Search engine optimization has reached new heights in the past year. Suddenly, everybody and their mom are interested in engaging in SEO in order to make their web sites more visible. Not everyone knows even the basic SEO practices and not everyone wants to spend some time on them. That is why there are many SEO companies making a killing in this niche. However, you should know that not everyone who claims to be an SEO expert is for real. In fact, I just read the results of a research conducted by an SEO firm, Increase Visibility, which shed light on some of the common SEO scams being run today.

I am hoping that you have not been victimized by any of these but to be on the safe side, here are some of the major warning signs that they have pinpointed:

• Emails guaranteeing number #1 Google rankings.
• Offering guaranteed rankings for a very small fee.
• Achieving a #1 ranking for a unique, very long search term. The very long search term has no search volume. This practice is a scam.
• Guaranteeing a #1 search engine ranking by purchasing it with Google Adwords or pay per click advertising. The Adwords might show up on the top of the search page or in the sponsored link section in the right column. However, the majority of searchers use the organic search results located in the left column.
• Offering to submit a website to a vast number of search engines for a small payment (this strategy simply fails).
• Not having a legitimate website or they own an amateurish site.
• Offering to submit a website to over a thousand important directories, however there are only a small number of directories that bring traffic to websites.

My suggestion is for you to start learning about the basics of SEO yourself. You can build on this in the future and actually be your own SEO person OR you can use your basic knowledge to hire legitimate and knowledgeable SEO professionals.

5 Comments to "Common SEO Scams"

  • Cesar Noel said: On 10/26/2008 at 5:53 am

    it’s too bad some people are using SEO to scam people. SEO is a great way to earn money as well as help promote website (yours or your clients).

  • Chris Bourton said: On 10/26/2008 at 4:07 pm

    Good advice, at the end of the day, if your paying someone else to do SEO task/tactics for you, it’s mostly a time and experience thing that your paying for.
    Be cautious if they start promising more than that.

  • Sheena said: On 10/27/2008 at 1:58 pm

    Scams like this are not only annoying, they are beginning to give SEO in general a bad name. Someone who is completely unfamiliar with SEO practices doesn’t understand that it is impossible to guarantee ranking position or that ’submitting to thousands of directories’ has essentially no SEO benefit. So they fall for these scams and when they don’t see results swear of SEO efforts all together.

    Thanks for calling attention to this!

  • Data Entry Service said: On 10/27/2008 at 11:55 pm

    Thanks for this. I have run across all of these scams and most of them I instinctively knew were worthless but not everyone would. They must make money making these promises.

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