Revenge SEO: How a fired contractor erased 90% of our traffic

Last year, I brought on a new specialist in search engine optimization (SEO) to drive backlinks and business, only to find the contractor used black-hat practices to generate toxic, irrelevant results. Worse, the content was AI-written and keyword-stuffed.

Co-Founder of Vitality CBD.

I fired him three months later but made the big mistake of not immediately revoking access. Out of revenge, he deindexed 200 product pages and blog posts, causing a 90% drop in traffic and devastating sales.

Unfortunately, I quickly realized that marketing is both a growth engine and an attack surface. This is a cautionary tale about handing over the keys to your business backend and what it takes to rebuild from the brink.

From onboarding to sabotage

In hindsight, there were several red flags. This marketing “professional” talked a big game but relied on outdated techniques that didn’t translate well in the online world. We’re...

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