GUESTS & RESOURCES
- Chris Yoko: Website // LinkedIn
- The Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // Twitter
- Benjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter
Episode Overview:
In today’s episode host Ben Shapiro speaks with Yoko Co CEO Chris Yoko about how to manage negative impacts on your brand. Together they discuss how to successfully recover SEO traction and avoid Google’s blacklist.
The best plan to have in place is a contingency communications plan that accounts for all types of scenarios. For scenarios involving Search Console assigning a red flag it’s crucial to pinpoint what caused it. Compare any recent changes you’ve made on your site and roll back the change if necessary. If you haven’t changed anything the cause of the red flag may be malicious intent. Most often the source of malicious intent is from missing a CMS update like installing a WordPress plugin or Drupal module.
Depending on the severity of the breach, the correct teams like IT and security need to be looped in first. For simple mistakes and technical issues, it’s important to be transparent in communications to affected parties about the issue. Next, resubmit affected sitemaps to Google Search Console quickly; the red flags should be removed within 72 hours. Google support can be contacted for immediate fixes as long as you outline what the issue was and how you fixed it.
Smaller organizations should follow up with an email to affected parties, whereas large companies and organizations often publish newsletters or press releases to address the problem and its solutions. Although most companies can recover from something like a bad domain transfer that links to an unsavory website, lasting damage can occur in some cases.
Moving forward it’s crucial for companies large and small to have a strong communications plan ready for any potential negative scenario, and regardless of outcome it’s vital for companies to continue moving forward.