Avoid SEO Scams

How to Avoid Search Engine Optimization Scams

You may have received emails from Search Engine Optimization companies who are offering to have your website placed on the first page of search listings, or even within the top 10 sites in the rankings. This sounds like a great offer, and would be an excellent boost to anyone who has recently developed a website and wants instant results.

As with most things in life, however, if it sound too good to be true, it probably is. Use the following guidelines to avoid signing an expensive contract that may not deliver quite what you expect.

Check References

Whether you want to have your home painted, rent a vacation villa, or have your website optimized, it makes sense to ask others about the services they use and what their experience has been. Ask the SEO company for references which will include sites they have optimized, and the keywords they have optimized those sites for. Follow up the references by contacting the site owners and ask them if their SEO company has provided the results they promised. You don’t know whether the sites provided for reference are owned by friends of the SEO providers, so search for the company name in a search engine and see if they are mentioned in forums etc.  A little research at this point can save a lot of heartache later on.

Make them Work

Verify what keywords the SEO company will optimize your site for. Any company will be able to have your website achieve a top ten ranking for ‘hairdresser in myverysmalltown’, but they’ll have to actually work (and be good at it) to achieve a similar ranking for ‘business’ or ‘US loans’, Their guarantee will be useless if they are based on optimizing for keywords that have little or no competition.

White vs Black

White is hard work and will have them talking freely, Black is highly secret and you’ll get a quick short answer.

Ask the SEO provider what techniques they will use to optimize your website. If they are guarded about giving you this information, it may be because they are using techniques that will provide short term benefit, but will give you major problems when they are discovered by the search engines. Avoid companies creating doorway pages that redirect visitors to your site, or buys links to your site on other sites.

Some companies will use your payments to buy advertising or sponsored listings on search engines. They will say they are fulfilling their contract, however they are using your money to buy advertising space you could have bought yourself. They have not truly improved your search ranking.

Any Additional Services

Find out what ongoing services the SEO company will provide, usually for a monthly fee. Will they carry out a link exchange program? This is valid where links are exchanged between related sites, and provide true added value. Ask whom the link exchange will be with. Avoid link farms and other sites set up purely as a link exchange utility. Search engines see these sites as disrupting the delivery of true search results, and consider them to be bad company. It takes time to manage the exchange of links with reputable sites – will they do it?

“Me and Google are like this.. XOXOXO”

Don’t believe an SEO company has a special relationship with Google, or special openings into other search engines, no matter what they say. Search engines guard their objectivity jealously, and would not want to lose their reputation by promoting your site unfairly. If the Search Engine Optimization company promises you special treatment, stay away from them.

Achieving and maintaining good ranking positions in search engine results takes continued time and effort. It is not a once-only exercise that can be charged for, and then forgotten about. Search engines promote sites which show evidence of long term continued development and organic growth. A site that makes a big impact and then sits unattended will not have a long term future.

Search engine optimization is achieved by hard work and long term commitment to building a website. Only work with companies that will use fair and reasonable means to promote your website. Any other quick-fix options will damage the reputation of your website, and cost you money to have that damage carried out and then put right.