I signed up with SEOP, Inc. (1720 E Garry Ave, Ste 103, Santa Ana, CA 92705, 949-280-4210) on Sept 26, 2014 to provide my website (SaveYourHeart.com) with search engine optimization/marketing services. And soon thereafter provided Kimberly Pitcher, the Project Manager, with the proper logins and passwords to access those areas to which they wanted access.
On Oct 2 we got an email from Kimberly saying that her team can’t get into our analytics account. We looked into it and found that Kim’s team was not using the access codes we gave them and broke a button on the site. We made them the following offer, “they can email us with the changes to be made and we will make them. We told them that it is very easy to break something (even inadvertently), example: the button they broke. If SEOP breaks something, we are always wondering what went wrong and if someone else did it. This is a good example of how even a little issue could become a major problem in a shopping cart.” We sent Kim access codes to areas that we believe are safe for them to go (no ftp access at this point).
On Oct 8 my webmaster and I agreed to grant access to SEOP for them to:
a... make their own content changes on the shopping cart
b... instructions on how to access the existing blog and what they needed to do to have us give them access to another directory and database where they could install another blog should they want it,
c... as well as making it extremely clear that we would be happy to make needed changes for them as well if they requested it.
On Oct 21 we find out that our User ID and password for the admin section of OpenCart are not working. About the same time, SEOP sends a screen shot from Gary Hagins that showed a phpMyAdmin error he got.
After about 4-5 man-hours of work we find out that SEOP had made changes to the .htaccess file that prevented users and returning customers from logging in or creating a new account. This prevented customers from ordering, making any changes to their autoship orders, and even prevented them from cancelling their autoship order!
After doing a lot of investigating we found out that SEOP used an outdated OpenCart instruction manuel from a host besides ours (InMotion), tried to make database changes to correct ENCRYPTED password information in the database of OpenCart. SEOP tired to solve the log-in problem by fixing something (the wrong way), and trying to solve a problem that was broken by them making a change to the .htaccess file. He got an error message because he was doing something he had no authority to do!
SEOP’s chief technology officer said that the passwords didn't work because someone changed them, but since he had cPanel access he could re-set them. (Which, by the way, is a violation of any proper protocol in the highest sense. Hacking the database to re-set admin passwords without a webmaster's permission in a platform you know nothing about using outdated 3-yr old instructions found online and from another hosting company is just plain wrong!)
Bottom line: they did not know what they we doing.
On Nov 6 Kim tells us that they are still having trouble accessing the site (no one from SEOP attempted to work for 2 weeks?). The email has a screenshot that said “Permission Denied.” We tested the OpenCart access and found that it worked to give them access to add / edit pages and products, including URL structures and meta info (which is all they needed). But we were tired of delays and wanted to get the ball rolling, so we threw up our hands and gave them access to everything except orders (no credit card data) and some settings that had nothing to do with seo. We confirmed that the ftp access they had worked.
On Dec 4 Kim says they have ftp access problems. We respond:
1) they don’t need cPanel access
2) their ftp goes to the file to change the styling.
3) they were instructed to tell us what they needed changed and we would do it.
4) they had full access to the pages to alter content and change the URL structure and category structure and title tags and meta-descriptions.
5) they were told that we would be happy to either share access to the existing blog (which we did) and/or create a blog in a total separate directory and give them full access.
6) If those pages were so bad that they outlined in the excel spreadsheet, why weren’t they deleted/colsolidated almost right away, since the access they were given to the shopping cart pages on Nov 6?
On Dec 11 we give Kim’s team access to the root ftp directory so SEOP could change any file whatsoever anywhere on the server. The only thing we asked is that SEOP not minify the main styles, which if they had done earlier would have caused a huge amount of havoc code-wise. We also “nicely” re-gave her the exact same access to the admin that was fully working since Nov 16. It appears to us that SEOP is playing with ftp to “fix” technical things that will have very little effect and have nothing to do with: page content, meta descriptions, title tags, url structure, category structure, deleting pages, image alts, h1s, h2s, blog post … things that will genuinely affect search engine rankings.
On Dec 12 we receive an email from Kim saying their Open Cart access works, but the ftp does not. Since my webmaster is out of town we set up a conference call with the technician having the problems.
On Dec 16, on the conference call, we find out that they were accessing ftp all wrong and putting in characters -- an "http://" -- in the host field, which is why it didn't work. This is definitely not something you would expect from any coder or anyone who has ever used an ftp program in their life. This is a mistake only a rookie could make!
