Warning about SEO Scammers

While on topic - why dont we do something about the so called SEO freelancers on sites like elance and scriptlance. Most Guarantee number 1 placements for all the terms under the sun - and as you all know - no one proffesional can do this. So I was wondering of strating up a thread on this and help potential buyers on freelance sites make an informed decision.

I think we owe it to our proffesion, as we are getting a bad name by these people who dont deliver on their promises, but also to our clients. God knows the frustration I see when bidding on a project, telling the client about the facts of SEO, then I see someone else bidding half the amount, getting the job because he gave some form of fictitious guarantee, and letting the client down.

At the end of the day, there are two kinds of people loosing on the freelance sites: The pros and the clients - the consters or good talkers are winning all as there is no one who can stop them - yet.

let this be an example to seo companies and clients that theres no guarrantees in seo.

for those companies who do make these guarranttees, they are mostly out to get the clients' money.
seo work depend mostly on search engines. and search engines change.
I do hope these seo companies get themselves sued till they are broke.

Many big seo companies use this guarrantee scheme of theirs, btw.
and people fall for it, despite many warnings made by other respectable seo firms

no big deal.

The problem IS - there isn't anything you can do and this is pretty much for any service-base industry.

The diffeence between 'tangible' [a product - with a guarantee or warranty and something that "works or not"] and 'intangible' [no dimensional width, height, depth, mass or something you can turn on and off] is very much subjective.

Guaranteed "results" is pretty easy... qualified leads and sales is a tad bit harder - and what the client "wants" but you see few guarantees for that.

I would have thought SEO Chat has become enough of an authority site to provide people with legitamite and good indipendent advise. If anyone genuine bidding for work in freelance site's directed potential clients to a dedicated thread here, which shows the do's and dont's of hiring seo companies, then both clients and genuine SEO'rs will benefit.

So basically, this thread could be an FAQ for people seeking freelance SEO's, and when anyone bids on work, then they can direct them to the right place as a guide.

They do! Anybody who is trying to run a successful business (offline or online) should do their homework before hiring ANYONE to do work on their behalf. There is a wealth of information yet people still choose to not do research or simply ignore all the advice.

I'm not sure how having the info here would help. If they knew about SEOChat, they would be 99% of the way to where they need to be already.

The problem is people do research AFTER they have been ripped off and that is why any BEWARE post is usually started by someone with a low post count as are most of the contributors.


Not to mention I am sure the owners of this forum don't want to get into a "naming" situation as you open yourself up to all kinds of lawsuits.

Well - this specific thread isn't a case of the SEO norms but a case of bad faith. [which you can be the judge of who is actually accountable].

• 1. Client hires Company A.
  
  2. Company A hired Company B.
  
  3. Client paid Company B.
  
  4. Company B - goes under
  
  5. Company A says Client is up **** creek

CAVEAT - owner of Company A was a shareholder of Company B - and shareholders had a falling out where neither wished to be accountable for this client.

Now the client has a damn good case "in court" but must spend money to get a favorable verdict.

What would you do?

As you can see - this doesn't have a thing to do with "ranked results" - just bad faith.

Point taken and I can see what you mean - it is still very frustrating though! I myself dont really have to worry about the freelancing much as I only do it when I need a little extra dosh - my full time job is SEO with a hotel chain - but it really upsets me seeing all these guys giving SEO such a bad name

not just freelancers. established seo firms give the industry a bad name too!

just off hand, I can name my competitors -australian seo firms- are spamming,
overcharging and unable to produce promised results. plenty of stories to share around
campfire.

if only i can convince google to ban these bad seo firms...

We know that it dosent work like we think it should though.

A company who has a non performing website and gets a timely phone call from a company offering this and that for x amount of money is baffled by the science and as an ex salesman myself i know how if people dont understand you they will probably agree with you rather than look stupid.

In the uk there is still a lot of companies that are semi computer literate and there are companies promising the earth internet and search engine related.

I have freinds who work for a web design and seo comapny as salesman.
Their basic package starts at £2750 for a website and `submission to all the search engines`.
My freinds get £1000 per sale.
They only have to sell one 2 a month to have a reasonable standard of living in the area that i am based.

If someone is promising you the earth and you know nothing about the subject and its all confusing to you , the last thing people do is ask for referrals.
A slick salesman can get round that anyway.
If you have a predictive dialler calling 10`000 comapnies a day and you only want to sell two sites with ontimization a month you can move the earth and get results.

Yes its unfortunate - it boils down to good sales talk - people who can sell cows s*** for gold! We have a few in our office as well and its very sad they always seem to get the upper hand ... at least at first.

Wherever there is money to be made you will get the parasites.

In car sales they will say the same about the clockers and the ringers.
In furniture sales they will say the same about the companies that sell couches with toxic foam.

Its not about what you can achieve its about what you can get people to THINK you can achieve.

have i ever mentioned that my competitor charge 6000 aud (abt 4000 something usd) for 5 pages of on-page optimisation
for a client of theirs??
yeah some people really can sell cow **** for gold!

that is one aspect I can't beat them,
other than that, they are crap. they even charge thousands of dollars to optimise for non-competitive word. :-(
among other things.

yeah they are based in perth, western australia. So, for those who are reading this
and abt to engage this "respectable" australian seo company <snip> services, BEWARE!

Dont say I didnt warn ya.....

that was a big seo firm in aust.
heres another one that cons by the hundreds.

<snip>

a few hundreds dollars charge per quarter for a handful of link exchanges- thats the level of seo you will be getting from them. :-)

If you want to hire a bad seo then hook up with the first person who calls you on the phone or someone who never posts on a forum but pounds you with several emails and PMs after you reveal that you are looking for help.


If you want to hire a good seo, visit boards like this one and watch to see who give good and generous and competent advice for free. Then imagine what you will get from that person when you pay them.

Most people get ripped off because they are greedy

How many times have you gotten a call from someone who is in some competitive industry where there is tons of money to be made.And after talking to them for 5 minutes you realize that they want you to make them a million dollars and they want to pay you maybe a thousand, if they have to.

People want something for nothing, and they don't understand. They see they can buy a template for a website, or have a shopping cart installed for next to nothing. So they think SEO should be the same. Once they get ripped off a few times they will learn.

The SEO companies that are slick and big etc that rip people of is a whole different level.

Sort of funny story I was contacted by a guy who needs some web design, and he was bragging about how he hire this big name SEO company for $5000 a month. So I looked over his site and although his terms where competitive I was pretty sure I could do them. So I told him I could do it, probably for a lot less. He of course didn't believe me. So I said that I would make a site like his and if I got it to rank would he buy it, or rent it for $1500 a month. He said "heck yeah"

To make a long story short this SEO company ripped him off for $30,000. And about 8 months later my site ranked for all his terms. So I talked to him again, and he wouldn't buy it for the same price the affiliates on it were producing. He wouldn't rent it monthly for half the price the big seo company charged him a month. Sort of funny he would let slick sales people talk him out of $5000 a month , but would buy the finished product for $2500 a month.