Search Engine Optimization Scams Revealed
51How does an SEO company that charges 2400 ($5500 USD+) for 5 incoming links sound to you?!
This is a story aboutsearch engine optimization - SEO gone bad - Very very bad
Its my own experience in the UK. Im not going to out the company involved as Im still in legal dispute with them and theyve shown themselves to be so, well, plain nasty that Id not be surprised to get a libel summons if I were to do so.
But I hope that having read it you will be able to recognize any similar approach and avoid the problems Ive had.
The approach to look out for?
Top 10 positions guaranteed for your website or your money back! BEWARE.
I got stuck in an SEO deal with a UK SEO company which has cost me 2400 so far with the only results being a boilerplate on-page optimization report with 2 months of external link building work that produced a stunning total of 5 link swaps and has now landed me in a 12 month+ legal tangle where I may end up paying out several thousand more to make them go away or find my company wound up (as I wont be able to afford to pay them if this happens)
Anyway, back to the tale. After voicing my deep concerns and being fobbed off with the old SEO excuse of oooh arr SEO its a long game my friend (sure is at 2-3 links a month!) I tried to cancel only to be told that according to their terms and conditions I am contracted to them for 12 months and if I want to cancel then I must pay the outstanding balance for the whole 12 months = 4000+ for absolutely nothing.
Background summary
Approached by SEO company who tell me they can get me multiple top 10 positions in the major Search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) within 3 months - Guaranteed or I dont pay!
Wow, sounds great, tell me more:
- After specifying my 5 target keywords I get a proposal for SEO made up of 2 parts:
- On site optimization - Theyll do a plan on how to make the site search engine friendly.
- External incoming link building - i.e., they email other websites asking for a link swap + Monthly reports.
And if after 3 months gestation, i.e., months 4-12 your chosen phrases are not in a top 10 spot you dont pay for that phrase for that month.
Cost - Start-up/Initial report 1400 and my 5 keywords 110 per month each.
Base outlay then is going to be 2900 (ex. sales tax) Gtee starts after 3 months so this start up is non-returnable.
How it went
- Initial report received - All good standard SEO 101 stuff done in the well known Web CEO software (as any user will knmow this will take a few minutes to do)
- Edits advised to title tags, meta tags etc.
- A bit much on the keyword stuffing I thought. Hard to write them all in and the copy got long and clumsy.
- Stated this concern. Reply was that really popular sites can be keyword light but at the start you have to do this. I dont agree but I do it anyway.
Link building campaign
- Done in China by a people farm.
- Theyll find related sites and email them for me with a "proven to be very successful link swap request email" (apparently) - it's a crap intelligence insulting boiler plate in fact but there we go (IMHO)
- Replies come to me and I then put the links up.
What no article marketing, web 2.0, blog commenting etc I hear you ask? well were looking into article marketing is the reply - Are they a one trick pony? Will this work?
NO - Nothing much happens. In 2 months I get 5 agreed link swaps, not many refusals even.
Relevant?One refusal was from a biker shop in Texas - totally nothing to do with my site I can tell you.
On stating my growing concerns to my account manager the reply was - SEO is a long game and you have to be patient but dont forget that if youre not getting the results after 3 months you can claim back the money on the positions not getting top 10s.
Err5 links in 2 months, yes indeed it is going to be a bloody long game at that rate.
Reports
My keyword positions after month 1 were quite good butId already done a fair bit SEO like article marketing, Yahoo Answers and Squidoo pages in previous months so this was down to my work, nothing to do with fancying up meta tags and 3 new links - So yes, horrors, I was going to end up paying them for positions that Id done myself for free!
Id not mind this, my reason for wantuing to outsource was to free up time for content development etc and I wanted the SEO guys to build on what Id done - But they didnt (and then some!) as demonstrated by the appalling results.
So I decided to cancel and get on with my own SEO again. But oh no Im afraid that wont be possible.
