SEO Scams To Avoid

There are literally countless companies promising you top ranking for your niche, thousands of hits, and the ability to make you lots of money quickly. Sound too good to be true, chances are it is. There are thousands of SEO scammers out there peddling B.S and false promises in order to do one thing PART YOU WITH YOUR MONEY. These companies don’t care if it hurts your website and how well it could rank in the search engines. They don’t care if their hurting your business, they just want your cash and are willing to lie to get it.

The reality is that SEO is not a get quick rich scheme; it takes hard work, lots of good content, patience, link building, and time to see results. This isn’t to say that all SEO companies are con artists out to rip you off; there are plenty of good ones.

So how do you spot the SEO scams from the legitimate ones? Here are 12 signs and things they say to watch out for.

1. “We’ll submit your website to thousands of search engines”

How many times have you seen this one promising (for a fee of course) to submit your sites to thousands of search engines to bring in truck loads of traffic? Let me ask you this, how many search engines have you heard of, or for that matter how many do you use? When it comes to search engines you only need to worry about the big ones such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing everything else falls somewhere behind them.

More often then not these small no name search engines look to the big sites to determine what should be listed on their engine. So if you rank in the number 1 spot for a certain keyword on Google, you’ll end up being listed on the other search engines as well. Also never submit your site directly to search engines this is just a waste of time, concentrate on building your links and update your site on a regular basis to get their attention and have them crawl your site. In the end all they promise is a steaming pant load of crap.

2. “Get on the first page on Google in 48/24 or however many hours”

The reality is your not going to be able to rank for every keyword phrase out there especially if your website or blog is brand new. Ranking well for a search term comes with time, how well your site is linked, and the amount of traffic you get. It also depends on the keyword itself, keywords with lower competition will be easier to rank then others where millions or tens of millions of sites are competing.

You can pay adwords to have your site listed on the first page of Google; however this could cost you a lot of money since certain keywords have more competition then others. My advice stick to writing lots of quality content, build your links, and establish yourself as an authority on your subject. It’s not pretty and it takes time, but it works.

3. “Sign up with us and you’ll obtain big financial rewards”

Okay if you get an email or see a message like this from an SEO company delete it this a major SEO scam to avoid. First off would you really trust an email promising you that you can get rich quick with them? Its right up there with those supposed millions of dollars waiting for you in some no name African bank. There is no SEO marketing program or company that will provide you with any sort of get rich quick results.

4. “Our SEO methods are a trade secret and we can’t tell you what were doing”

If there not willing to be open and honest with you about what their doing to help your site be very worried. Obviously there are going to be some things they might disclose with you. But if they give you no information other then some generic answer that doesn’t really answer anything. Remember if it doesn’t sound right don’t sign up for it.

5. “You have to join their network of sites”

If you see something like this it’s basically a run around nice way of saying join our link farm. Link farms are a black hat seo practice and one that will really hurt your search rankings if you join.

6. “We have an inside man working the angles on Google (or another big search engine)”

Another SEO scam I’ve seen a lot is from sites or SEO companies that claim to have a special relationship with one or more of the big search engines. This is complete crap and a lie. Nobody has a “special relationship”. All this means is their probably reselling pay per click sponsored results at a huge mark up.

7. Sends email spam about boosting your traffic

I get ones all the time that look like this one

Your site isn't at the top of all the major search engines and this means you are losing web traffic that could convert to online sales. We would like to help. Email us today at WeAreScammers@hotmail.com and include your URL(s) and your contact info. We'll do a no-charge review of your site and explain how we can heat up your online business.

Regards

Joe Bloggins

Some BS SEO Scam

I also get ones that go one about how I’m not ranking for my keywords, they then display a list of keywords and where I rank with Google. Most of the time they showed that I was listed on the 10th or 20th pages of Google. The funny part is the keywords they show are ones I’m not even trying to rank for anyway

Either way these are scams designed to get you to panic and give them money in an attempt to boost your results. Treat them the same you would any other junk mail and delete them, there not worth your time.

8. “You must submit your site regularly to the search engines to get top results”

Like I mentioned in 1 you don’t need to submit your site to search engines to get indexed and get your site to rank high on Google or any other search engine. In fact submitting your site to search engines might actually slow down the time it takes to get your site indexed. Search engines find you by inbound links that point to your site. If you want to get indexed faster simply submit your sites URL to high ranking sites that get crawled all the time by Google such as Digg and Stumbleupon. Build relationships with quality sites and you’re site will rank higher as a result.

9. “Get top rankings with us as long as you pay us”

Anybody who tells you this is scamming you. There is no way any SEO company can take away your ranking with Google or any other search engine, the only one who can is the search engines themselves. For example if you link to a bunch of bad neighbourhood sites you’ll be penalized. Try to cheat the system using black hat seo tricks, you’ll be penalized. Doing either one of these will drop your ranking or even get you’re site kicked from the search engines all together, not some seo scam company.

10. I’m a SEO guru but won’t give you any information about me to prove it

I’ve run into a few so called SEO Guru’s who claim to be millionaires. They show pictures supposedly of themselves in sports cars or some fancy house with palm trees. They claim that for a price they will share with you their SEO money making secrets. The only secret is that they just want to scam you out of money. Anybody with some website design skill and a few hours can make a convincing looking website portraying themselves off to be a millionaire expert. If they don’t offer anything as proof other then some so called “testimonials” that are written the same way as the rest of the site, then it’s a scam.

11. “We cracked Google’s algorithm and for a price will share our traffic generating tips with you”

I’ve gotten a few emails talking about this all claiming that they discovered the magic formula using some sort of techno nerdy jargin. The truth is that not even the people who work at Google have cracked there algorithm. It’s handled by a team of engineers who probably know more about Star Trek then you or I know about anything. Not to mention it’s updated all the time, usually several times a week, so even if somebody was to crack it, it would be outdated.

12. There website has a lower page rank and Alexa rank then what your site has now.

This is a big indicator at least from my experience that you’re dealing with an SEO scammer. I mean think about it, they have all these promises and guarantees plastered all over their site yet the have a page rank of 1 and an Alexa rank in the tens of millions. Logically you’d think that if they were legit and the real deal their website would have way better ranking then that.

If you decide you want to use an SEO company to help boost your sites ranking make sure you check them out before you hand over your hard earned cash. Get referrals; find out what kinds of things they’ll do for your site. And remember to go with your gut, if something feels too good to be true walk away.