u/Fit_Cheesecake_4000

Hey guys,

Am curious as to what I could have done in this position...

I'm a web dev who recently left a company that owns 4 different websites. I built out 2 of them. All on Shopify.

They had bought 2 businesses and wanted a web dev who could help with SEO. I profiled both sites.

1. The first looked like a scam site. With my other duties I built it out over time and updated it and made it look nicer, but there never was a full web rebuild, sadly. They ranked for some decent keywords but they were a general store rather a niche store and crammed the site with many different products. Most traffic came via ads but the main ones were higher priced electrical goods that had potential safety concerns in my country. Limited backlinks, mostly toxic.

2. The second one was an older site. Once upon a time it had higher DA and a tonne of backlinks but on examination...many of them were linked to scam sites or link farms etc. Old owners must have bought a tonne back when Google wasn't as savvy. Over the time I was with them, it dumped about 30-40 top 3 keywords and went from multi thousand dollar a day sales to maybe 2, 3 if we were lucky. many toxic backlinks.

Not a lot of useful content on the sites. No FAQs, description content was thin, poorly written descriptions on both sites, moreso on the front one.

First year we brought in some decent sales. This year, with the current climate and some mistakes on their part and no backlink help via resellers or manufacturers links etc. our sales have tanked. They did not want me building out content last year outside of improvements - didn't seem the need -and when I discussed backlinks they didn't want to put money into it.

So I have tried by myself with smaller directories and outreach to other bloggers, but not a lot of love there.

I tried to build out content like crazy for 2 months and we did see an uptick across those 2 sites, and the other 2 we now have, but it wasn't enough for them.

They are now going to outsource to an SEO company, which is why I no longer have a job.

My question is...what more could I have done here? Would an SEO company actually help them at this point? Has Google penalised that site with the back links farms attached? I followed what I believed to be good practises and I know how to edit copy and meta.

Or is this a sign of the times, that everything can just be performed via AI?

Hey guys,

I'm a psychology student undertaking an online degree in my home country of Australia. I wanted to get into Clinical Psychology, but due to a fail on the first subject I took after returning to study (which was a shock, let me tell you) and my subsequent appeal not being accepted by the university (illness and my father's encroaching dementia) I am lumped with the GPA that I have, which is less than that enabling me to get into a direct Clinical Psychology Honours stream in 4th year.

Very depressing, as without the fail I would definitely qualify. But I have the marks I have now and there's not much I can do about it.

Apparently, there are universities in Australia that do accept applications from students not in the honours stream for clinical psychology programs, but it's quite competitive and I am studying while working full-time. So I worry about my capacity to achieve the desired marks in the coming year.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any experience with this in Aus? I'm wondering if a Graduate Diploma of Psychology is viewed very unfavourably?

Thanks!