Systematic Theft - One Search Engine Optimization Company's "Nasty Surprise"

[thejenn]

Authored by: Scott Buresh

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/bur.../0410_sb1.html

A Snippet:

Let's face it - any search engine optimization company knows that the industry has carried a collective black eye for many years. This is unfortunate, because there are many firms out there that do outstanding work and who must struggle for simple legitimacy simply because there are so many fly-by-night companies and snake oil salesmen out there.

[mysteriousmuse]

Interesting stuff. Great article!

[Jim2Macs]

Probably one of the worst cases we've seen is we had someone come to us for help with their site. They were getting virtually no visitors and couldn't understand it. This person explained to me that they had been to several "SEO" companies and paid a lot of money, one they paid $6,000 for keywords! Guess what? there were no keywords on the site.
Jenn is correct, there are many top notch SEO firms out there, but I really think people need to investigate and at least learn the basics of SEO and their websites before spending this kind of money. I read everyday on different forums people asking if ppc works, if this works, if that works and I get the feeling many people know nothing about this subject and throw money at the nicest looking site with the best looking offers.
SEO is a very wide field and a ever evolving science, good firms continually "tweak" their stratigies, bad firms "promise" the number 1 spot on all the search engines.
Anyway, I'm rambling, good article!

[WebPsychic]

Thanks to Scott for that great article. I've run into this sort of thing, but not on such a large, and blatant scale.

[SimonHeseltine]

Nice article. It's at times like this that I wish I'd signed up here with a pseudonym, so I could share some stories... ah well

[Robert]

Originally Posted by SimonHeseltine

Nice article. It's at times like this that I wish I'd signed up here with a pseudonym, so I could share some stories... ah well

Of course, we can always change your user id if you want to share some juicy stuff.

[Ollie]

What is amazing though that some of the beter SEO firms are their own worst enemies! We are from Belgium and we often find that many prospective clients are becoming very skeptical because of poor service and over sell by the SEO firms.

One warning sign though, if any prospective clients don't check your references and proven stats, run fast! We don't give any of our techniques away ever, not even to our own clients!

Cheers,

Ollie

[siswati]

I have been a long time reader but this story made me sign up and make my first post. This is a great story and mirrors several of my own experiences....

In my photography company a competitor was so lame as to copy one of my contracts verbatim, replacing my company with his. Fortunately for us he was too dumb to do a search/replace on our fax number so whenever his clients would send in the signed contract for hsi services, the fax would come to us. We collected several contracts, chatted to his clients, and then let our attorney loose.....

......Also in my photography company anopther local competitor attended one of our workshops, used all of our marketing collateral and much of our website content to create his own site. We caught the content theft - sent a nice cease and desist notice, he complied and then stole another photogaphers content. We let the other photographer know, he filed a cease and desist, the content was removed and replaced with a third pirated sites content. We notified that photographer, he didnt follow up and the stolen content is still there, 12 months later. Some guys just dont care......

The lazy ones are the dumbest for sure! But they know there will be people that just wont protect their content, so in the end sometimes they get away with it. So the lesson is be vigilant and always vigorously protect your content.

[Taddeo Irfan]

Let's face it any search engine optimization company knows that the industry has carried a collective black eye for many years. This is unfortunate, because there are many firms out there that do outstanding work and who must struggle for simple legitimacy simply because there are so many fly by night companies and snake oil salesmen out there.

[DavidMort]

I guess that really reliable companies will never promise something that sounds like a miracle, those who can adequately estimate their possibilities are to trust