Beware of "SEO" companies

[SensoVision]

have you ever get mail like this:

"Helo Webmaster,
Today I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

don't know like you but I've got a lot of them in my mailboxes... and you know what's funny? check this out http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html you see, people at Google get simillar mails as well I wonder is where a place on the Earth that Google not listed but who knows...  
also read through this page on Google as I believe it would be useful for webmasters who want to hire someone in order to make search engine optimization...
and I suggest you never reply to such mails and never work with companies which try to get deals by sending SPAM of any kind...  I've got similar mails about advertising on my site, in this mails someone was so excited that want to offer me ads with great CPM payot rate and that it was "exclusive" offer if believe to robot mail program which send it... so when I've find such "exclusive offer" I check my othet mailbox and find there copy of the same mail also I just beign curious answer them and ask for details and so on... you know I never get a reply... so don't waste time on SPAM.

[susieq]

Hello,
yes, I receive 2 around last September, both saying they had noticed I didn't have metatags information on my page.........
So I of course delete them
Then recently, I receive one, only, then after discussing it with Phoenix it was decided to delete it as there was same one in Phoenix mail box!!
So, yes, be very aware and take all this good important valuable advice, we are extremely fortunate to be able to have Ove and Phoenix doing our homework for some of us and passing on their knowledgable , honest and up to date information.
Susieq

[erdnis]

I'm receiving a lot of those e-mails.
But the fun thing is that I've been receiving those e-mails for other sites than my own. I've been receiving e-mails saying that a site that isn't mine isn't listed in search engines, and that I should do something about it

[SensoVision]

Erdnis, you must be very famous in charity or something if people write you to do something about other sites' listing

[erdnis]

 

Yeah...

Actually, I only get it for sites where I've been signing up for a forum, or given away my e-mail adress somehow.

[SensoVision]

hope there was no mails which ask you to submit my sites? as we don't give out e-mails to 3rd parties and they only serve for internal announcements.

[erdnis]

No, I don't think I've gotten a mail about submitting your site.

[Queen Bee]

I receive SEO e-mails several times a day. I'm the bomb!

[SensoVision]

No, I don't think I've gotten a mail about submitting your site.

good:) but I'm gettin pretty much spam lately... I already implement in new pages(they not online yet) bogus e-mail address generator which will make spam-bots to see plenty of faked e-mails which not exist anywhere, hopefully it will make life of spammers little harder

[greg]

There are so many SEOs out there who are un-ethical. I could probably give you a huge list of them, but i will not out of respect.

I've seen some that will go in and add meta keywords(which honestly do no good) and change some text, then charge thousands of dollars. They never even spend the time to even get backlinks which are the most critical part of site promotion. It really drives me crazy.

Another problem is SEO information sites. Most of them are total crap. They have these articles of all this theoretical BS that is not even true. They mislead people so bad. They just provide another link for seo's and that is all they care about, that and if they talk like they know what they are doing some poor little person will come along and believe them then get ripped off when they pay them.

All of these are reasons why i started my website, i could get into my whole philosophy of it, but maybe later.

[cohwill]

I want to let folks know that when you choose a company to  do your search engine optimization, you need to make sure that they know what they are doing and that they are not making false claims.

One example of a site trying to run a scam on unsuspecting clients showed up as an ad this morning in my email.

Top-Pile.com claims to "guarantee" top ranking in the search engines and says it has a special sort of software that will do it. It also states that they will submit your web site pages to the SEs every 2 weeks, and you can use their special link exchange program.

Alarm bells should be going off about now!

First of all, there is no way to guarantee top rankings in the search engines unless you are willing to pay through the nose for Overture (I know someone who is dropping $100 a day with them!). Remember, there are over 2 billion web sites out there and not everyone can be in the top ten.

Next, submitting your site to search engines every 2 weeks will get your site branded as spam and oftern banned from the search engines. I recommend a re-submission quarterly.

Top-Pile's SALSA software is nothing more than making mini sites from your web site. This is one way of getting more attention to your site, but can often backfire very quickly. I do not recommend it, but some outfits have had luck with it.

Finally, if you view their source code on their page, you can see that their title is nothing more than a bunch of keywords strung together, they have no other tags (description and keywords) (unless they are cloaking them, they are doing keyword stuffing as well. Also, they are using frames which is frowned on, and tends to confuse the search engines.

The best way to rank well on the search engines and directories is to have good content, meta tags with your keywords in them, inbound links to your site, and hand submit your site to ALL the relevant engines.

[SensoVision]

Anita, thanks for raising this issue once again, we already have similar thread here which also was based on mails which sended by so called SEO companies... so I think we should stick one of these threads so people would be aware that they should avoid such companies by all means.

PS Would you mind if I merge you thread with one I've mention previously and stick it?

[cohwill]

Go ahead, Dennis. Just tell me where you put it.

[dmcgill]

I get them all the time and I find them very funny.  I have been listed in most of the search engines for 3 years already and we have a tool on our site for creating meta tags.  I got slapped once in this forum a while back because I made a statement that SEO's are giving the web world a bad name by making false promices, now some are outright telling lies.
dmcgill

[Dug]

I will make no secret of the fact that I work for an SEO company.
We keep our nose squeaky clean, as a reputation can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. SEO is such a cutthroat industry that a competitor would not hesitate for one second to report your behaviour to a search engine if they discovered unethical practices.

We don't advertise at all, we rely on word of mouth and let people find us (it seems to be working rather well). The SEO companies that mail bomb for clients are just desperate for work, or have no concept of the intricacies of SEO. More often than not they have found a cheap trick that seems to work for the moment, but have no long-term sustainability in their plans. They are into making a fast dollar (or pound) in hit and run style tactics that often leave the client with a sour taste in their mouth that turns them into ardent SEO haters.

These people are a powerful damaging force to a legitimate industry.

Interestingly, we occasionally get mails from SEO companies saying that we cannot be found on search engines and do we want their SEO services? (do these people not notice that it is the website of an SEO company?)
I find it rather amusing. We have deliberately left our site un-optimised to limit our exposure to the public, so we can dedicate the time needed to each client and maintain slow, sustained growth rather than explosive and unstable growth.

As I say, it seems to work.

As for our company name?
I am not here to advertise, but to educate. If you find us and you fit our client criteria, then good for you. Otherwise you will have to experience sleepless nights over it (who was that masked SEO company?).

I hope this restores a little faith in the SEO trade. There are good companies out there and yes they can be hard to find, but they are out there (they just don't shout as loud as the rest, look for the quiet one in the corner).


Be happy
Dug