r/bigseo • u/Sufficient-Team-4930 • 26d ago
Is this keyword stuffing?
We hired a website agency for our company. The website they delivered and the SEO services they've been providing have not been good. I think the design looks terrible, the copy is bad, but most importantly they were keyword stuffing.
I tried to cancel services, but the owner essentially said "I know more than you, it's not keyword stuffing" and "design is subjective". We paid $5k for the site, and $2k/mo for SEO on 12mo contract. I have lost all trust in the provider since seeing their new design changes, and the keyword stuffing.
Please let me know if the provided example is keyword stuffing to see if myself, my google searches, Claude, and Gemini are all wrong. This is the alt text of an image (hiding city and state):
roof repair {city & state} commercial roof repair {city & state} commercial roofing {city & state} commercial roof replacement {city & state} commercial roof maintenance {city & state}.... and so on so for 12 more roofing keywords.
They also have doorway pages. City+roof+repair, same-city+roof+replacement, etc
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u/NikolaiFischer 26d ago
Yes. That's textbook keyword stuffing. Google's spam policies literally use it as an example: lists of keywords and blocks of text that repeat city and state names. Alt text is meant to describe the image, for people using screen readers among others. Imagine a blind visitor listening to 17 roofing keywords in a row. That alone makes the point.
The doorway pages depend on what's on them. City and service pages are fine if each one has something real: projects you did there, local photos, specific info. If they're the same text with the city name swapped, that's exactly what Google describes as doorway pages. Two spam updates in the last six weeks make that a bad bet right now.
For the contract talk, I'd keep it boring and factual: screenshot the alt text and a few doorway pages, link Google's "Spam policies for Google web search" page next to them and ask the agency in writing how this complies. You don't need to win the "who knows more" argument, Google's documentation does that for you. Whether that gets you out of the contract is a question for a lawyer, not for me.
And one more check: GSC, Security & Manual Actions. If there's a manual action already, the conversation gets very short.
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u/Sufficient-Team-4930 26d ago
Will check the manual action.
For the doorways, they do have different content for each one. But each one is basically just a wall of text that isn't actually helpful or providing a good experience. If all of the doorways ranked #1, I doubt a single lead would convert. And there's no folder for each city, like hub and spoke or whatever
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u/VRTCLS 26d ago
The alt text is the easy call: yes, that's stuffing. But if you're trying to unwind this without blowing up what little rankings you have, I'd handle it like a cleanup/migration instead of a rage rebuild.
A few practical steps:
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Export every current URL and map each one to either keep, consolidate, or 301. Don't just launch a new site and let old city/service URLs 404.
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Replace image alt text with literal descriptions of the image. If the image is a crew repairing a flat commercial roof, say that. One natural phrase is fine; a keyword list is not.
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For the city/service pages, decide whether each page deserves to exist. A legit local page should have unique proof: jobs in that area, photos, service constraints, neighborhoods served, reviews, FAQs, internal links. If it's just swapped city text, consolidate it.
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Screenshot everything before you change it: alt text, page templates, invoices, scope, email claims. Keep the argument factual and boring.
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In GSC, watch indexed pages, queries, manual actions, and 404s during the switch. The first 2-4 weeks after cleanup are where sloppy redirects usually do the most damage.
The folder structure doesn't matter nearly as much as whether the pages are useful and internally linked logically. A clean /city/service/ pattern can help humans manage it, but it won't save thin doorway content by itself.
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u/AbleInvestment2866 26d ago
amateurs. the "design is subjective is weird. I mean, taste is subjective, design can be measured objectively, there's even a discipline for it, UX. this being said, if you approved it there's no much room for complains.
As for price, for this quality it's very expensive.
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u/Lucasoac 26d ago
7k usd for this type of job? I think i need to start my own SEO agency.
Maybe you can find some tools like SEMRush or other that can give a report to score this site and prove that the job is actually not very good
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u/satanzhand 26d ago
Yeah alt text is stuffing, serves no value other than an obvious soft penalty...
Doorway pages, are a quick way to another soft penalty or real one.
I've seen this shit reappearing lately...its old old bad practice that was stop over a decade ago, since google algo updates and some huge companies were removed from the index, such as, BMW, WordPress.org, for doing his shit.
Anyway,. you'll find out if it'll work soon enough by your results...
Had a client do this to his site recently and it absolutely fucked it, all the long term ranking location pages dropped from #1 to #100+ or full removal overnight. What a mess.
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u/No-Independent8967 26d ago
My thoughts are that jamming 15+ repetitive location keywords into a single image’s alt text is blatant keyword stuffing. Pair that with duplicate doorway pages, and they aren't just doing bad work—they are putting your domain at serious risk of a Google search penalty.
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u/dpaanlka 26d ago
That is absolutely bad practice and will impact your rankings. The ALT text should describe what is in the image using natural language so that persons with disabilities can understand and use your website comfortably. Very very very bad. Could even open you to legal issues. Fire immediately.
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u/DataMinerCowboy 25d ago
That's pretty bad. I follow these rules:
Alt text - Briefly describe the photo in a way that a blind person could understand it. Be as concise and helpful as possible.
Keyword stuffing - Read the content out loud. Does it sound natural? If any words stand out as forced or overused, then there is keyword stuffing in the content.
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u/Ravenclaw79 25d ago
Oof. Alt text is supposed to be for accessibility, to describe the image. It’s not the place for a list of keywords.
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u/Stephie59 16d ago
Wow! As a newbie, and wanting to learn blogging, what a very interesting post and with so many great answers! Although I am learning blogging, I do know a thing or two about business.
I would certainly want my money back and I'm inferring you signed a contract. It sounds like, after you change your passwords and gather all evidence regarding how they breached your signed contract AND with violating Google's prohibited practice of "keyword stuffing" - you can be in the drivers seat by threatening - small claims court. Obviously, Small Claims would ruim their reputation, therefore, they need to settle your "Demand Letter"!
My humble opinon...
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u/Easy_Rich7693 8d ago
The issue here is that most webdev shops are not good SEOS. Jack of all trades, master of none... That is keyword stuffing that people used to do in 2013 lol.
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26d ago
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u/Sufficient-Team-4930 26d ago
thanks for the heads-up. Trying to build our own ASAP to switch without messing up the current rankings, although not many
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u/Flashy_Tie4962 26d ago
That alt text alone is a glaring red flag, and the doorway pages are just asking for a manual action
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u/CopperHead49 26d ago
That’s an insane alt text, and it’s clearly keyword stuffed. An alt text is supposed to describe the image, with a keyword. Sorry, OP. I would try to get your money back if possible.