Archive for the 'SEO Scams' Category
Does the text color of your link matter? According to a Google patent granted a little while back it just might! You can view the document yourself here.
But let’s spend a little time with claim 18,
The one or more server devices of claim 16, where the data associated with the features of the one of the links includes at least two of: the font size of anchor text associated with the link, the position of the link within a source document, the position of the link in a list, the font color associated with the link, the attributes of the link, the number of words in the anchor text associated with the link, the actual words in the anchor text associated with the link, the determination of commerciality of the anchor text associated with the link, the type of the link, the context of words before or after the link, the topical cluster with which the anchor text of the link is associated, whether the link leads to a target document on a same host or domain, or whether an address associated with the link embeds another address.
This claim gives us a lot of good information on how text links might be valued but by color? It might have something to do with detecting hidden text (for instance if the color of text matches the background color a flag is raised or the link is discounted), but I would bet some serious money it is just a matter of time till we see some quack SEO’s offering Bill and Jimmy’s Rainbow Color Link Building Service, claiming that they will garner you hundreds of blue, green and yellow links for $xxx a month. Guaranteed to get you to the number one spot or your choice of a full refund or a case of multi-colored lollipops!
I have heard from a few potential clients before that even though their own website does not rank for many searches they are OK in the SEO department because their various directory listings rank, so people will find them anyways….
This is a really bad decision and will most certainly guarantee a long-term unsuccessful foray on the web.
Even the high quality listings typically offer multiple chances for a potential customer to veer off to another competitors website. Then there are some like below that just post your company info with the intention of making money by NOT sending a customer to your website. In the sample below, note the two ads before company info and then there is not even a link to the destination site listed. No where to go but directly to one of your competitors I guess! If you are located in Toronto and need a quote on SEO please give us a call at 416-671-3114, we also help international clients across the world wide web.
Someone just emailed me this link and it was pretty shocking! With so many spammy link sellers buying dropped domains and re-purposing them - this person either doesn’t speak English or is non-too-bright! Check-out the domain name he is selling links on, www.AntiSemiteOfTheWeek.org!
BUT DON’T FORGET TO READ THE ENLIGHTENING SMALL PRINT!
“This is a monthly submission and linking service. Remember it is important to submit your web site into the search engines on a regular basis or you may get dropped entirely from many major search engine databases. Once a month is the optimal service to having your site appear in over 1000+ of the most important search engines and internet listing directories! Just fill out the submission software 100% SECURE online order form!”
I don’t know about you but I get 85%-90% of my search traffic from Google and the other 9.99% from Yahoo and Bing
I received a private message at a forum I have been a member of for many years and it was from a relatively senior member that was promoting some discounted listings reviews in his network of web directories. The directories themselves look pretty nice, good templates and category structure but I took a quick look through the backlink profile of one of them and I was quite shocked!
I found backlinks from porn, coming soon sites and even from a page that was simply 10k+ links jammed full of porn, gambling and rx - I was going to post a screenshot of the page but it crashed my browser twice so I figured I better not push my luck.
Most good SEO’s always check backlink profiles before building links but there are many ‘cut-rate’ services out there that won’t spend the extra time doing this type of due diligence. So be very careful or your website might just become part of a ‘bad neighborhood’.
Lately I have had the subject of lying on my mind and not only for the fact that I have five kids ages 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13 at home and lying seems to have become one of their favorite pastimes. In the world of SEO (like many industries) there are a slew of lies floating around the web and some individuals benefit by them, some big companies (starting with the letter ‘G’) encourage them, but mostly the entire industry suffers for them.
Lying is a big part of everyone life, from the little tiny white ones; “do I look fat in these pants”? to “I have never had sexual relations with that woman”! - My kids and I love the movie The Truman Show and my 6 year old daughter wondered for weeks whether she was in the “Jessica Show” (and I encouraged it by looking at the mirror every once-in-a-while and saying a few halted lines about a product). One of my all-time favorite movies, The Matrix was about a really big lie and the recent movie, The Invention of Lying was about a world were no one even knew what a lie was because one had never been committed. I think I have a permanent fascination with ‘lying’ since reading the book, The Truth Machine because it was so amazingly interesting. I even heard there is a professor in Cambridge teaching an ethics course and every class he tells one lie and it is part of the grading system for the student to find out what lie was perpetrated each class.
Some of the popular lies running the gambit in SEO are:
-SEO companies that offer search engine submissions, some even charge as much as $99 for this useless service. All you need is one backlink out there for the search engines to follow and they will naturally index your site, no need to pay for this as a ’service’ and in my opinion any SEO company that offers it is on the shady side.
