Watch Out for SEO Scams

By Cassie Woolworth

Today, anyone who is a Web designer has appended the initials "SEO" to their offerings. SEO means "search engine optimization" and is the new catch phrase in our industry. These companies want you to think that by investing money in marketing on the Internet, you will increase your exposure and thereby increase your client base.

The SEO experts attempt to adjust your Web site to garner placement near or at the top of search engines. They try to take the guesswork out of placing your site on the search engines. Typically these firms will redo content, add keywords and descriptions to make your site place higher in search engine results.

However, I have seen and heard of companies touting that they will guarantee to place you in the top 10 or within the first couple of pages. Guaranteeing placement is akin to the "junk bonds" of the 80-you pay and pay and later on realize you have gotten nothing.

Trying to place high in search results is, essentially, a shot in the dark. That's because none of the search engines make known their system for ranking Web sites. And they regularly fine-tune their algorithms, making reverse engineering harder.

There are three things known about placement on the search engines:
1. You place higher if you have your META Tags and a robots.txt file set up on the server.
2. You place higher the more outside links to your site.
3. You always place higher if your content changes often.

Some SEO firms have manipulated their clients' sites so much that these clients no longer place at all on search results because they've been banned for trying to "scam" the search engines. These firms have tried to "scam" their clients' sites into the top 10 only to have these sites banned form the search engine.

The only guaranteed placement you can get is purchased placement on Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, etc. All of the search engine sites sell their tip listings and the side banner ads. These are paid for by the advertiser (you) and then listed when relevant content comes up. You can purchase the top listing per zip, state or country, as well as per city and keyword. You can even bid on your listing on Google's AdWords. As Google is used in 80 percent of all searches, experts recommend putting your money there.

If your SEO firm is talking about guaranteed placement, run away fast. Unless they follow it up with "It costs $X amount to put banners on Google," you are wasting your time and money.

Cassie Woolworth co-owns R&D Technology, which provides IT services. She also is part owner of CartFactory.com and Spamwall.net,and owns, runs and operates ServeTheWeb.com, a National ASP. You can reach Woolworth at (913) 491-0345 or go to www.RnDTechnology.com.