Search Engine Optimizer Forced To Pay Up For Failing To Optimize Much

from the promises,-promises dept

The search engine optimization business has been battling the perception that it's all a big scam. Many people at various search engines continue to insist that a well created site needs no "search engine optimization" and there are certainly plenty of scamming companies out there that offer SEO services, by which they really mean link-spamming and other sneaky tricks to try to game Google, rather than actually "optimizing" your site for search engines. However, whether bogus or legit, it would seem particularly stupid to promise companies that you could get them into the top ten in listings. In this case, it was stupid, because the company in question didn't get their customers into the top 10 and is now being forced to pay a fine for false advertising. Speaking of which... I have no clue what the normal going rate is for search engine optimization, but anyone who pays a $1,500 setup fee and $90/month for what, in this case, appears to be useless black magic, is clearly throwing money away.
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  1. identicon
    Peter, 12 Aug 2004 @ 2:48pm

    they'll promise anything

    We got hit up by one of those search engine optimizer companies a couple of weeks ago. The marketer didn't realize that Engadget was a news site and not a retail site or that we already placed rather high in Google for plenty of keyword searches, but she did promise that they could bump up our Google Page Rank to a 9 (we currently have an 8), which would put us on par with the New York Times. Of course, they wanted several thousand bucks to do this, which I wouldn't pay even if I thought they could pull it off (which I don't).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    xml training, 23 Aug 2004 @ 11:41am

    Re: they'll promise anything

    Yeah, I've read about this in a few SEO forums. Bout time they got their asses busted! xml training

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Aaron Wall, 24 Aug 2004 @ 6:05pm

    SEO = Scam

    There are a bunch of problems with SEO which highlights the scam concept more than the good services concept.

    1.) the scamsters are usually really really bad.
    2.) people fail to research and buy from the scamsters who contact them (vice looking for themselves)
    3.) those businesses that have a great SEO do not want to tell their competitors about their great ROI and secret to their success.
    4.) unless you are paying an SEO a ton of money they usually can work on their own sites and do better.

    Not all SEOs are bad, but if you fail to research and you buy bad services that is the fault of the buyer.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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