I get angry quite often at the SEO industry, I try not to take part in forums or read a lot of the bitching that goes ahead but what I do take a look at is what work other people are doing, yesterday a Manchester based agency that I hadn’t heard of before was mentioned… Creative Suit. They were not mentioned in a favourable light so I decided to do my research.
UPDATE : Creative Suit have spoken to me and the sites I’ve looked at have been mislabeled as SEO clients, Creative Suit were the design agency involved and have said they did not do any SEO work on the clients mentioned.
Fake Rankings?
#1 For Web Development
The first thing you see when you visist the homepage is the google search result giving the impression they are #1 for Web Development, considering the quick search I did on Google UK showed they were not in the top 100.
One of the reasons for this initially was personalised search but a movement of that magnitude would be amazing.
At the end of it it seems that they’ve just photoshopped or used firebug to edit the page source directly.
Portfolio
I then moved onto the portfolio, to see who they had provided SEO for, no massive names but a good amount of clients.
The first client I found is the latest client to be added into the portfolio, the client has SEO services so lets take look.
HTML Source Code
<title> Home page </title> <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8” /> <meta name=”description” content=”Default Description” /> <meta name=”keywords” content=”Magento, Varien, E-commerce” /> <meta name=”robots” content=”INDEX,FOLLOW” />
So the first title of the homepage… is TITLE?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?, The description and keyword tags are default and havn’t arn’t exactly ideal but come on at least put some effort.
URLS
http://www.mollybrownswinelist.co.uk/index.php/seifried-gewurztraminer.html is an example URL of the website, which is confusing as having index.php in the sitewide URL usually indicates a permission error with htaccess or they are running on IIS without the mod rewrite addon, neither of which are a problem because they are hosting the website and its running on apache.
And the rest
I won’t go into page content, the amount of javascript and other elements but if you take a look at the other clients who have the SEO services from this company, they don’t seem to like H1 / H2 tags, unique titles or things like sitemaps & custom 404 pages.
Client Rankings
Client Rankings
Most of the clients have a client rankings box on the right hand side of the menu but almost all of the clients are either Work in Progress or Coming Soon..
If your clients still have rankings that are either coming soon after over a year then either your keywords are pretty out of reach or the SEO you’ve done isn’t good enough.
But you’ve picked the latest site in the portfolio, it might not be done yet!
Thats what I thought, so I picked a client that was launched in June 2008.. CSS Skip Hire
Lets take a look at the HTML
| <title>Home | CS Skips</title> | |
| <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1” /> | |
| <meta name=”Keywords” content=”Welcome | |
| Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ante. Nunc libero sapien, fringilla sit amet, hendrerit eu, ullamcorper non, tellus. Curabitur sollicitudin. Aliquam purus sem, placerat at, gravida et, consectetuer id, quam. Aliquam bibendum porttitor purus. Nam aliquet.” /> | |
| <meta name=”Description” content=”Welcome | |
| Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ante. Nunc libero sapien, fringilla sit amet, hendrerit eu, ullamcorper non, tellus. Curabitur sollicitudin. Aliquam purus sem, placerat at, gravida et, consectetuer id, quam. Aliquam bibendum porttitor purus. Nam aliquet.” /> | |
| <meta name=”Author” content=”" /> | |
| <meta name=”Owner” content=”" /> | |
| <meta name=”Copyright” content=”" /> | |
| <meta name=”Rating” content=”General” /> | |
| <meta name=”Robots” content=”index,follow” /> | |
| <meta name=”revisit-after” content=”2 weeks” /> |
Okay.. Again the Home page has a title of Home!!! seriously! We’ve all used Lorem Ipsum before and some of us have accidently launched an article or two filled with this content but this is your home page and a complete waste of authority.
The tags after Description are all a waste of page space… and the rest of the titles of the site are minimal.
Why are you picking on Creative Suit?
I’m not picking on them, I’m just seeing some work which is really bad and brings the industry down, The client based this agency have also seem to be small business’s, I’ve worked with really big companies and companies with one or two employee’s and when your working with smaller companies – its not a marketing budget, its not an SEO campaign… it’s bread and butter, its a business loan to pay for the website and advertising and its organic traffic that keeps your head above the water, if your selling SEO to companies of a smaller size, you need to make sure it makes a difference.
Is this the problem with the SEO industry?
We’ve got a bad reputation, you know it and I know it but with stuff like this, we don’t do any favours with companies (not just this one) selling services which to be honest, are sub par. I’ve seen agency’s selling monthly services as optmisation but really are just reporting. I don’t mention the SEO part of my job when I’m in new company because to be honest in certain places its worse than saying you work in recruiting.
We run Think Visibility as a conference to show people that its not cloak and dagger and blackhat but there are things that WILL make a significant difference to your website traffic.
This won’t be the only post I write about Shoddy SEO… I’ll be looking for more examples…
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Ha. What makes this even worse is that this stuff is barely even SEO it’s all basic site building stuff that anyone involved in the web should be able to pick up on.
