North Carolina is home to many scenic mountains and beautiful coastlines. Unfortunately, it is also home to some of the worst SEO companies in the United States.

This weekend I heard a story that one of them removes content that you paid for from your site if you cancel your contract with them. This may even be part of your contract.

If this happens to you, feel free to give me a call. There are many ways to retrieve your content if it already has been deleted. If they are threatening to delete it, you have plenty of time to back up your website.

This is the type of BS that never has even crossed my mind before. But, like I said, there are some awful companies out there.

Recovering your content

If your content is about to be deleted, a quick and easy way to back up your website is a program called HTTRACK.

If you content has already been deleted, you can likely recover it via the Wayback Machine, which is essentially an archive of the web. This is also free to use. Your content is likely there unless they proactively blocked the Wayback Spiders (I’ve seen this done before, too).

What if I can’t use the content?

You have two options: use it anyways or tweak it.

  • Use it anyways: Recently a law firm client of mine switched from their useless law firm marketing company to me. They weren’t very concerned about using the content. After all, it was unique to them and they had paid for it. The ONLY reason they weren’t “supposed” to use it was because they were told not to. It isn’t like the marketing company could use it. This is stupid. The law firm went ahead and used it anyways. I have seen this method used over and over. I can’t imagine someone would sue over this. I am “pretty sure” they would have to show exactly how it damaged their company, too, which wouldn’t be possible.
  • Tweak it: In some cases, people want the content tweaked. This is fine. I have personally done this for people before. And you know what? It needs to be tweaked anyways.

Personally, if I were in this situation, I would copy the content over I paid for word for word and update it as time allowed. If the company was this shady, there is no way the content was up to par anyways.

Been burned by an SEO company?

Literally all of my clients have been through previous SEO companies. After getting jerked around and educated they tend to find someone like myself. If this is you, please feel free to contact me. If I can not help you I will offer up some words of wisdom.

I would also love to hear stories of deleted content in the comment section below.

Len
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On December 13, 2016   /   Content Creation   /   1 Comment
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