Unorthodox SEO method

I just got a client asking me why his website was'nt showing up in Google after more than a year of presence (other than typing the address itself). I had a quick look at the website's homepage and noticed that the webmaster used a cloaking method by writing an incredible listing of all the sites and url's he made. My client is advertising for his competitors in fact..., cherry on the cake, this method is on every website this company made! Second cherry on the cake, he won't let the client go nor give the source files of the Flash website (one of the cause he's nowhere), even though I convinced him to create a second website in HTML to improve his presence. Third cherry, the web design company holds his domain names, registered under their name...

What can we do to get everything back from this (very expensive) company ?

Thx in advance for your answers and/or suggestions

Wow! That's quite a situation. We'll need feedback from some members with more legal experience than I have.

Questions: 1) What country is the web company in? 2) Is there a written contract between the two parties?

General comments: It sounds like the best thing to do is to battle for ownership of the domain name, then ditch the company altogether and start over with a new, non-flash website (maybe keep a few flash elements but develop textual content and heading elements etc in xhtml).

Some contracts are sneaky with Flash and do not include the source files (I've seen this before). If that's the case then the client may be out of luck.

Can you post a sample from the source code that contains links to their other domains? I'd like to see what their intention was.

See an attorney! Expensive... but see an attorney!

The Web design company is located in France (and so is the business of my client). He has 3 (useless) domain names in .com and one in .fr. The .fr is registered under my client's name because you cannot register a domain name in France if you don't owe the trade mark of your business. Unfortunately, it's one of the .com that is indexed.
I'll ask for the contract, I think there must be one, asking for a yearly hosting fee of approx. $1,200.00, without any maintenance.
The website gets 5 to 10 visits/day...

What a waste of money

I really have nothing to offer other than agreeing with SEO_AM.
I just feel awful reading about such dishonesty, so sad to see.
I personally have dealt with a lot in my business, bet this really takes the cake.

Mmm. Just some quick thoughts. Lawyer for sure. Stop paying them. Get a new url and start from scratch - the old site is useless anyway. Seems to me the company your working with owns the content so go copy as much as you can and use it to start writing new content. report the old site to the seach engines due to the cloaking. Also check to see if the company who is screwing everyone is leasing the servers and contact their host - as unethical as they are I doubt they spent the cash on their own hardware.

It's the classic "cloaking method" with the <noscript>
Beginning with the warning message about Flash... but then all the list of URL's with name of the clients

FLash site... noscript... beside the domain name, not much to lose. If the business is in france, and he is targetting france customers, Id' use the .fr domain and make a non-flash site and get better serps... using the .fr will insure he is listed in google.fr france only pages serps.

That's what I told him...

But I'm sick of people making SEO by cheating this way... and of course, their clients know nothing about that!

Poor people, I'm assuming they have no idea how the internet works since they let the web designers hold everything that is theres. People, online, all you got is your name (brand).

There are two things you need to keep, in your name, and they are mutually exclusive (usually).

1. Keep your own domain names in your own names, with your own password, etc. etc.

2. Keep your own servers with your own content, back ups, records, etc.

The list could go on, but if you control neither then WHOPEE, you really have nothing at all.

I would first get the name from the company into your name just by being nice. Once complete transfer hosting over and thirdly call all the clients he had made websites for and email them screenshots of the cloaked page. Sadly the legal system has yet to catch up with technology.

Agree...
I am sure your client is very frustrated and is probably looking for blood. But the fact of the matter is, it is going to be a lot more fretful to spend the money that he is going to spend on legal fees on creating a new properly optimized website.

raz

Get a new site done and new domain name that the client can control... and stop paying.

Have the client make up a variety of excuses in advance - car accident, out of country surgery, mother's death, house burnt down to keep the website active for as long as possible... but promote the other one...

Then ignore the guy completely.

It's unlikely that he will be able to find a competitor to take it and will likely not renew it... then you can gobble it up.

It's worth noting that SEO_AM's suggesting is a viable option for the sake of 5 visitors/day... even if you had legal precedent what's it worth afterthefact... 5 visitors/day to start -- nothing more.

I've come across scams before but this one just blew me out of the water..

We ran into a similar siuation some time ago ...

The client did not wish to abandon the domain name as it was the company name. All it took was a letter to the domain registrar on company letterhead, stating the domain was the registered business name and website belonged to them.

Otherwise dump the sucker ...