What do you guys as entrepreneurs and small business owners want from SEO/Web Dev/Internet Marketing professional

I recently got onto the website Udemy and definitely plan on making a few courses as a means to generate some income and get my name out there(currently working on a book). Before I go any further anything we come up with here will be offered for free to any of Reddit's Entrepreneurs. So my expertise ranges from Web development to seo all the way to internet marketing. I have worked as a freelancer for four years and in a corporate scope for about a year. So any suggestions on appealing classes on that site you'd like to see soon?

SEO Experts, what is your single best tip, trick, or method?

Answers from anyone would be awesome, but please mention if you're a professional or consider yourself an expert.

How do you get leads for SEO jobs?

I realize that I can just practice what I preach by blogging and building out my own online presence, but it's hard to rank in this particular industry and CPC is way too high for me to run any viable advertising. I find it hard to advertise SEO services, especially in an industry saturated in SEO "gurus" who spam every single contact form out there. Is there a better way to contact site owners who's sites could use some work. Is cold calling/emailing a viable option here? Should I perform searches and then contact those who are on page 3 and below? Any advice is welcome and appreciated.

Edit: I guess my ultimate goal is to provide comprehensive online strategy and implementation for a handful of clients. Ranking sites organically is just one part of the overall strategy, it just happens to be a large part and arguably the most important.

So I could rephrase the question. How do you get leads for marketing strategy/consulting jobs? I'm not trying to spam business owners at all. I'm talking about performing site audits before I even contact the company and providing useful insight. Show them a few areas that I could help them improve in, whether its traffic generation or the conversion side. There are a lot of business out there with piss-poor websites, businesses who spend $1000's every month in paid traffic that undoubtedly don't convert as something more modern and user friendly would.

How can I pick keywords and target them with my ecommerce site?

hi guys, so i've got my first 'real' website that will serve a purpose, i'll be selling laptops, phones, etc electronics.

I'm using opencart which has some built in seo thing, which basically lets me make my links like mysite.com/this-is-the-seo-url, as well as providing the same for categories and etc. I'm not actually sure what the point of this is but i'll just assume it's good.

Now I've had a look at the main small competitor on my main product (android tablets) and they seem to target words like cheap android tablet, budget tablet, 7 inch tablet, etc words.

How do I go about choosing the words that will lead to best conversions, and then how will I 'use' them? i have no clue about any keyword research tools, and the one every site/article recommends (seomoz) is insanely priced for a broke student such as myself.

I also had a sinister thought of copying that sites keywords and then buying bad SEO gigs for them from fiverr to kill their site and i'll take their place, that may sound unethical and it is, but it seems to be something on the table (someone else suggested it to me)

please help me reddit seo gurus!

Best strategy for a small budget?

OK, I've tried - and failed - to understand anything at all about the ever-changing world of smoke and mirrors that SEO appears to be. Frankly,with my full-time job and writing gigs, I simply don't find the time to devote to it.

A friend of mine and I run a movie review site (www.picturenose.com) and we'd like a few more hits than the 100-150 per day we get at the minute. The aim is to pay for the hosting and buy ourselves a dinner or two from the proceeds but we're not even making that at the moment.
I'm not looking for vast wealth (although I would take it!) just a way of making a regular 30 bucks or so per month from ads.

The site is clean, we don't do anything illegal/spurious and we have a tiny budget (ball park of around $400). IWhat would the wise ones of SEO suggest I do with it? I'm not interested in fiverr links or Indian backlinking 'services' that damage organic traffic (I learned at least that much).

I have posted here before and got some good tips but am frankly too thick to implement them. Any suggestions for services or quick fixes welcomed. Thanks for your time.

EDIT: Thanks to all for the input. I'm discussing with my writing partner and we'll draw up a plan, starting with the quick wins and looking deeper into it. It's all been useful.

Get a Free Copy of My New Step by Step SEO Book on Amazon.

Hi fellow Reddit enthusiasts!

I’m excited to announce that for the next 48 hours I’m launching a free giveaway of my new Kindle book called Step-By-Step SEO. The book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Step-Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ.

