Search Engine Optimization: What Not to Look For
Have you received spam emails from people promising to increase traffic to your website by ranking it high in SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages)? We get them all the time. In fact, Google claims that they even receive these unwanted requests. This is an example of an email received from Google in the past:
“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that it is not listed in most major search engines and directories…”
Funny huh? But how many people respond to these ridiculous emails and spend a lot of money in the hope that they can increase traffic to their website? What’s worse, many of these companies are capable of brainwashing their customers into thinking that they are actually profiting! Companies that use these unethical business practices give the entire SEO (search engine optimization) community a bad name.
Two Point Enterprise writes this article on what NOT to look for when shopping for SEO so that you can arm yourself to make an informed decision. We know of no better way to illustrate this article to you than to feature a spam email we received from one of these rogue companies. Please read the email in the screenshot below carefully, and then check out our feedback.
Click here for a screenshot of the email
The subject line of the email was “Do you want references from your website?” (I guess they were in such a hurry to send this email that they didn’t even take the time to check the spelling.)
The first red flag is receiving the email in the first place! Check out Google’s Webmaster Information and you’ll see the first thing they tell you is “Beware of SEO companies that send you emails out of the blue.”
The next thing the author of this spam email tries to do is make a weak attempt to identify himself with real estate agents. Hence the words, “Location, Location, Location.” (Sorry partner, you’re not getting into bed with me.) Then they pay credit that you may already have a good website, but if you could increase traffic, you could bring millions of customers and billions of dollars to your website. They apparently dismiss pay-per-click services without giving credit to the fact that real estate is actually something that pay-per-click can do quite well with—in big cities, that is. Finally, as with all spam emails like this, they think they have the solution you’ve been looking for!
We couldn’t help but laugh a little at the next line where they increase the font size and announce: “¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ (One more exclamation point and I think everyone in the office will have freaked out!) Wet pants.) Seriously, Mr. Spammer, what’s in here? Are they SEO services with a perpetual monthly fee to guarantee you recurring income? I hate to spoil the party, but SEO was around long before that you registered your domain on September 24, 2004. And monthly fees were invented a long time ago too. I’ll give them a little credit for ensuring your satisfaction instead of your ranking. Google rule #2 is: “No one can guarantee the #1 spot.” However, they don’t tell you how they guarantee your satisfaction in the email. I’d be surprised if it’s a guarantee of 100% money back. I bet they have it set up where they end up pocketing money one way or another. If they can brainwash you into thinking they’re doing a good job, they don’t have to pay you back.
The next thing this spam email does is try to establish credibility for themselves. They want you to go to a search engine and search for the massive, non-competitive five-word phrase “neighborhood prospecting websites for realtors.” If the reader did not delete the email and put it in the recycle bin, they will see that the company that sent this email is currently ranked first in this search. We inserted the five-word phrase into a Google AdWords campaign and made it an offer of $5. After submitting, Google automatically adjusted the price to $0.02 (because that’s its value), gave it the first position on the page (because there’s no competition for that phrase), and estimated that our cost per day for the phrase would be $0.00 ( because no one in the world would be looking for that). So big deal guys if you are the #1 result for “neighborhood prospecting websites for real estate agents”. That’s because no one else wants it!
Now look down some more and see what we have here! Well, if it’s not an intellectual property and trademark infringement against the search engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo!. I would be willing to bet that these search engines did not license any use of their trademarks. I also don’t see any notice at the bottom identifying the rightful owners of the trademarks, nor do I see the author disclaiming any affiliation with these search engines. Subtle little images like this can mislead the reader into thinking that some kind of special relationship, or affiliation, has been tampered with with the search engines. Google says “beware of SEOs that alleviate a ‘special relationship’ with Google.” My guess is that Google has no plans to enter into some sort of strategic partnership with these whiz kids any time soon.
Next we have the registration button where we can make our monthly donation to these people. How thoughtful of you to make the button so nice and big. We don’t want to get lost when we try to click the mouse!
At the bottom, they try to abide by the rules and offer you and your little link to opt out of future emails from them. Unless they’re making it up to you, why should you take time out of your day to opt out of this email you didn’t request in the first place? Good luck with that, by the way. Two weeks ago we received this email and we ask you to stop spamming us. They responded and told us that we got it because we signed up for something, which we know full well we didn’t. However, we gave them some slack and scrapped it. Then on 2-3-2006 we received this same email again after we told them 2 weeks before to stop emailing us.
I hope you enjoyed the article! Good luck with your SEO!