SeaCoast Web Associates - Specializing in Lead Generation, SEO, SEM and Website Design
Top SEO Scams
Common SEO Scams and Unethical SEO Techniques
SEO is always a good choice for your business and your web site, but like most services, there are people out there who are dishonest and unethical that you need to avoid. Below we have outlined the top SEO Scams you should avoid.
8. Selling SEO Tools
Be careful of SEO companies that try to sell you SEO tools. In most cases, these tools are not useful and are a waste of your money. Directory submission software is a common SEO scam. Automating your directory submissions is spammy and most directories won’t accept submissions that are not done manually.
7. Relationships with Top Search Engines
No SEO company has a “special relationship” with any major search engine such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. There is nothing they can do or say to these top search engines to influence where your website is ranked. This is a blatant SEO scam.
6. Warning Google Will Ban Site
Some SEO scams involve a telemarketer calling you on the phone and claiming that they have found out that your site is going to be banned from Google. The telemarketer then tells you that they can fix the problems with your site that will cause you to be banned if you hire them. This is a lie. No company other than Google has this kind of knowledge. The best thing to do when you get these scam phone calls is to hang up.
5. SEO Mail Spam
SEO scams can come in the form of a letter. Some companies will send out confusing solicitations. The letters can look official and are usually sent to people who have just purchased a domain. The confusing part is that the letters look like a bill for Search engine optimization services. Feel free to throw these letters in the trash. You can see an example of this type of SEO scam on Google Engineer Matt Cutt’s blog.
4. Optimizing for Worthless Keywords
Research the keywords that an SEO company is optimizing your site for. A common SEO scam is to optimize for keywords that are easy to rank for but will not drive any traffic to your site or attract any clicks. The SEO does this in an attempt to show good results, when in reality they have done nothing for your website.
3. Guaranteed #1 Rankings
No SEO company can guarantee the #1 spot on any search engine. Any company who claims they can are not telling the truth. It’s impossible to be sure where a site will rank after optimization. It’s okay for a company to give some kinds of guarantee but if they claim they can get you #1 spots, then steer clear.
2. Cloaking
This unethical SEO technique can get you banned from search engines and should never be used. Cloaking is a technique that spammers use to show a different page to search engines than they do to visitors. The page that the search engines see is optimize for targeted keywords. When a real visitor hits the page it is redirected to a page that the web site owner would rather have the user see.
1. Re-submit to Search Engines Monthly
This SEO scam is probably the most popular. You DO NOT need to re-submit your site to search engines month over month. In fact, besides submitting a site map to the major search engines, you never need to submit your site to search engines. Your site is found through other sites linking to you and will be crawled. Dishonest SEO firms will tell you that they are re-submitting your site to search engines and then charge you a monthly fee to do so.
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