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01 / Work / Trax Hydraulics Southport, Lancashire · 2024 — ongoing

Trax Hydraulics.

From a toxic backlink crisis and a stalled developer relationship to a clean rebuild on WordPress — with an ongoing technical SEO programme behind it.

  • Hydraulics & Industrial
  • Southport, Lancashire
  • WordPress
  • SEO
  • Web Management
  • Total Redesign
Client
Trax Hydraulics (North West) Ltd
Sector
Industrial · hydraulic systems & service
Engagement
Full rebuild + ongoing maintenance & SEO
Launched
December 2024
Live site · 2024
TRAX / HYDRAULICS · LANCASHIRE
Engineered
for finding.
Custom mockup · brand panel
The brief

What started as a redesign request was already much more than that.

Trax Hydraulics are hydraulic specialists based in Southport, Lancashire — supplying, installing, and maintaining hydraulic systems and related products across a diverse range of industries and clients. When they approached me towards the end of 2024, the situation was more complicated than a straightforward redesign request. The existing WordPress site was outdated and failing to represent the business accurately — but the more pressing issue was something altogether more serious.

The site’s backlink profile had been severely compromised. A large volume of toxic and spammy backlinks had accumulated, and the consequences were visible: on occasion, visitors to the Trax site were being served Japanese spam content — a tell-tale sign of a search-engine cloaking attack driven by malicious backlinks. For a professional B2B business, having customers land on spam content is as damaging as it gets.

On top of the technical crisis, Trax had a difficult relationship with their existing developer — unreliable, unresponsive, and charging disproportionately for even the most minor updates. They needed a fresh start on every level.

The challenge

Toxic backlinks had to be fixed before anything else.

The toxic backlink problem had to be addressed before anything else. A new design built on a compromised foundation would inherit all the same problems — so the technical cleanup came first.

Using Google Search Console I identified and submitted a disavow file covering the harmful backlinks, systematically working through the profile to neutralise the damage. The process took approximately six weeks to take effect — backlink cleanup is not instant, and managing client expectations during that period is as important as the technical work itself.

Alongside the cleanup, the brief for the new site was clear: build something that actually reflects who Trax are. The old site had never done that. A business operating across multiple industries with a comprehensive product and service range deserved a site that communicated that breadth confidently — not something that undersold them at every turn.

The solution

A clean WordPress rebuild on a clean foundation.

Stop misrepresenting the business. Start indexing the actual work.

The new Trax Hydraulics site launched in December 2024 — a complete redesign built on WordPress, working within the established Trax brand identity.

The structure was built to reflect the genuine scope of what Trax offers — from hydraulics and pneumatics to oils and lubricants, fuelling solutions, power wash equipment, fluid transfer, and beyond. A business with that range of products and services needs site visitors to be able to navigate confidently, not one that buries what they do in a flat, outdated layout.

The result was a site Trax were immediately happy with — specifically that it finally reflected their business accurately. That might sound like a minimum requirement, but for a company that had been carrying a site that actively misrepresented them, it was a significant change.

The next phase of the project is significantly more ambitious. A proposal is currently in place to expand the site to 80+ pages — building out a comprehensive structure of individual service pages and location-specific landing pages across the North West. This kind of structured expansion is one of the most effective long-term SEO strategies available to a B2B business with Trax’s geographic reach and service breadth. When complete, the site will be capable of ranking for specific service and location combinations that a smaller site simply cannot target.

An ongoing maintenance agreement is now in place, covering regular updates, security monitoring, and technical SEO — including continued monitoring and management of the backlink profile. Toxic backlinks don’t stop appearing after a single cleanup; ongoing vigilance is part of the service.

The relationship is continuing to develop — a broader SEO strategy and social media programme are currently in proposal, with plans to build on the technical foundation already in place. For more on technical SEO and what ongoing website management looks like, see my Website Maintenance and SEO Consulting services.

The result

Crisis resolved. Foundation in place. Growth to come.

The toxic backlink situation that was sending visitors to Japanese spam content has been resolved. The backlink profile is now actively monitored as part of the ongoing maintenance agreement — catching new issues before they escalate rather than waiting for them to cause visible damage.

Most importantly, Trax now have a website that represents their business properly — something they did not have before. For a B2B company operating across multiple industries, that credibility gap was costing them. It no longer is.

The proposed 80+ page expansion will significantly increase the site’s ability to rank for targeted service and location searches across the North West — turning a solid foundation into a comprehensive organic-search asset. A new launch in December 2024 is too early for meaningful organic-growth metrics; the case study will be updated once we have six months of post-launch data in mid-2026.

What was delivered

Built, in order.

  • Toxic backlink audit and cleanup via Google Search Console disavow
  • Full WordPress website redesign and rebuild — live December 2024
  • Ongoing website maintenance agreement
  • Technical SEO — including ongoing backlink profile monitoring
  • SEO strategy and social media programme — in development
  • 80+ page site expansion — service and location pages across the North West (in proposal — commencing shortly)

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Is your site working against you?

Is your site working against you?

Toxic backlinks, outdated design, a developer who does not pick up the phone — these are more common problems than most business owners realise. If any of this sounds familiar, let’s have a conversation.

Get in touch or email rich@flexiweb.digital →