I Had Supposed SEO GURU Say I Was Messing Up His Clients SEO Work.

[joonseo]

Hi Everyone,

I had an SEO guru come to me and say I was messing up his client's SEO. Here is the story and I would like to have some feed back.

This law firm I work with is my personal friend and I told him the SEO work he was doing could be improved and that I could do a better job. So what I did was setup a new website for him competing against his website in the same city. Keep in mind he wasn't even ranking very well locally until I came and ranked this website I was doing for him.

To prevent any issues with Google here is what I did.

1) New domain URL
2) Different address
3) Different phone number
4) Different business name and we registered a separate business license for this business.

1 year later the website I built is ranking in the top 3 and his now has mysteriously fallen off. He claims because my friend is on this website I am hurting his site. My argument is that no it isn't because it is a completely different business. And lawyers can be on other lawyer websites all the time as co-counsel. This so called SEO guru is pretty much bad mouthing me.

What your thoughts people? I really need feedback from the community my friend is totally blaming me for this since I'm no expert and this GURU knows it all.

 

[keyserholiday]

I am sorry but there is not enough data to provide you with a proper answer. There could be a plethora of reasons for rankings to drop. A manual action, an algo update, toxic links, robots, thin content, page speed, improper citations. We would need to know the two different business names and address in order to provide a better answer.

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Also, I assume you are talking about organic listings, but want to confirm.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I'm so confused.

I agree that we need more information. Also, is it your friend, the attorney, who is upset? Or just the SEO person?

 

[joonseo]

He is upset at my because he feels that I sabotaged his business. My question is just because his picture and his name is on the website would that affect his other Google Page. Keep in mind they are separate telephone numbers, web url, address and even business name. His SEO guy claims that because he is on another website his website is getting filtered out.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@joonseo, as others have said, we don't know many specifics.

But I can say that, based on what you describe, the other SEO's gripes are at least plausible. I assume you created a Google My Business page to accompany the 2nd site. In that case, a few things that can result from a "test" like this:

1. Your GMB page may have started showing for brand-name searches that used to pull up the older GMB page, siphoning off brand-name traffic in the process.

2. Especially if the "different business name" you picked is an exact-match keyword, it's possible the new GMB page ranks in a one-box result, at the expense of the older GMB page.

3. If the "different" address is only differentiated by suite #, Google likely doesn't see it as a different address at all, and so Google may have filtered out one GMB page.

4. If the new GMB page doesn't have as many (or as good) Google reviews as the old one has, but the new GMB is ranking more often than the old one, it's possible your client just isn't getting the same clicks / traffic / leads as before.

Those are just the possible GMB-specific problems. As @keyserholiday said, many other things could be going on. In general, a "test" like that is a bad idea, not possible, or not worth the effort. In general.

 

[JoyHawkins]

My question is just because his picture and his name is on the website would that affect his other Google Page.

So you're referring to GMB listings? Or are you referring to organic results? If you are referring to local results (so GMB listings), it's definitely possible that one is filtering the other. It's impossible to say without looking at it. If you can PM me both sites/listings and also what search term you're looking at, I can let you know.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

If you're talking about organic rankings, then I would say the best SEO won. Sure, you may have caused Google to choose between you site and his site but I'm tempted to say Google chose yours for a reason.

I'm not saying it was a good idea to do this because of the problems it sounds like he is experiencing. However, it sounds like the other SEO may have gotten out SEO'd and is upset about it.

However, did you use tactics like PBN's etc that could collapse as time goes on? If so, an argument could be made that he's better off with the lower ranking website that is more sustainable over time, so his gripe could be legitimate at that point.

That's a very loose diagnosis though. More details are needed as others have said.