Problem - We are not allowed to do this
There is a clause in the Ts and Cs - you cant cancel in the first 12 months unless you pay them value of the remaining contract. Odd how buried that one was.
But doesnt their money back Gtee mean its OK?
What it meant in our case was that the designated keywords must appear in the top 10 search results of either MSN or Yahoo search engines in any given month. If not then you have to jump through hoops and spend time to do these claims, in the meantime your money is earning them interest.
- ...I've since heard from another disgruntled ex customer of this company that the claim forms are long and complex and when submitted they will twist like eels on a hook to get off it - claim things like 1 single alt image tag is incorrect in order to get out of paying the money back (oh yes - you pay them forst and then have to claim it back)
And oh yes, Goggle is NOT included.
And lets face it, it is not hard to rank to Yahoo anyway. Id already paid $299 for a Yahoo directory placing and had lots of Yahoo Answers work so I already had good Yahoo positions.
MSN - Manually submit to them and do a load of Craigslist ads and post them in the San Francisco area. Youll be MSN indexed in days.
No guarantees about Google results which is the only game in town anyway. They say is that they hope to get top 10 placement in Google after about 7 months. By which time of coursetheyve already made a tidy sum and given that the work done up to that point is minimal they dont need to do anything else anyway and any money made after that is a bonus
And heres the killer - That Money Back Guarantee actually traps you!
As the reason for not being happy is the fact theyre not delivering results then what can you do? After all you want website traffic yes?
But no sweat, after all with their gtee you dont have to pay them if the results arent there right? Yes true but think about that in more detail -
OK you dont pay them if youre not getting results right? Big Trap when youre locked into a contract.
Youre in a lose-lose headlock because if you go sort your SEO out by yourself or with another service who do work out and you get those top 10 rankings after all then youre going to end up paying the rascals for work you or another company is doing! According to their performance gtee they ARE succeeding for you!
Alternatively you can let your site stagnate with no SEO work going on until after the contract ends, Very glass half empty!
Conclusion - The 12 month lock in plus performance based agreement is actually a coldly calculated win-win trap by the SEO company.
Suchcontracts arefundamentally unfair and restrictive in that it prevents a client taking any other approach to SEO unless performance based payments are made for someone elses work or a hefty total waste of money exit payment is made.
So whats happened in my sorry situation?
We firstly spoke at length to their sales director who refused to let us cancel but did offer to let us go for just 60% of the outstanding 12 month balance.
We wrote to him stating why we were not willing to do that.
What happened? No reply from sales director, instead -
A letter then phone call from a credit collection agency chasing the outstanding balance.
By legal letter we informed the debt collection company that we are not paying due to contractual performance issues.
The situation has steadily escalated legally to the courts and thats all Id better say for now! Watch the Search Engine Optimisation UK blog for further developments.
Summary of results
- 2 Google PR points lost in first month (October) from 4 to 2.
- 5 very average incoming links after 3 months with 2400 paid.
- Our annual bill approx. about 7.5k UK
- Extend this performance to 12 months and we might reasonably expect to see approx. 20-25 incoming links
- Appalling by anyones measure.
Andto get out of this nightmare and do something better we either need to:
- Pay them in full to go away.
- Sit tight and claim monthly refunds while our business stagnates
- Or sort it out ourselves and end up paying them as if it was their work on the basis of their performance
- Or, as is happening, see what happens in court.
Lessons -
- Dont let yourself get carried away by too good to be true promises.
- Read the small print or better still get a lawyer to check it.
- Unless you have a medium sized company marketing budget youre better off using outsourced SEO contractors and some of the great SEO software that there is about now.
- I am not I want to make it very clear, slating SEO companies as an industry. I am slating this approach to it and in particular the restrictive contract-guarantee trap that we fell into.
In summary - Buyer beware. Had a similar experience? Agree? Disagree? Please post and let me know about your Search engine optimisation experiences in the UK and anywhere else.
