Zalig Project
SEO & Technical - Canada 50% Spam traffic reduction, first page national rankings and AI citations for a Canadian Civil Engineering firm
Project Overview
ZALIG Consulting Ltd is a professional civil engineering firm headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The company provides specialised engineering services across Western Canada including geotechnical, environmental , hydrotechnical & transport engineering, material testing, and construction planning services. Operating across multiple service divisions — each with its own subdomain — ZALIG serves municipal governments, construction companies and private sector clients requiring expert engineering consultation and field testing. As a technical firm in a competitive Canadian market, their online visibility directly impacts their ability to attract project leads and establish credibility with potential clients searching for specialised engineering services.
Project details
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Industry
Civil Engineering
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Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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Duration
2020 - Present
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Type
Remote / Long-term
The Challenge
When I took over ZALIG’s full digital presence, the challenges were significant and multi-layered. The company faced several key issues:
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The website faced spam traffic from bots and malicious sources, creating toxic backlinks, skewing analytics, harming domain authority, and preventing accurate measurement of Canadian audience behavior.
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The site’s blog content was unoptimized, lacking keywords, internal links, and search intent alignment, resulting in poor rankings and weak content quality signals.
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Key service and sub-service pages for core engineering offerings were underperforming in search results, despite representing the company’s primary revenue streams.
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The website also had no presence on Google, Bing, or directory listings, despite clear evidence of competitor activity and conversion traffic on those platforms.
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Critically, the site had no visibility in AI-powered search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT, which were rapidly becoming important discovery channels for professional services.
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Overall, the business required urgent technical intervention, a structured content strategy, and a modern approach to search visibility that extended beyond traditional Google optimization.
Results — What I Did
Technical SEO & Traffic Cleaning
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Identified and removed spam traffic from China and Singapore generated by Link Farms.
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Full toxic backlink audit — 203 harmful backlinks cleaned.
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Cloudflare to block unnecessary traffic, Bots and DDOS Attacks.
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Installed Autoptimiser for page speed improvements.
50% traffic cleaned — 203 toxic backlinks removed
On-page optimisation & rankings
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Optimised blog articles and pillar pages for search intent and internal linking.
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Created and optimised new sub service pages for ranking improvements.
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Updated organisation and service schema for rich results on SERPs.
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Improved bounce rates for publications and services pages for the relevant traffic.
20+ first page rankings — #1 on Gemini AI, Chatgpt & others
Business Profile Optimisation & Local SEO
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Created and Optimised ZALIG's Google and Bing business listing.
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Optimised for local Alberta search visibility.
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Achieved confirmed keyword rankings for main services queries on Bing & Google.
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Achieved first ranking results for main keywords on maps and directories.
Verified listing — 10+ Service keyword rankings
AI SEO & Search Engine Visibility
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Optimized key pages and content for improved visibility across AI search platforms and language models.
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Implemented structured data and schema to help AI engines clearly understand ZALIG’s services, location, and expertise.
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Achieved #1 ranking on AI engines for a primary geotechnical keyword, making ZALIG the first cited result.
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Optimized content structure and authority signals to enhance ZALIG’s visibility in AI-generated answers and citations.
#1 AI ranking — AI search visibility established
Link Building & Domain Authority
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Conducted toxic backlink audit, removing harmful inbound links to protect domain authority.
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Established clean backlink profile by disavowing spam sources and removing link farm connections.
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Built strategic internal linking, connecting pillar pages to supporting content for efficient authority flow.
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Laid groundwork for outbound link building targeting relevant Canadian engineering and construction publications.
Domain authority foundation established & Improved
Google Search Console & Analytics Improvements
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Monitored ZALIG subdomains via Google Search Console, tracking clicks, impressions, CTR, and position improvements.
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Identified and fixed crawlability issues, ensuring all optimized pages were indexed and visible to search engines.
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Tracked Canadian audience behavior via Google Analytics, monitoring bounce rates, session duration, and traffic sources.
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Tracked and verified spam traffic removal, ensuring analytics accurately reflect genuine Canadian user behavior and intent.
#1 AI ranking — AI search visibility established
Results — screenshots
Click to view
Technologies used
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SEMRush -
Ahrefs -
Yoast -
Claude -
WProcket -
Cloud Fare -
WordPress -
Google Analytics -
Bing Business -
Google Business -
Google Search Console
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