- Image by Cat Sparx via Flickr
These are just a few things that I feel is a sign your SEO could be a quack. If your SEO believes in one of these, be careful. If they believe or do 3 or more of these, you might be better off looking for a new SEO.
1- They charge for search engine submissions. Especially, those who charge you quarterly. Who does that anymore?
2- Guarantee top placement.
3- Tries to get you to commit to a year of SEO without even evaluating your site.
4- Their idea of effective link building is reciprocal linking. Which happens to be the only form of link building they do.
5- They brag they can get you indexed in less then 48 hours. Nothing special there.
6- They use the Google pray meta tag on all their clients site’s
7- They associate high PR as the key to ranking well.
8- Can answer this question with an actual number. How many links do I need to out rank my competitor?
9- Swears Alexa ranking is a true measurement of traffic.
10- If a company shows you results of their clients and they are on page five on the SERPs, Run.
What can you add to the list?
#1 by 3PointRoss on December 22, 2006 - 5:14 pm
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He thinks that SEO is nothing BUT meta tags.
#2 by Vertigo_Web_Design_Solutions on May 15, 2007 - 5:33 am
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I’m constantly being contacted by companies from India who want you to outsource, their favourite trick is to tell you it’s easy and they have a long list of Keywords they’ve got in the top 10, usually advertised on there site. However when you check them for use most of the them come back with “0″ searches, and at best they may have very few, which is why it’s very easy. What I find ammusing is they get very upset with me when I tell them this.
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#3 by sansoftonline01 on September 23, 2010 - 10:03 am
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hi,
I think SEO plays very important role in site optimization. The better optimized the page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in search engine result listings. This is especially critical because most people who use search engines only look at the first page or two of the search results, so for a page to get high traffic from a search engine, it has to be listed in those first two pages.
Local SEO Company
#4 by sergio-videosdebodas on October 26, 2010 - 1:10 am
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Hello,
the list could be added that on many occasions not tell you that there is a SEO maintenance to be run with some frequency.
Greetings.
Sergio Vergara
#5 by anderson1218 on November 4, 2010 - 12:03 pm
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I beg to disagree but there might not be any quack SEO companies. Search Engine Optimization companies only do their job. And most of what you listed are just marketing strategies. Like in #2, “Guarantee Top Placement”–there are a lot of TV ads that do the same (i.e., No.1 brand of Milk).
#6 by Fluid Search on November 24, 2010 - 8:16 am
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Anyone who guarantees a number one ranking without at least giving a time frame and a methodology should be avoided. There is nothing wrong with guaranteeing a first place ranking if you honestly believe you can do it though.
On the flip side, being honest and saying there is no way (or very near impossible) to rank number one for a specific term is the sign of a good SEO company.
#7 by utah SEO on February 3, 2011 - 8:22 pm
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Let’s add those companies that says they’ll get you number one and you will always stay there.
#8 by zuhpiter on May 12, 2011 - 9:06 pm
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Thank you for this note. I am new to the SEO world and is taking a tours on the blogosphere to learn things about SEO. I am still a bit confused on what strategies is the best in boosting up your rankings because I get to cross some blogs that contradicts the strategies I have acquired in my training. This one really helps.
Thanks a lot.
CHeers!!
zuhpiter | – seo jobs
#9 by arthurjohn on June 6, 2011 - 1:00 am
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I definitely agree with all those signs and I would like to add number 11. “Guarantee top placement within a month” – because an SEO who only uses white hat technique for long term results can’t do that.
SEO Sydney
#10 by angelcarlson on January 19, 2012 - 10:32 pm
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Some people even believe that spamming is what SEO all about. And if one guarantees instant good ranking, I believe he uses some black hat methodes.