SEO Ad in Sunday Indo

[fieldcorbett]

Did anyone else see the ad in the Sunday Indo about SEO? - offering what seemed like a course for Eur550 and guarantying #1 spot in google results.

It seems to me that this is at the least dishonest if not fraudulant (you can't guarantee a top search placement in google) and if this type of thing isn't stopped its going to give the whole industry a bad rep.

 

[mneylon]

Which company was it ?

 

[fieldcorbett]

I read it in a cafe so I dont have it with me but it had a web address like call-indo-john.com or something odd like that. Must try and find a copy, it looked like a complete scam to me.

 

[mneylon]

I've seen a lot of crazy promises being made by SEO "experts". A lot of them prey on the gullible

 

[Arch-Stanton]

I am not the person running the course, however, it is possible to have a site ranking #1 within 3 to 6 months on Google.

The question is on what keywords, if the keywords are competitive, e.g , diet - health - web hosting etc., I would say it would be extremely difficult, maybe with two years hard work and expense, yes.

But keywords to do with your business like your name are in fact very easy to get ranked #1 e.g , Michele Neylon or Damien Kettle , another way is a keyword string like "leather chairs in arklow"

So these SEO guys can deliver on their promise to a certain extent, so it wouldn't be dishonest, but yes unfortunately it is "preying on the gullible"

 

[mneylon]

Arch-Stanton - I would consider it to be false advertising, as people are going to see the "top rank in Google" and ignore everything else.
A more honest approach would be to advertise services improving a website's ranking or search engine friendliness...

 

[Arch-Stanton]

Arch-Stanton - I would consider it to be false advertising, as people are going to see the "top rank in Google" and ignore everything else.
A more honest approach would be to advertise services improving a website's ranking or search engine friendliness...

I couldn't agree more with your point of honesty in advertising and using language like "top rank in Google" sounds so attractive, it will draw in the clients.

But if it is achievable, and it is, then it's not dishonest or false.

If I could illustrate this in an example. The domain name in my sig was registered in Jan and I created the site in Feb. So even though it's only a couple of months old it has achieved a PR5 and is ranked #1 in G for the search string "IRL Domain Registry" using the inverted comas, and this is without trying.

But as you know yourself this means nothing.

It easy enough to guarantee placement under obscure search terms. I would suspect that most of the people who would take up this course will be happy enough to get as far as getting their site indexed.

If the chap in the Indo can do it under a competitive search term I'll send him the 550 bucks tomorrow.