I’m a big advocate of sharing information and I really value the Reddit community as it has made a huge impact on my own career. Therefore, I welcome you to download a free copy of this new book since at the end of the day we’re all just trying to learn from each other.
I hope you can learn something from me as I have from all of you that have contributed such great information on this forum.

[–]RecoilS14 [score hidden] 7 hours ago
The amazon link is broken

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 7 hours ago
http://www.amazon.com/Step-Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ try this. The link works for me. Are you connecting from the outside the US?

[–]RecoilS14 [score hidden] 7 hours ago
Yeah, Canada. It works if I click the direct link, but the imbedded link from reddit doesn't link properly.

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 7 hours ago
Thanks for the tip. Hope you enjoy the book. If you have time, would appreciate a review from you.

[–]RecoilS14 [score hidden] 7 hours ago
Unfortunately it says it's not available in my country.

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 7 hours ago
That is strange. I will look into this and get back to you.

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 7 hours ago
http://www.amazon.ca/Step---Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ Try this link. It is available in your country. This link should work. Let me know if it doesn't.

[–]RecoilS14 [score hidden] 6 hours ago
That worked! Thank you very much!

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 6 hours ago
Awesome. Enjoy.

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 7 hours ago
Just in case the embedded link doesn't work, here is the direct link again - http://www.amazon.com/Step-Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ

[–]mattyseo[S] [score hidden] 6 hours ago
For people from the UK, please use this link - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Step-Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ

GoDaddy offers SEO for $3/month? Am I missing something here? I thought SEO cost $750-2k/month.

GoDaddy offers SEO for $3/month? Am I missing something here? I thought SEO cost $750-2k/month.

[–]Aetheist 20 points 1 day ago
SEO $3/month
Effective SEO $2k+/month
You were missing one word.

[–]LovelandOhio 10 points 1 day ago
Godaddy uses genetically modified SEO which is bad for you. You should use the organic SEO. It may be more expensive but it's better for your website health, no pesticides.

[–]deyterkourjerbs 19 points 1 day ago
Congratulations! You've figured out the secret way to save $747-1997 a month on SEO! Don't tell anyone else or we'll all be out of jobs!
Now you know our secret, I don't mind letting you know that I actually use this service myself and spend the $747-$1997 a month of pure profit on cocaine, hookers and pogo sticks.

[–]imyxle 8 points 1 day ago
Apparently, I'm not living up to the SEO lifestyle.
permalinkparent
[–]mcilrain 5 points 1 day ago
Find existing service
Build a near-identical service on top of the existing one
Convince others that your service is better and charge more
Profit
Pogo time

[–]defaultsubsucks 10 points 1 day ago
Hi I'm a fast business man looking for a rockstar developer to build my new social network website koobecaf.com It's like facebook but better because it's mine.
I will share with you my pogo stick (25% of the time) in return for your work. Please contact me ASAP.
permalinkparent
[–]2317 3 points 1 day ago
Upvoted due to pogo stick reference.
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[–]chauffage [score hidden] 23 hours ago
Can you do cocain while pogo—sticking the hooker, all at the same time?

[–]Polarisman 13 points 1 day ago
I would not recommend doing business with GD. Their business practices are horrible. This "SEO" offering is classic GD garbage they peddle. Either learn to do SEO yourself or hire someone competent to help you. This service is a waste of $ IMO.

[–]ITatAHC[S] 5 points 1 day ago
Yeah, plus the bad rep about GoDaddy and the whole SOPA thing in the past.. Anyway, would you know of any reputable SEO companies?

[–]Fuquawi 9 points 1 day ago
GoDaddy has since fired the CEO responsible for coming out in support of SOPA, and reversed the company's position on it.
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[–]Stittastutta [score hidden] 16 hours ago
I never knew this. I feel it should have had more press. Nothing sells more than a good old fashioned internet witch hunt though!