.-= Kean´s last blog ..Fixing Smush.it =-.
Very good article, without naming names I have worked for a company that are similar to Creative Suit in almost every way, in that they have no clue about the services they offer but still pull the wool over their clients eyes none the less.
.-= Lee´s last blog ..A long awaited update =-.
For the Google Search Results image, I think they’ve actually searched on “creativesuit” as it looks like their company name in the description and URL are highlighted… meaning matched term
I thought exactly the same as you, regarding the latest client maybe a bit harsh as an example. Checked BabyDeli and found the only META tag to be “Content-Type”.
Even my SEO is better than this… on a good day
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Viva Las Vegas – Affiliate Summit =-.
I wouldn’t like to be in CS’s shoes right now..
I’d be interested to see just why that client got put in the portfolio. I thought that it could be an ex-client who’ve had their site redone, but then why have Creative Suit left it in the portfolio?
It’s either poor SEO or poor marketing. Still, it’s a bit much to judge them on one example. We’ve all had nightmares now and again.
(ReTweeted)
.-= Andrew Nattan´s last blog ..How Not to Get a Guest Post – The Alexandru Rotaru Method =-.
the index.php thing is because of a default Magneto e-Commerce install, and forgetting to set the default SEO parameters up correctly. It’s all basic stuff that any web developer worth his salt does before releasing the site on the world.
I think Chris has it right there… their company name is bolded so I think they seached on that and came up #1… let’s hope! Then before taking a screen shot they simply changed the contents of the search box to “web development” and then didn’t hit the search button.
Indeed it looks like these guys didn’t do a thing for their client.
I generally am wary of calling out other SEO’s b/c you never know what the scope of engagement was, budget, etc… That is to say they may have suggested all these things be changed and the client may have refused to do that. But in this case I think as you have eluded to, the items here are so basic and so poorly done that I think you are okay here. There is no worse title tag than “Home”. Maybe “Untitled Document”?
.-= Jon Payne´s last blog ..Bing, Google and Twitter Feeding Search Results – My Two Cents =-.
Great post, it is horrible to see companies exploiting customers like this, especially with times the way they are and small businesses needing all the help they can get.
I was discussing a similar company yesterday who’s idea of SEO was to plaster geo targetted keywords in the header and footer of their clients pages and also provide a link from their homepage, a single separate link for each targetted keyword across a large number of clients. As you can understand their homepage had 100’s possibly 1000’s of outbound links.
I actually felt embarrased for them.
Forgot to add…
Perhaps it was all just a link bait ploy to get you to link to them? In that case, it looks like you have done more SEO for their client than they have done. Perhaps you should send an invoice?
.-= Jon Payne´s last blog ..Bing, Google and Twitter Feeding Search Results – My Two Cents =-.
“I’m not picking on them, I’m just seeing some work which is really bad and brings the industry down”
Or, as you point out, hasn’t been optimised at all, and has been unfortunately mislabelled on their website (which, granted, isn’t great, but would make the point of your article kinda moot).
Tsk Tsk Dom outing poor manchester companies. I’ve not done that since I was unsuccessfully threatened with legal action. lol
The image used is very misleading right enough and I’m wondering if this was what got your back up?
As a web dev company who does seo, I’m faced with this dilemma a lot – somebody paying buttons for a site…. using a cms you install. Are you responsible for their meta because you know seo? Are you responsible for the home page title etc because you know seo?
As time goes on, I dont think so. Surely it depends what your paid for?
However I always point this out to clients (although I always kick my developers arse if a site launches without at least a descriptive home page title and they always have unique titles). Its potentially embarrassing for me. We actually have a website launch best practice guide to try and prevent this with about 30 seo-focused steps EVERY site has to go through no matter how much was paid – but things do get overlooked from time to time.
A lot of web developers just dont think like seo – they’re focused on very different things. Probably why they shouldn’t just add in “we do seo” on some sites – eh?
Sometimes web developers overlook seo basics, and sometimes the seo isn’t employed to look over it. I’m constantly criticising my less experienced guys (office humilation and the like)
And who says you need H1s? lol
Anyway a bit of devils advocacy never hurt anybody and your right this industry has a bad rep.
.-= Hobo´s last blog ..Internet Home Business Kit / Google Online Cash Kit Scams Everywhere =-.
This stuff annoys me. Seen it with some other keywords too, I’m sure (real) seo’s on twitter can confirm this too. Too many people trying to get away with lies.!
.-= Shane Jones´s last blog ..Proof that a Tweet Can Get Results =-.
Heard of Big Mouth Media?
I’ve never really accepted that ‘SEO’, development, accessibility and design on the web sit all that far apart, if they even do at all. To me they’re kind of like a ball of rubber bands, weak and floppy alone but strong as a united force
I wouldn’t even consider coding websites these days without semantic structure, separating style from content and including relevant meta data. It makes your site more usable and useful to actual people, not just search engines, so to me that’s part of the development bundle. It should be de rigueur, not an addition.