On Dec 17, I send a follow-up email to Kimberly to make sure her tech is accessing everything okay and she says yes.
On Jan 5 we have a conference call with Kim. We are 95 days into our campaign and nothing has been done. Content changes I authorized on Nov 14 have yet to be done. I let Kim know that we are unhappy with SEOP’s performance to date. I ask Kim to send me an email of everything they want to get done within the next few weeks, so I can more closely monitor their/our progress.
On Jan 10 my webmaster and I decide to examine every email and telephone exchange we have had with SEOP and write a chronology of our experiences with them.
Monday Morning, Jan 12: My webmaster and I have a 2 hour conversation and put together a chronology of our experience with SEOP in order to evaluate their progress so far.
Later that day I call Mr. Clark of SEOP (Kimberly’s boss) and make arrangements to talk on Tuesday afternoon.
On Jan 14 Mr. Clark and I have a long conversation. I go over our chronology and express my dismay at SEOP apparent inability to do anything right. We are 108 days into our contract and nothing has been done. Mr. Clark says that he will investigate the situation, talk to all concerned and get back to me in a day or two. We requested that Mr. Clark put our account in suspension in order to stop payments until he could figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
On Jan 16 I asked Mr. Clark to document for me everything Kimberly’s team had done. As of this writing (February 5th, 2015), I have received nothing from Mr. Clark. So, I am forced to conclude that SEOP has done NOTHING for the $6000.00 I have paid them. Yet they are contesting my request for VISA to reverse the last two charges to my credit card! Their arrogance knows no bounds!!! SEOP had everything they needed to make whatever changes they wanted to make to our website beginning on Oct. 2. Over 100 days later nothing had been done. They are either incredibly incompetent or were cold-bloodedly engaged in a preplanned program of deception and manipulation in order to distract us from what was really going on – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – while putting in no effort (except to make excuses)in order to suck as many monthly payments from us before we catch on to their ruse and cut off the money spigot. Either way, they did a piss-poor job. Stay away from SEOP, Inc. (unless, of course, you are fond of throwing your hard-earned money down a rathole)!
SEOP Reviews
I signed up with SEOP, Inc. (1720 E Garry Ave, Ste 103, Santa Ana, CA 92705, 949-280-4210) on Sept 26, 2014 to provide my website (SaveYourHeart.com) with search engine optimization/marketing services. And soon thereafter provided Kimberly Pitcher, the Project Manager, with the proper logins and passwords to access those areas to which they wanted access.
On Oct 2 we got an email from Kimberly saying that her team can’t get into our analytics account. We looked into it and found that Kim’s team was not using the access codes we gave them and broke a button on the site. We made them the following offer, “they can email us with the changes to be made and we will make them. We told them that it is very easy to break something (even inadvertently), example: the button they broke. If SEOP breaks something, we are always wondering what went wrong and if someone else did it. This is a good example of how even a little issue could become a major problem in a shopping cart.” We sent Kim access codes to areas that we believe are safe for them to go (no ftp access at this point).
On Oct 8 my webmaster and I agreed to grant access to SEOP for them to:
a... make their own content changes on the shopping cart
b... instructions on how to access the existing blog and what they needed to do to have us give them access to another directory and database where they could install another blog should they want it,
c... as well as making it extremely clear that we would be happy to make needed changes for them as well if they requested it.
On Oct 21 we find out that our User ID and password for the admin section of OpenCart are not working. About the same time, SEOP sends a screen shot from Gary Hagins that showed a phpMyAdmin error he got.
After about 4-5 man-hours of work we find out that SEOP had made changes to the .htaccess file that prevented users and returning customers from logging in or creating a new account. This prevented customers from ordering, making any changes to their autoship orders, and even prevented them from cancelling their autoship order!
After doing a lot of investigating we found out that SEOP used an outdated OpenCart instruction manuel from a host besides ours (InMotion), tried to make database changes to correct ENCRYPTED password information in the database of OpenCart. SEOP tired to solve the log-in problem by fixing something (the wrong way), and trying to solve a problem that was broken by them making a change to the .htaccess file. He got an error message because he was doing something he had no authority to do!