[–]Yazim [score hidden] 10 hours ago
There's plenty of good ones, and plenty disreputable ones as well. Depending on your market, it may take a few hundred and a few weeks, or several thousand and several months in order to help you rank. A good SEO company will guide you through what you need, not just what they want to sell you.
I'd self promote here, but really try going to a local SEO meetup (meetup.com) and talking to the companies and freelancers there. That will get you a really good idea of who does what, and they tend to give you are really unbiased opinion when other people are watching. :) Plus it is nice when you can meet and talk face-to-face.
Most of these "SEO" packages that companies like GoDaddy offer (as well as "SEO Templates") are just services that are SEO-Ready, but they don't magically work by themselves to help you rank. GoDaddy's service probably just has to do with making easier to edit your robots.txt or something cheesy that they want to charge you a subscription for.
Even if it "technically" helps, you still have to do it yourself.

[–]jumpropejeremy [score hidden] 12 hours ago
Boostability is an up-and-coming SEO company for small to medium sized businesses. They're the fastest growing company in Utah currently. They'll do the job for you. For more than $3/month, but less than $10K or $2K.
permalinkparent
[–]Polarisman -1 points 1 day ago
No one I could recommend to you.

[–]9ballrider 7 points 1 day ago
The GoDaddy SEO is actually a package called SEarch Engine Visibility. it scans your site for certain things, allows you to set you key words, creates an XML file for you to submit to the search engines and allows you to submit to over 100 search engines within the interface. They don't actually do the SEO for you. It's a good way to get your site into the search engines and it avoids some pitfalls that first timers usually run into, but you have to do all the work yourself and it doesn't help at all with link building.

[–]the_real_atentat [score hidden] 10 hours ago
100 search engines lol. What about 1000 directories?!

[–]ITatAHC[S] 1 point 1 day ago
Aha, I knew there was a catch. All the quotes I've been getting from SEO companies have been around $750/month and this seemed ridiculously low.

[–]9ballrider 4 points 1 day ago
it's still a decent product. I have used it for some of my sites and I get listed just fine. It all just comes down to picking the right keywords. Obviously forking over huge amounts of cash is going to get you some better results, but if you are looking to save money it's a decent option.

[–]JustinChaschowy 2 points 1 day ago
It's just a mild time saving convenience, but not even worth the 3 dollars a month really.
It's as minimal as them just submitting your website to a bunch of directories / link submission forms using an automated process. This is something they should just add for free because it provides very minimal results and takes them little if any man power.

[–]thundermachine 4 points 1 day ago
kind of like how Mcdonalds offers a hamburger for .99.
get what you pay for.

[–]ITatAHC[S] 3 points 1 day ago
I dunno, I kinda like those $1.00 burgers :P but I see your point

[–]merreborn 3 points 1 day ago
I've been looking for restaraunts that sell local organic hamburgers and most of them charge $5 or more. But I saw that mcdonalds charges about $1 for their hamburgers. Is this a trick?

[–]hokieflea 4 points 1 day ago
SEOs hate him! Find out this one simple trick that saved one site owner $1997!
permalinkparent
[–]cakes [score hidden] 19 hours ago
mcdonalds dollar menu burgers are the most nutritious calories you can get for the money

[–]metro99 [score hidden] 7 hours ago
And $1 hookers have the best pussy you can get for the money too

[–]Clayburn [score hidden] 12 hours ago
There's no minimum nor maximum. I'll do SEO for $25,000/month.

[–]Yazim [score hidden] 10 hours ago
Pssh, I'll offer a 50% discount for a new client, and do the first month for $12,500 (but only with a 12 - month commitment at $25,000 / month).
:P

[–]sammyp99 [score hidden] 2 hours ago
the most you'll pay is the least i'll take
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[–]farting_flowers 3 points 1 day ago
Is this a trick?
If you have to ask then you're probably in the wrong business.

[–]distantkorean 1 point 1 day ago
My family (unfortunately) gets hosting from Go Daddy for their online business. Go Daddy's "SEO" has increased the website's traffic by literally 0. Only traffic they have seen were from personal referrals and pre-existing customers from Amazon.

[–]lazerfoxxx 1 point 1 day ago
All it does is give you out of date recommendations for "improvements" to your site. Some of the "improvements" they suggest might actually hurt you. It's all on-site optimization as well. It wont get you too far.

[–]maaseyracer [score hidden] 23 hours ago*
SEO can be as much as 10k a month. Then again it depends on the clients needs.
Also what does GoDaddy do for SEO? Do they just pump your link to directories the way some ISP SEO programs do? If so that will backfire in no time.