Like any other industry, especially one shrouded in smoke and mirrors at times, there are genuinely good, the average and the blaggers. Unfortunately there’s usually more of the latter two!
.-= Peter´s last blog ..IGCP =-.
It seems Creative suite have responded to this post.
http://bit.ly/4Fpm61
If it seems that these sites weren’t SEOd at ALL then immediately alarm bells ring.
Given the choice between either giving the company a quick friendly ring/email to check that there weren’t issues with the content or spending considerable time spitting bile over a blog post it’s a no brainer.
Sure it may be poor form if an admin/dev error slips through the net but it happens to everyone at some point.
Fair play to dom for adding the disclaimer, but I still feel this was a trigger happy post that hasnt reflected ‘the height of professionalism’ that we have enjoyed reading in previous posts. There’s other companies out there who are genuinely deserving of such scorn.
Dom,
I have just read your post with interest, and must say I am really disappointed that as a “professional” within the industry, you are prepared to voice your opinion without initially finding out more about the facts involved.
We have built extremely professional sites for both Molly Browns Wine List and CS Skips, on limited budgets. Both clients are very happy with the work we have produced. Neither are employing us for SEO services. The clients you have mentioned are within our portfolio, and are there as an example of previous designs we have completed. I think a clue is in the page URL http://www.creativesuit.co.uk/web-design-portfolio.html .
I’m sure like many web related businesses out there, we have many different types of clients, who employ us for very many different services. All have different needs and budgets. We manage over 150 clients on an ongoing basis, and operate on a rolling monthly contract, so if the client isn’t happy they can cancel our services. Our retention levels are very, very good.
The tone you are casting about the professionalism and ethics of my company is completely unacceptable. Everyone within my business has worked very hard to get into the position we currently are, and to have some idiot write something negative about the business, without conducting correct research is not acceptable.
Can I suggest that the next time you try to slur the good name of a hard working business, you have the courtesy and decency to check your facts and then comment.
Hi Charlie,
You seem to have forgotten that your own portfolio stated that you yourself did ’search engine optmisation’ for many of these companies (and it still does by the way)
None of your comments have mentioned the front page image or explained why you thought it was a good idea to give the impression you ranked for ‘Web Development’.
I’ve updated the post with your answer that its a problem with the template and noone of these companies, you’ve actually done SEO work for but as a company that provides SEO, shouldn’t you be doing the basic’s for for the stores before you set them live on the internet? it shouldn’t be a separate service you can sell on at a later date..
There’s really no excuse for a client’s website being live on the internet for 1+ years with Lorum Ipsum as the meta description.
The items I pointed out weren’t really SEO, they were just basic things that should have been done in the web process.
If you manage 150 clients on an on going basis and there’s three of you in the company (which I was told yesterday) then that doesn’t leave much time per client per month.
went downstairs and tried the portfolio, it seems my computer’s upstairs are caching it and the SEO element has been removed from many of the clients
Dom,
I don’t want to have an online “spat” with you; what has annoyed me is that you have commented on a couple of clients we have done work for, without understanding the client accounts and what was done for them. We have all worked too hard, and are too passionate about what we do, to allow ill informed comments to go unanswered.
I see what you mean with regarding the development ranking; it’s merely a visual for the site, and I’m sure you’ll agree that clients would not suddenly employ our services just from a small thumbnail on our site.
Regarding the site that has been live for 12 months with the “Lorum ipsum”, we had issues with payment with these guys, which was eventually resolved, but all work was pulled off their site. In the commercial world Dom, you get what you have paid for, and if clients don’t pay you don’t do any more work. Its that simple.
I’m sorry, but I must have mislaid my handbook where you outline the “Web Process.” Any chance you can send me one over, as you are obviously the authority on this. I’ll make sure we all have a good read at this end.
Not sure where you got the 3 employees from, we are actually 7 strong, with a very strong freelance network around us. If you fancy popping over for a brew to meet the team, please do come over. I’ll make sure Matt doesn’t put anything nasty in your tea.
Hi Charlie,
I was told 3 employees but I won’t take that any further..
But I still think that the front page image is mis-selling, it might not get you a client instantly but it certainly makes someone look twice.
I’m always in Manchester so happy to pop in chat a chat (as long as I have a firm guarantee that I leave unharmed
)
If not it seems your going to Manchester SEO in a few weeks so we can have a chat then over a beer
Now that’s a good frickin’ post. The industry gets more and more hilarious by the day.
.-= Rob´s last blog ..Pet Medical Supplies That Are Reliable & Affordable =-.
You certainly ruffled a few feathers there .. but it looks like you’ve sorted it all out now. I do agree though, and we come across it alot these days, that there is a lot of bad SEO going on out there which gives the industry a bad name. We are just striving to keep giving it a good name!
.-= Becky´s last blog ..Is a Christmas Tree that Important? =-.