-You need thousands and thousands of links to rank for competitive terms - completely untrue, you can rank for competitive terms with half or a quarter of competitors backlinks depending on the quality of those links. One good link can easily be better than 100 spammy links.
-Getting a high page rank will help you rank better in the search rankings. No way, no how! These days visual page rank means very little and I have seen many low page rank and even zero page rank sites place very well in the organic listings. Not only is page rank almost worthless, chasing it (by purchasing incoming links from high page rank sites) can actually get your site penalized.
-Guaranteed results scams - This one is big these days and I have had numerous potential clients ask about what guarantee I offer and I tell them the same thing each time. I guarantee I will work very hard to get you ranked as high as possible in the shortest time while balancing out risk. It is about then, they launch into a speech about an email they got promising them number one position in Google or your money back. I try my best to explain that no one can guarantee that and there is always a catch. Whether it is by them using paid placement, ranking for obscure, low competition key phrases or plain old ‘hit-and-run’ tactics (meaning the business won’t even be around when you try and collect your money back). Please have a look at my SEO scams section for more info on these types of offers. I end each of these conversations with a statement like this, “If nothing else, do you really think that a company is going to work on a website for months and then because of something beyond their control - get paid absolutely nothing for it?”
-SEO can be done by anyone, including yourself. Now I am not saying it is not possible for a website owner to learn the basics of SEO and in fact I encourage it, because if and when you eventually hire a professional you will at least have a rudimentary understanding of what needs to be done. But just like plumbing, you may be able to tighten up a washer or unclog your own drain but when it comes to doing any complicated work you better be prepared to hire a professional or devote some serious time to learning the plumbing trade. Same with SEO - you can write better content and buy a site design with a better structure but when it comes down to serious SEO you will need to hire a professional or spend 100’s of hours learning a new part-time career. And just like trying to fix your own broken water pipe problems you might end up making things worse and then paying twice as much to fix the damage you have done. If your business depends on you to provide a function, be it sales, support, planning or other expertise - your time is much better spent doing those things and paying out profits to a professional SEO that can perform those specialized services faster and at a much higher level than you could.
-Here is another myth/lie that I can vouch for personally. It seems many people think that if you go to Matt Cutts blog and write down complementary comments (read: kissing his butt) to his posts you will receive a higher page rank and up to 400% more Google traffic. This is false.
Lying is part of human nature but it is always a good idea to stay up-to-date on what lies are floating around a particular industry so you don’t fall for them.
Spinning articles has become a favorite pass-time of overseas link sellers and I find it very annoying, here is a little excerpt from a blog post titled: The best with. Real estate of loan of financing of UNO to find comment conditions
By against the, strong one of agreement of like and well the loan of is encore in the medium of the real estate, Moreover in more the loan specialize in expert in software in the financing of financial of organizations real estate. Particularly projects of financing of customers of provision of at organizations the same ones put of these enticing.
I have written some shallow articles and blog posts in my time, but this is ridiculous!
Here is another company that tells you they will work magic and get you to the top of Google results in minutes, I guess they are telling the truth…sort of.
Their claim is that you don’t pay on a pay-per-click basis just a small monthly fee. So what they do is basically buy an adword on a ppv or ppc basis and probably add 200% to the cost and charge you for it. Not an out-and-out lie but still kinda deceiving.
Craigslist seems to be a potpourri of bad SEO’s - take a gander at this advertisement:
Affordable SEO - 1 WEEK TO THE TOP (Toronto and area)
Affordable SEO - 1 WEEK TO THE TOP of major search engines. Stop wasting money on pay per click . Being ranked PR9 will halp you grow your sales at the fraction of the cost you spend now. Contact for more information and prove that we ca do it . Free consultaion and proven results
This article on an SEO blog is hacked, spun and regurgitated so badly that it made me laugh.
Every ascendant seek engine uses what are accepted as “Backlinks” as a huge allotment of their judgement of a site’s rankings. Backlinks are, basically, a hotlink from addition website which credibility to your website and to accomplish things easy, the added backlinks you can get the college in the seek engine after-effects you will be.
Doesn’t that complete like a snap? Acquisition added backlinks and advance your rankings and traffic. You may calmly pay bags hiring a Toronto seek engine enhancement aggregation to get the job done. Now comes the harder allotment for abounding which is how and area to acquisition those links. You can get ample amounts of backlinks in just a few simple means
Here is another exerpt from that blog and it amazes that someone actually took the time to post it.
SEO The accepted cry amidst website owners is that they wish their website on the aboriginal page of Google for their ‘pet’ seek terms, whilst the accepted cry a allotment of those authentic Seek Engine Optimisation professionals is that it is not ‘Rocket Science’ and that if they absolutely wish their website on the aboriginal page.