[–]AgentFoxMulder [score hidden] 19 hours ago
No. I'm pretty sure it's just some generic plugin they can deploy on their own servers for little to no costs at all for them. Something other people would refer to as 'wordpress plugin install', but not as 'SEO'.

[–]aDildoAteMyBaby [score hidden] 18 hours ago
Probably gives you more access to the metas, titles, canonicals, and, if you're lucky, the redirect structure. Which, of course, in the wrong hands is enough rope to hang yourself.

[–]platinumpt [score hidden] 14 hours ago
The most important point here is that "SEO" isn't just a product you buy off the shelf and install onto your website

Grouping Backlinks by Type?

Howdy y'all.
A client I'm working with asked me the other day if it was possible to view backlinks by type - have a report saying something like "20 backlinks are from PR, 50 are from blogs, 100 are from directories"; etc. etc.
Personally, I have never encountered anything with this functionality in SEOMoz or Raventools. But I'm curious if there is anything that can do that. Seems like it'd be one hell of a nifty tool for SEOs - but it might be impossible (how does a Robot tell what's a blog and what's not?)
Thoughts?

[–]HalNavel 2 points 1 day ago
Page type classification is a machine learning task, and there aren't any companies doing a passable job that I've seen.
You're better off training an analyst, an intern, or an offshore worker to classify pages like this. The upside is that you can get more granular than software, and identify link location or anchor text type.

[–]RabidCoyotePowered by Volusion[S] 1 point 1 day ago
This is just a small freelance gig I'm working on, so I don't have the resources to have someone else analyze these links. However, I feel that I can usually identify what's a blog, what's PR, what's a directory, etc. - I just don't have the capacity to do that for say 50,000 links all day

[–]AndySEOSelf-Employed 1 point 1 day ago
Link Research Tools is paid, but gives you a few free reports to start off with. That will do exactly what you need. Nothing free though to my knowledge.

[–]HalNavel 1 point 1 day ago
That will do exactly what you need.
I use LRT and it's classification is so unreliable that you will end up manually checking everything to get a usable result, which is exactly what the tool should be saving you from.

[–]AndySEOSelf-Employed 1 point 1 day ago
fair comment, I suppose it depends on the level of detail you need. LRT gives a pretty decent estimate.

[–]pavement_rageSEO Manager 1 point 1 day ago
Not many tools do this because its pretty hard to do. If you have access to ScreamingFrog you could use list mode and the custom fields to look for unique identifiers of each link type

[–]deyterkourjerbs@deyterkourjerbs 1 point 1 day ago
Couldn't you ask this question on Friday?

[–]RabidCoyotePowered by Volusion[S] 1 point 1 day ago
Ummm....I guess I'm new here but what's the significance of Friday?

[–]deyterkourjerbs
I could respond to your question with a link to a blog I'm posting then?

[–]RabidCoyotePowered by Volusion[S] 1 point 1 day ago
Oh.
I thought Friday was like "Foolish Question Fridays" or something. :P
I'd love to see your blog, man. I'll be sure to watch out for it and add some comments when you post it.

[–]imyxle 2 points 1 day ago
I think Thursday Thoughts should be followed up with Foolish Question Fridays.

[–]RabidCoyotePowered by Volusion[S] 1 point 1 day ago
I PUT ALL MY KEYWORDS IN META KEYWORDS AND I'M NOT RANKING #1 FOR "ONLINE STORE".
SEO PLS RESPOND.

[–]HalNavel 2 points 1 day ago
U NED TWO META KEYWORDS TAGS, ONE FOR BING ONE FOR GOOGLE

[–]koloniaCHAMP 1 point 1 day ago
PUT DEM KEYWORDS IN DESCRIPTION FOR YAHOO! NO MEANINGFULL SENTENCES - BUT KEYWORDS!

Why would my website vanish from Google?

I am confused.

I have a fairly un-ordinary name and so if I google / bing / whatever my first name last name, my website firstnamelastname . com is usually at the top.

I changed the content of the homepage to a one page bio with links to other sites and now when I google first name last name on google nothing shows up. There are a couple of links to pages and posts on that website further down page 1 but nothing else.

