Heed warning signs of SEO scams

While search engine optimization (SEO) companies can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways.

Unfortunately, there are a growing number of SEO companies and SEO scams that prey upon unknowledgeable site owners.

Practices that violate Google guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from their index.

Google offers the following advice to consider:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators. For example: “Dear Realtor, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

No one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through their add URL page or by submitting a sitemap.

Be careful if a company is secretive. Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server, they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.

Never have to link to an SEO. Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines.

Choose wisely. While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry.

Be sure to understand where the money goes. While Google never sells better ranking in their search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they “control” other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn’t work with Google because their advertising is clearly labeled and separated from their search results.

Common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter. One common scam is the creation of “shadow” domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client’s behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

Other things to look out for. There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. If you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO owns shadow domains, puts links to their clients on doorway pages, guarantees ranking, or the company itself is not listed on Google.