We often forget that not everyone’s on the same level when it comes to SEO.
Those of us who consider ourselves to be old pros see many things about the business as obvious; though they’re not necessarily so to people who are just out to find an SEO company to optimise their website. There’s a lot of information out there and it’s hard to tell who you can trust when you’re just getting started with your website. It can be difficult to figure out who has genuinely useful information and who’s just trying to take you for a ride.
I’ve been in the SEO business more than long enough to see plenty of scams. The truly amazing thing about them is that they never seem to go away. Even the most obvious of scams are still out there.
Since the companies or individuals that carry out the scams are still around, it must be the case that there are plenty of companies who haven’t learned enough yet to be wise to these schemes.
Scammers aim to exploit the uninformed just as they do in any other kind of business. Keep reading for a list of eight SEO scams which seem to be here to stay and an explanation of why they should be avoided. It should be noted that most of these scams take place over the telephone by traine
d telesales people, with little or no knowledge of how SEO actually works.
1) “Top Ten Ranking in Google Guaranteed!”
I briefly worked for a company which tried to sell companies their services with the promise of page one rankings in Google. While it was certainly the case that the company occasionally tried to make good on these promises, no one can guarantee rankings.
Why it’s a scam:
Search engine rankings cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, just about every website already ranks on the first page of results for any number of search terms; although they’re probably not search terms you’d want to target.
Remember that rankings aren’t the goal in SEO; they’re just a tool to get what you really want, whether that’s sales, leads or just page views. What you want is quality traffic, in other words. Ranking is meaningless unless it’s generating quality conversions for your site.
2) “We’ll submit your website to thousands of search engines!”
OK, that sounds like it would take a lot of work – and it could take a long time to submit your site to that many search engines on your own.
Why it’s a scam:
How many search engines do you actually use? For that matter, how many can you even name? If you’re like 70-80% of internet users, you probably use Google most of the time. Google, Yahoo and Bing are the most popular, followed by smaller search engines like Ask.com and a multitude of others you’ve probably never heard of.
Don’t worry about thousands of search engines – there are only three that really matter and if time or money is tight, then you can safely focus your efforts on Google.
One thing to take note of is that for most of these unknown search engines these services will submit your site to will end up sending you tons of spam email. Not only is it not a good investment, it will end up costing you a lot of time and hassle dealing with this deluge of unwanted email.
3) “1,000 Links for £99″
Link building is an important tool for internet marketeers and they’re one of the best ways to boost your site’s search engine ranking. It’s also not an easy thing to do, which explains why the idea of getting 1,000 links for £99 is so tempting.
Why it’s a scam:
Think about this for a minute. If it was this really this easy to get into the top of the search results, wouldn’t everyone do it? Remember this rule: the cheaper and easier it is to get a link, the less useful it’s likely to be.
If your site has great content, then you’ll slowly generate links naturally – links which are actually useful. The kind of links you’re going to get by paying £50 or £100 aren’t the kind of links which are going to do you much, if any.
4) “We’ll Get You On 1st Page of Google Results in 48 Hours!”
A lot of people are in a hurry once they start their own website. It can take a long time to start generating sales and they are easily taken in out of the hope that an expert can make their site highly visible in no time.
Why it’s a scam:
As it happens, just about any site can get on to the first page of Google results almost instantly, without paying anyone to do it for them. Here’s how:
1) Sign up for Google AdWords
2) Choose your keyword
3) Pay Google
You can easily pay Google for top search placements. However, getting a consistent stream of quality traffic and a solid return on your investment is something else entirely.
5) “We have an inside source at Google (or Yahoo or Bing, etc.)”
It would be great if this was true. After all, you’d get SEO advice from people who really know the whole story.
Why it’s a scam:
It’s well known how closely Google guards its technologies. Google’s ranking algorithm is incredibly complex and changing all the time and even if they were to hand the formula over, that’s no guarantee that you could actually use it to your advantage. There are too many variables there and it’s virtually impossible to fool their system.
6) “Our methods are secret – we can’t tell you what we’re doing”
Naturally, companies do have their own methods and it’s not realistic to expect them to tell you everything.
Why it’s a scam:
If you’re paying someone for something you don’t understand (and that they aren’t willing to explain), then you can pretty much expect to be ripped off. After all, you wouldn’t trust a mechanic who didn’t tell you what he was doing to fix your car, would you?
7) “We’ve studied and cracked Google’s algorithm”
Again, Google’s algorithm is just too complex for even most experts to figure out. While the idea of being let in on a big secret is an alluring one, beware anyone who makes these kind of claims.
Why it’s a scam:
No one (even most people at Google) has inside knowledge of their search algorithm. A large team of Google employees work with the algorithm which is updated frequently (often more than once per week). Even if someone did manage to “crack” the algorithm and figure out how to use it, this data would be out of date almost before they could use it.
8) “We just need to install this link directory on your website”
This sounds like a small enough thing, especially since the companies and consultants which offer this usually do so for a pretty low price.
Why it’s a scam:
What the SEO company or consultant is telling you when they say this is that their link building method is just a link exchange program. Keep looking for a better SEO service. While they might not be trying to scam you, they’re certainly not SEO experts and their services aren’t going to do you much good.
Paul Keene
P.S. If you found this article useful take a look at another article of mine “Choosing a SEO Company” and also check out Google’s own opinion on the subject.
