Threatening SEO practice

[londonesm]

Hi all,

We have just taken on a site that has had SEO done for 3 years by a different company, but now that company is threatening the client to ruin their site with bad links, and get their site banned.

I understand through Webmaster tools that you can monitor backlinks, and file a reconsideration request, but is there any other non-time consuming way of stopping this to start with?

Hope someone can shine some light on the very unprofessional practice

Thanks

Neil

[MickEdwards]

I would monitor the links in OSE.  Any whiff of dubious links disavow the domain, any more disavow the new domain etc, etc.  They will soon get tired of wasting their resources, if indeed they carry out their threat in the first place.

[TomRayner]

I'd recommend this as well.  Unfortunately, there's not much else you can do in this position.

Take advantage of OSE's "just discovered" section and, if you have access to them, combine with the "fresh links" section of MajesticSEO and/or Ahrefs.

Add them in to the file and upload your disavow.

[londonesm]

Thanks Michael & Tom,

Thats a great help, and I hope this other company is just full of hot air, and do nothing like Michael says.

Thanks again

[DHS_SH]

Sounds like you have been 100% validated in your decision to change SEO firm! Just imagine the tactics they were using when you were paying them

I would echo the comments above - stay vigilant for spammy link warning within Google Webmaster Tools and add any poor quality links that you find to a disavow file.

Its staggering that your old agency would rather put time, money & effort into harming an old client rather than finding a new one

[co.mc]

Hi, this was very helpful! Is there anything else besides bad links that one should be concerned with that could potentially hurt the ranks? I'm using the OSE to keep track of newly discovered backlinks. Although our old-SEO company hasn't threaten to do such a thing, they've shown signs of being a bit shady in the past... so I rather monitor for the next year or so (to be on the safe side). Thank you