Recent article in Media section of The Australian has revealed that one of the top SEO companies in Australia - Found Agency is due to complete the sale of its business to specialist marketing services Photon Group Limited for estimated $3 million. Siimon Reynolds is one of the executive directors in Photon Group Limited so it is a definite sign that SEO is taken more seriously and becomes a major strategy for big marketing agencies. It is the second acquisition of SEO business in last few months. In December 2006 Chris Dimmock has sold his search engine marketing company - Cogentis to BlueFreeway Limited. SEO companies consolidation is a new trend in Australia but it should not come as a surprise since in United States, big Madison Avenue marketing agencies have been buying SEO companies for last few years. For more details see the article:
Link kings net rich pickings in The Australian.
I had heard some rumbling and was wondering if anything had happened..
ReplyDeleteInteresting times are ahead here in Oz..
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What a shame, to see a once great Australian business go down so hard, they where everywhere you looked, there alexa has plummeted.
ReplyDeleteAnd i guess you would have noticed foundagancy.com.au have vanished from search, I dont know if the new owners decided to play black and stuffed up big time,
Or if Google finally pulled them up as most of there back links do come from "highly questionable" blogs and directories, in Greece Romania Russia, etc,
i hope it dosent follow through to there clients, o well,
Take the money and run, as they say
Philski
Yes it is an interesting development with foundagancy.com.au vanishing from search results. Possibly it has something to do with what Matt Cutts talk about in his post about Google Hell. There are interesting case studies there:
ReplyDeleteGoogle Hell
Darius
Following is the story which appeared today on Search Engine Room blog which does explain why Found Agency website went to Google Hell:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.searchengineroom.com.au/search10-found-agency-penalised-by-google
"The Found Agency’s website has tumbled down the Google rankings for key phrases it used to dominate after the search giant apparently invalidated the vast majority of the site’s inbound links.
“The site has taken a big hit, that’s for sure, although we were surprised it lasted so long where it was – it should have happened a long time ago,” said Found co-Founder Zak Asani.
Why? “Because we had just started our business on a shoestring budget and we pushed the boundaries a little bit on that site with linking” to rank highly in the Australian market for phrases such as Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing.
They shot straight to the top of the charts, dominating the Google splash page on both counts. Some in the industry estimate that www.foundagency.com.au has up to 50,000 inbound links from all sorts of sites.
Asani didn’t dispute this but denied industry talk that the website has been blacklisted by Google.
“What’s happened is that Google is not counting all the site links (so) we’re still indexed but just ranking poorly at the moment.
“We’re not really that concerned.
“We’ve got three backup sites with good age and good links. I think they will be breaking into the top 10 (for key phrases) in the next six months.”
News of Google’s action, which it declined to comment on, has become something of an industry sensation and rival companies have been quick to call Found Agency’s clients with the news.
But Asani said no clients had defected or were perturbed by the developments.
“I don’t believe our reputation will take a hit,” he said.
“You have to go to the boundaries to find out where they are. We’ve got between 1500 and 2000 websites running at any one time that we use to test the boundaries.
“Our clients understand we would not do that with their site.”
The site’s Google tumble comes at a pivotal time in the evolution of the company.
In early March, Asani and co-founder Tim Macdonald sold 51% of the Found Agency to the Photon Group for A$1.6 million. Photon has an option to acquire the remaining 49% by September with performance incentives through to 2010.
The Found Agency has 15 staff and is based in Sydney. Its clients include realestate.com.au, travel.com.au, Last Minute, Wotif, ABN-AMRO and Club Med."
Search Engine Room May 9, 2007
Following message appeared on www.foundagency.com.au
ReplyDeleteClarification re Google rankings
Contrary to rumours circulating in the market Found Agency has not been banned, black-listed or deindexed from Google. This week Found Agency's natural search rankings dropped from their dominant rankings positions of the past 2 years. We do not currently rank #1 & #2 for "search engine optimisation" or "paid search advertising", however we have never been "banned". We rank in Google's top 50 for many relevant industry terms. We will keep clients & partners updated as we improve our rankings
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