Omar Bensedik, Tinloof used to post technical blog content as part of promoting its services, but they weren't doing a good job of navigating, such as blog readers and customers not matching up. It seems that there was not. So, in order to reach the right target for our blog on Tinloof, we decided to start our SEO strategy and ask for help from one of our SEO advice and suggestions agencies.
Mr. Bensedik said that he was excitedly waiting for a month until the agency proposed an SEO strategy, but when he first proposed a new URL, ``The excitement turned into disappointment.'' I'm here. What the agency proposed was to add a complex structure to the URL of the current site map , Mr. Ben Sedik said, 'We were not satisfied with long and complicated URLs.' However, he decided to trust the 'SEO expert' and follow the suggestions.
The agency also proposed a method called 'topic clusters', which strategically groups articles on the site and connects related articles with internal links to improve the SEO rating of the entire article. As a result, Tinloof's blogs are cross-linked as shown in the image below.
After that, there were three main areas of work carried out by SEO agencies: 'content creation,' 'digital PR,' and 'SEO strategy.'
In 'content creation', the agency suggested changing the page structure of the site and adding content to better communicate Tinloof's services. However, the content that the agency actually wrote to Tinloof was ``boring, repetitive, error-filled, and superficial.'' “We are dealing with specialized topics, so it is unreasonable to expect ordinary copywriters to effectively deal with such topics,” Bensedyk said. It was completely unacceptable for low quality content to be posted.'
As a result, Tinloof wrote and added the content themselves, referring to the agency's instructions for page headers, FAQs, keyword quantities and other details. In addition, the agency also proposed to ``create another page with different wording for the same service'', but it seems that the number of pages that must be maintained even though it is not essential has increased.
Regarding the addition and update of content as an SEO measure, Mr. Bensedyk said, ``We were convinced that this approach would adversely affect the user acquisition rate and damage the brand image.'' What's the point of ranking high for content that doesn't attract visitors, and if this is a requirement for ranking in search engines, then something is wrong with the search engines themselves. I am asking.
As for 'digital PR', what the agency did was 'buy backlinks '. Backlinks are links from other websites, and increasing the number of links can increase the inflow to the site and increase the domain authority , which is regarded as 'a site that has gained a lot of trust from the outside'. can. But buying backlinks is prohibited by Google.
Bensedyk saw a link from a dubious and low-quality business magazine, whose site had a surprisingly high domain authority, 'which made me feel like I was in the dirty part of the Internet.' says. In addition, Tinloof seems to have been charged $ 560 (about 80,000 yen) as 'link fee for October' from the agency.
Regarding 'SEO strategy', there was advice on using
In addition, Tinloof receives a monthly report summarizing the agency's SEO measures, saying, 'Rather than a strategy for SEO, it was a tactic to make their work look more legitimate. ” said Ben Sedik.
Bensedyk points out that the problem with leaving SEO to an agency is that the SEO agency's job is to rank in search engines regardless of medium, and in that sense it may have been legitimate. I question that policy.
As a result, despite investing a lot of time and money, Tinloof's SEO measures did not yield any results. However, when I told the agency that I was canceling the SEO measures, they said, 'It's too late to cancel without renewing the contract.' It seems that it was decided to continue.
Mr. Bensedyk asked the agency, ``Tinloof no longer needs to do SEO measures, but the contract will continue. What are you going to do during that time?'' I'm sorry to hear that, but in my humble opinion, this plan that we offer our customers is the best way to get leads for your money. is pretty much constrained by the terms of the contract and I really don't want to just take a fee and give nothing without doing the best I can, so I can't promise to get any leads, but in the next few months In the meantime, we will do our best to bring Tinloof to the eyes of potential buyers.'
Tinloof was contracted with an SEO agency and initially paid $ 4000 (about 580,000 yen) per month, but depending on the month, more options were added in hopes of more effective results, etc. I am making a payment. As a result, we have to spend $ 61,806.71 (about 8.97 million yen) by the end of the contract.
“Our contract has ended and we have taken a financial hit, but we have learned a lot,” Bensedik said. We have removed from the site all the content that was created using them.It felt very soothing when we removed it.And now we can create quality content We're back to focusing on delivering: The content that reaches readers and leads to customers is 'real content' created without the use of SEO guidelines, not created just for high rankings. No,” he says.
He also pointed out that such SEO measures are futile as they degrade the quality of sites and content, stating that 'either search engines improve their algorithms or people rely more on solutions like ChatGPT to improve their search performance.' We hope that it will either be less dependent on the engine.'
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