Bing appears unaffected.

Why might this be? Any ideas? Thanks.

[–]Doesntmatterson

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

Scroll down to "So How Do You Know If You've Been Bad"

[–]andey

check google.com/webmasters and see what it has to say

[–]-Sparkwoodand21

Nope. Not throwing up any errors. Asked to reindex it. See what happens.

[–]almondj

It's probably a Google dance, nothing to worry about. You should regain rankings within a few days. http://searchengineland.com/googles-panda-dance-matt-cutts-confirms-panda-rolls-out-monthly-over-10-of-30-days-162950

[–]Made_

Were you do doing any link building? My site barely has any content but good links. Google - NYC online consultant - I take the first spot (knock on wood) More than happy to discuss because I am helping over 65 sites that have been penalized and dealing with over 600 clients.

[–]positive_to_dicks

Vanish = DEINDEXED? have you tried:

index:[insertsite] ?

cache: [insertsite]?

site:[insertsite]?

do it and let me know :)


[–]ph0nix

Depends on if you have been being bad or not. Bad kids go play in the sandbox.

Small business owners - what is the best advertising methods you use

This is for a law firm.

I get a lot of companies offering SEO and other services to "get on the first page of searches." However, they are all very different and offer different services and prices. Who do you think is best?

Also, what other advertising/methods do you use to generate business? Right now, our word of mouth is outstanding and the sole source of business. However, we are expanding and will need to generate new business.

TYIA

[–]amsoell
I would be very wary of SEO firms. SEO is largely voodoo, and making "first page" promises can't really be guaranteed. Not saying all SEO firms are hucksters, but lots of them are in my experience.

SEO and advertising are two completely different animals, anyway. Which is it that you're more interested in here?

[–]ColumbusLaw

I know advertising is just an aspect of marketing, but I figure having a better online presence is the best way to reach out to people.

Most people only need a lawyer a few times in life so they do not know where to turn and the internet is the default way to research and find something you need.

[–]brunchordeath

I do seo. It's not voodoo. It's a basic understanding of the internet, and a lot of research.



[–]InfiniteZr0

Placing fliers on cars in nearby parking lots is good.

Just make sure you don't waste your time/money on a place that has no soliciting signs

[–]brunchordeath

I'm not a small business owner, but an advertiser (big & small) but it really depends. Do you need more business now, or do you want steady growth?

What kind of law do you practice, & more importantly are all of your customers 1 time buyers, or do they come back for their prenup's, wills & estates, bankruptcies, business advice etc. ? This is important, even for lawyers, you should know your customer's buying cycle. (hint, the long buying cycle is easier in the long run.

Essentials:

($1000-$25,000) A website, preferably revised within the last 3 years. It should have a content management system. If you don't know what that is, you don't have one. You should build a new site or have a company strong in development add some features to your current site.

FREE A google places/Google+ page, Bing Page, Yahoo Page, Yelp Page. This should help: https://getlisted.org/ be consistent and accurate when updating all of these. They take forever.

~$3600/mo For you, I'm assuming you do estates, wills & bankruptcies, yellow book is viable because old people have money and old people use the phone book.

Other stuff:

Most law firms are built on word of mouth, but you can incentivize this by asking people to review you online (can't pay for this) or refer-a-friend & get $ off services.

Print & banners are probably not your best bet. Go for things that have longevity, consider walking in the town parades and passing out magnets (they stay on fridges), sponsoring a baseball team and going to the games (pressing the flesh) and other community events where you are available to bump into potential clients. Probably not golf, unless you are a law firm for corporations. Most golfers I know already have a lawyer.

Also, consider building an email list, and offering tips/ updates/ advisement to your current clients.

Radio is middle of the road. It costs a decent amount, but not as much as TV, and has a better return than print.

Billboards are expensive, and you really have to send a message to get results.

SEO is good with the right company, but you are right that there are a lot of people offering it, and very few that I would personally recommend. I wouldn't even listen to any of them unless their starting price is a minimum of $500 a month, and even that is pretty small. Companies from India will bug you so you want someone local that you can go see face-to-face. Most of the money you spend will be spent on the guy/girl training you on how to better manage your business online.

