I have a situation where a website used to have 10,000+ backlinks to it, as indicated by the Magestic Historical Index.
However, over the past few weeks, there was a sudden drop in rankings. When I checked the Majestic Fresh Backlink index, it showed only around 200 links. I confirmed this with Google Webmasters
My thoughts are that the SEO firm previously handing this account, created low quality backlinks, and the search engines finally caught up with them, and removed all weak backlinks, and their link juice.
Is this a safe assumption? I wanted to get additional opinions considering the magnitude of the recent events.
I suspect you are right and that’s precisely what’s happened. It’s probable that the links came from a low quality link wheel/network that has since expired/been penalised by the SE’s.
I suppose it’s a lesson to make sure to build links on good foundations!
Yes, I believe you’re spot on here. The rest of those links were basically garbage and have been removed because of it. The good news is that if most of those links were garbage to begin with, you shouldn’t see much fluctuation in your actual rankings. The 200 quality links that are left were doing all the heavy lifting anyway.
Usually I don’t use a SEO firm to manage my links, it’s not healthy for the feature of my page.
Many, if not most, professional websites need an SEO firm to manage their online presence because they simply don’t have the time or expertise to deal with it. The unfortunate reality is that there are a relatively high number of SEO firms that don’t play by the rules and attempt to get a site ranked any way possible. The client is the one who ultimately loses here. My point is that you still can’t let a few rotten apples spoil it for everyone. There are more honest and reputable SEO firms out there than not.
This is a prime example of why outsourcing SEO to (often unethical and unscrupulous) external firms can be dangerous. They have no vested interest in your long-term success, so they will get a quick fix by short term hacks and bodges with no consideration for what happens further down the line, leaving you in the lurch.
If you don’t know where your backlinks are coming from then how do you know that they’re coming from useful sites?
it is best to know a little about seo and internet if you get involved in an online business, otherwise you risk to lose both money and confidence in companies that offer great positions shortly.
I used to offer top three positions for a few clients of mine let’s say in 6 months, and I used only white hat techniques.
Once there, my clients have broken the contract with me and did not meet my instructions to maintain those positions, the result was a slow drop in ranks after one year.
Now they want another contract to broke it again when they reach the top.