Stark Industrial Case Study

Saving a banned domain

Services: Recovering of a penalized URL and Search Engine Optimization

Product: Metalworking and Fabrication

URL: www.starkindustrial.com

Report Date: June 2003

Warning Signs:

Three months prior to Search engine optimization work, Stark Industrials page ranking dropped from a 4 to 1. All inside pages were vanished from the indexes, and only the homepage remained. The company could now only be found by a URL search.

Rankings had always been a struggle for this client, and traffic was steady but small, as they had struggled through four years and three agencies. The Karcher Group signed on to the account as the fourth agency for this gun-shy client, just as the site was on the verge of being banned.

Diagnosis: The designers used doorways on the site that redirected users back to the homepage. None of the prior agencies caught on to this.

Treatment: Preemptive apology dispatched to Google, making them aware of a change of SEO companies for the domain, and a notice of removal specifically outlining the offending tactics. The Karcher Group optimized the framed site, cleaned out the offending doorway pages and extraneous code (from three previous agencies making changes.)

The SEO work was done for four months with the agreement that if the client didn't see results, the work would be free. If they were impressed, the optimization costs would be retroactive. They are now one of our best clients.

Results: The website continues to grow in search engine rankings, referral traffic and conversions. The client has learned the value of continually improving the visitor experience and optimizing for both rankings and usability. By making the information accessible to searchers, the site has become more usable and conversions are increasing quarterly.

The bottom line:

• Conversion Rate up 800% after fix and optimization.
• Currently holding 50 top 20 rankings.