fbpx

SEO Sharks – Don’t become a victim

SEO Sharks – Don’t become a victim

SEO Sharks – Don’t become a victim

What you should know before hiring a SEO manager

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you emails out of the blue.

Reserve the same scepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.SEO

Beware of Rogue SEO experts that claim to guarantee rankings, claim a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through the Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.

Ask for explanations if something is unclear. A rogue SEO expert creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server, they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.

You should never have to link to an SEO.

Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO service. It’s far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO provider:

  • owns shadow domains
  • puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
  • offers to sell keywords in the address bar
  • doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
  • guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
  • operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
  • gets traffic from “fake” search engines or spyware
  • has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google

Share this post

Leave a Reply