Doing a little bit of all of these things will go a long way as well, and if you ask your clients, you'll find out very quickly which ones you feel are working, and which ones are not.

Things I strongly advise against:

Online Banner ads (unless retargeting) Newspaper Ads Saver Magazine etc.

If you just want to chat, pm me, and I'd happily let you bounce ideas.


[–]BuckeyeJay

Phonebooks. Everyone still uses those. I mean, they have to, since I have received about 6 on the front porch over the past 2 weeks.


[–]ColumbusLaw

Ha, yea. If you actually look at a phonebook the Attorneys section is literally the biggest by a mile. Unfortunately, we are a small firm and cannot compete with the bigger guys to have any significant presence.


[–]Inbounddude

Return on Yellowpages/Phone books is the lowest it has ever been for advertising/marketing.

You could pay a GOOD SEO individual or team $400-500 a month to get you more leads than any type of print media/ads.


[–]bucket323

Newspaper?

(Cue laughter & derision)

[–]cavsfan432

I work in marketing and am a pretty good proponent of website/blog/social combo. My agency actually has law firm experience, so if you're interested let me know. If you want to go it yourself at first, I would basically set up the following:

A Facebook and Twitter page. Might be less essential for a law firm, but I'd still do it. It's very inexpensive, and should be easy enough to get some traction if you harness your word of mouth.

A blog with content that people will want to read. Something that will drive some traffic and show interested customers that you know what you're talking about.

A modern, good looking website that lists your services, and provides a way to contact you.

I wouldn't worry too much about SEO. It's relatively easy to do the basics, beyond that you get into thousands and thousands of dollars of work for negligible benefits. Much better to just harness your already strong word of mouth onto the internet.

Contacted by seo brand middleman about a domain - need advice

I received an email out of the blue this week from a seo/brand expert company requesting to purchase a domain I have had for several years. The domain is a generic name of a potential medication. I was given an initial low X,XXX offer which lead me to investigate further, thinking it might be a high profile company who is interested. I found that a trademark for the term was filed and published in the last month by the company most likely to produce this medication. How do I determine a reasonable asking price for the domain? the company who is likely behind it probably has a pretty large bankroll. Anywhere you could recommend I seek guidance?

sorry if this isnt directly seo related.. this seemed like the most relevant sub for folks with knowledge in this area.

[–]BlackGuyOne

Maybe post in entrepreneur...there might be someone that has had this happen to them.

[–]BlackGuyOne

I would decide how much you are happy with, usually about 5k, and sell it. They don't have to use your name;they could use any variation.

[–]MAVERICK910 

is it Sildenafil citrate by any chance? ;)

Are there any months that generally have lower or higher amounts of web traffic/engagement? All things considered, August seems a little slow.

Are there any months that generally have lower or higher amounts of web traffic/engagement? All things considered, August seems a little slow.


[–]crl826

Christmas tree sites tend to do better in the winter.

[–]el_perro_del_mar

Hahahah thanks for that


[–]B_Wildman

Summer is usually slow for most businesses. Also, you can check the trends of certain keywords using Google's Insight Tool.

k

[–]Sir-Mocks-A-Lot

I can confirm this- it's not just an internet thing- you'll find the same phenomena in brick and mortar businesses. It's summer- people are on vacation, they're moving, getting their kids ready for school, yadda yadda. Look for things to pick in October/November.

Black Friday is supposedly the day when most businesses start to turn a profit for the year. This should speak volumes by itself.

[–]SEOoBserve

Depends on your website's niche. I was running a website about Holidays abroad from UK, and it was doing ok every month, just put trendy articles relevant to your niche ;)

Do nameservers effect SEO???

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had any insights as to whether or not nameservers have an effect on SEO.

One example that came to mind was this:

If I create two websites on the same nameserver, and use only white-hat tactics on one site, and all black-hat tactics on the other, will the white-hat site be negatively effected because it shares the same nameserver as the black-hat site?

[–]Sleeparchive

I shouldn't think so. All DNS servers do is return the IP of a URL. It wouldn't make any sense for Google to make 'bad neighbourhood' DNS servers. That is like penalizing someone for watching the same TV as a criminal.

That said, I've never tested it.

