For years we have been warning that unethical SEO techniques that violate Google's SEO guidelines could result in a site being banned from the Google index. In the past week, Google made a fairly major ranking update that appears to have wiped clients of Traffic Power, from the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

A growing class action lawsuit is targeting what are being called unethical SEO practices used by Traffic Power. Many webmasters are familiar with a regular barrage of unsolicited Emails and phone calls from this firm and most wisely choose to ignore them. Some webmasters, unfortunately, did not ignore Traffic Power and contracted them to perform services on their websites. In the past weeks, clients of Traffic Power were almost universally banned from Google. While there is no way these businesses will make it back into the Google index without a significant amount of work on their websites, they may find some sense of solace in a growing class action lawsuit currently being developed by the San Francisco IT law firm, Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo, LLP.

Traffic Power (TP) is a fairly large company based in Las Vegas with a very bad reputation. Since the latest Google update, many of their former clients have posted information in a variety of search engine related forums detailing the techniques TP used to achieve placements for their sites. The postings read like a list of what NOT to do when considering SEO techniques. In the words of StepForth PPC and Link Building expert Scott Van Achte, "They (TP techniques) are so 90's". Getting a huge portion of your client list banned from Google takes a great deal of dedication to poor practices. Based on information provided by their former clients, here are a few of the methods used by TP and how to spot if these techniques are used on your website.

Doorway Pages
While Traffic Power uses the phrase "Attraction Pages", the design of numerous pages on the same topic designed specifically to game search engines is a technique that was banned years ago. As recently as November, Traffic Power told clients they would, "...build 280 individual HTML attraction pages that attract the search engines for your targeted keywords. The attraction pages are designed using a computer-generated analysis to conform to the ranking criteria of the top search engines. These pages provide spider food for the search engine spiders that includes significant unique content relating to your site." This technique directly violates Google's SEO guidelines. Here is Google's take on Doorway Pages: "Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of

keywords. More insidious however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content."

As of today, Traffic Power's website refers to Search Engine Entrance Pages (SEE Pages). Here is a quote snipped from their FAQ page:
"A search engine entrance (SEE) page is a one page version of content taken from your site that is housed at a new Web site address. To create a SEE page site we register a new domain based on your keywords and upload the SEE page, the Traffic-Power.com code, and over 100 unique Advertising Pages. If someone finds the SEE page directly or through an Advertising Page they will be automatically sent to your original site once they click on any link on the SEE page." This is a spammy technique that violates Google's SEO guidelines.

Automated Link Building - Link Farming
Link building is an important factor in Google ranking. Link Farming is an unethical means of providing links to your clients. Traffic Power does not refer to their technique as Link Farming but instead told clients they would be added to specifically themed "link pools". Google's SEO Guidelines and Webmaster Guidelines have at least two warnings about this sort of practice.

Mouse-Over Redirects
This technique is truly creative spam. Traffic Power designs a page that redirects to the client's website when a mouse is drawn over any portion of that page. What this does is a cheap but relativity simple cousin to cloaking in that Google is fed one set of information but the live-site viewer is offered a different set of information when they move their mouse over the page that ranked well in Google's SERP. From what I gather in the various forums, this is the trick that got a wide array of Traffic Power's client base banned.

I am, or someone I know is, a Traffic Power Client - NOW WHAT?
First of all, take a deep breath. The sky may have fallen for a short period but your website is not necessarily damned to eternal Google purgatory. There are a number of resources you can turn to, depending on your web design skills, the amount of free time you have, and your confidence in your own abilities. The SEO Consultants Directory has taken a lead role in helping former Traffic Power clients cope with the situation they find themselves in. SEO Consultants has been retained by a consortium of business owners who are concerned about this issue. While remaining anonymous, the Consortium is obviously actively pursuing information about Traffic Power and has asked SEO Consultants to gather and publish information about this issue. They have published a series of pages with detailed suggestions on what former Traffic Power clients should do. I strongly suggest anyone who has had an association with Traffic Power to visit this series of pages.