SEOP’s chief technology officer said that the passwords didn't work because someone changed them, but since he had cPanel access he could re-set them. (Which, by the way, is a violation of any proper protocol in the highest sense. Hacking the database to re-set admin passwords without a webmaster's permission in a platform you know nothing about using outdated 3-yr old instructions found online and from another hosting company is just plain wrong!)
Bottom line: they did not know what they we doing.
On Nov 6 Kim tells us that they are still having trouble accessing the site (no one from SEOP attempted to work for 2 weeks?). The email has a screenshot that said “Permission Denied.” We tested the OpenCart access and found that it worked to give them access to add / edit pages and products, including URL structures and meta info (which is all they needed). But we were tired of delays and wanted to get the ball rolling, so we threw up our hands and gave them access to everything except orders (no credit card data) and some settings that had nothing to do with seo. We confirmed that the ftp access they had worked.
On Dec 4 Kim says they have ftp access problems. We respond:
1) they don’t need cPanel access
2) their ftp goes to the file to change the styling.
3) they were instructed to tell us what they needed changed and we would do it.
4) they had full access to the pages to alter content and change the URL structure and category structure and title tags and meta-descriptions.
5) they were told that we would be happy to either share access to the existing blog (which we did) and/or create a blog in a total separate directory and give them full access.
6) If those pages were so bad that they outlined in the excel spreadsheet, why weren’t they deleted/colsolidated almost right away, since the access they were given to the shopping cart pages on Nov 6?
On Dec 11 we give Kim’s team access to the root ftp directory so SEOP could change any file whatsoever anywhere on the server. The only thing we asked is that SEOP not minify the main styles, which if they had done earlier would have caused a huge amount of havoc code-wise. We also “nicely” re-gave her the exact same access to the admin that was fully working since Nov 16. It appears to us that SEOP is playing with ftp to “fix” technical things that will have very little effect and have nothing to do with: page content, meta descriptions, title tags, url structure, category structure, deleting pages, image alts, h1s, h2s, blog post … things that will genuinely affect search engine rankings.
On Dec 12 we receive an email from Kim saying their Open Cart access works, but the ftp does not. Since my webmaster is out of town we set up a conference call with the technician having the problems.
On Dec 16, on the conference call, we find out that they were accessing ftp all wrong and putting in characters -- an "http://" -- in the host field, which is why it didn't work. This is definitely not something you would expect from any coder or anyone who has ever used an ftp program in their life. This is a mistake only a rookie could make!
On Dec 17, I send a follow-up email to Kimberly to make sure her tech is accessing everything okay and she says yes.
On Jan 5 we have a conference call with Kim. We are 95 days into our campaign and nothing has been done. Content changes I authorized on Nov 14 have yet to be done. I let Kim know that we are unhappy with SEOP’s performance to date. I ask Kim to send me an email of everything they want to get done within the next few weeks, so I can more closely monitor their/our progress.
On Jan 10 my webmaster and I decide to examine every email and telephone exchange we have had with SEOP and write a chronology of our experiences with them.
Monday Morning, Jan 12: My webmaster and I have a 2 hour conversation and put together a chronology of our experience with SEOP in order to evaluate their progress so far.
Later that day I call Mr. Clark of SEOP (Kimberly’s boss) and make arrangements to talk on Tuesday afternoon.
On Jan 14 Mr. Clark and I have a long conversation. I go over our chronology and express my dismay at SEOP apparent inability to do anything right. We are 108 days into our contract and nothing has been done. Mr. Clark says that he will investigate the situation, talk to all concerned and get back to me in a day or two. We requested that Mr. Clark put our account in suspension in order to stop payments until he could figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
On Jan 16 I asked Mr. Clark to document for me everything Kimberly’s team had done. As of this writing (February 5th, 2015), I have received nothing from Mr. Clark. So, I am forced to conclude that SEOP has done NOTHING for the $6000.00 I have paid them. Yet they are contesting my request for VISA to reverse the last two charges to my credit card! Their arrogance knows no bounds!!! SEOP had everything they needed to make whatever changes they wanted to make to our website beginning on Oct. 2. Over 100 days later nothing had been done. They are either incredibly incompetent or were cold-bloodedly engaged in a preplanned program of deception and manipulation in order to distract us from what was really going on – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – while putting in no effort (except to make excuses)in order to suck as many monthly payments from us before we catch on to their ruse and cut off the money spigot. Either way, they did a piss-poor job. Stay away from SEOP, Inc. (unless, of course, you are fond of throwing your hard-earned money down a rathole)!