[–]bajanboost

Google does not pay attention to a website's nameserver unless it is common with websites that abuse the rules. Shared server companies like dreamhost uses a common name server for thousands of websites.

[–]JohnDRuckerduck

Just one? I don't think so. A multitude? Yes.

In the same way that Baidu seems to have a preference to websites hosted on Chinese nameservers, there most likely is a bias towards the name server you choose

[–]HalNavel

As far as covering up which domains you own, use a nameserver from a major host, or several major hosts. Be sure to use unique whois, UA code, GWT verification, AdSense, etc if you want to try this.

[–]hzane

Nameservers can and do get blocked or flagged for spam frequently. Especially in a shared hosting environment. So while it's a little more complicated than that, the short answer is pretty much, yes. That's the value of having a dedicated IP and either self-hosting or using a quality hosting provider.

Website goes dark on Google and were in panic mode..

My company that has realized a steady increase in unique traffic from about 80 to 200 visitors per day over the past two years. For budgetary reasons, a decision maker at my company decided to go with a cheaper SEO vendor than the one we had been working with and the new vendor prematurely had us point our DNS records to their server and uploaded an incomplete sitemap in webmaster tools. After realizing days later that we had switched to an incomplete website without any 301 redirects set up and half the content we had gone, we re-pointed the DNS back to the old host/website and resubmitted our old sitemap. Fast forward a week and our traffic has dropped from 200 visitors a day to about 20 and our website is not showing up in the search engine results save for some local listings that we are ranking for. My question is, are we fucked? Is there anything we can do to get back to where we were before the drop that we haven't already done? I'd hate to think that all the hard work of our previous vendor was for naught. Any insight would be appreciated here.

[–]MAVERICK910

is there still any errors in webmaster? has the sitemap been indexed?
i dont understand why a "seo vendor" would need to change your dns, do you mean your hosting company? like did ye move your website from one hosting company to another?
if you want il have a look, pm me the url

[–]googies

i looked into it and the sitemap that just got indexed right when the traffic dropped is only for one page! i think our old vendor removed all of the other hundreds of pages from the sitemap. if we were to switch to the new website again which is almost ready to be published and use their sitemap, would this fix the problem you think or are we fucked?

[–]MAVERICK910

ok i think i get you now

so you moved websites to a new vendor and basically these fools made a balls of the transfer.

You have two choices, go back or push on with the new site. Ive been here before and the client had pressed ahead and by the time i appeared they had lost over a third of their traffic and it took 6 months to recover.

Imo i would get the old site back up asap as its only been a few days, resubmit the sitemap and wait till it gets indexed.

Then i would check for errors in webmaster and deal with them until they are gone.

Then fire the new vendor.

Then possibly beat whoever dreamt up a costing cutting exercise for what seems to me an important channel for your company.

Hold off moving to the new website until you have recovered, ie everything is back indexed. Do some quick heavy online marketing, maybe a months worth.

Then revisit and plan out a proper site migration.

Im sure others will have some other advice but imo getting the old site back and indexed is the main issue, forget the new site for now.

[–]googies

problem is, the old site is back up and we resubmitted the old sitemap when we switched back from new to old...however the old vendor has control of the sitemap and deleted everything except the homepage. we can't call the old vendor up because our relationship is effectively terminated, and the new vendor's website/sitemap won't be ready for a few more days. don't really have much choice but just wait for the new website to launch. I hope when google reindexes off the new sitemap we will regain our visibility but I'm not so sure.

[–]MAVERICK910

So you press on. Draw up a pretty comprehensive online marketing plan for a month. Like daily engagement on social networks, the whole shabang!

you should start to see a massive jump in 404's as they come into webmaster. Your best bet is to get the new site up and running asap and 301 these 404's to the new pages. Can you ask the new vendor to hurry up?!

Then do some serious online marketing, maybe a competition on facebook or something, twitter, adwords etc.

The speed of Recovery will be determined by how much work you but in once the new site is up.

[–]lepornjames

Your company only gets 200 a day and you're paying an SEO company? Wow, I need to charge more.

[–]seothrowawayt

I'm thinking the same thing, but you never know what his niche is or how valuable these leads can be.