I get so sick and tired of seeing this crap on a daily basis, i am going to keep this post so short and sweet otherwise it will turn into a mad and huge rant. For you, for your business and for your sanity there is NO SUCH THING as guaranteed page one rankings.
“No one can guarantee a #1 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 our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.”
If all you have to do is provide a bunch of keywords to target, set and forget then you are on a path to misery. If you have to pay to maintain these rankings on a monthly basis, then you are on path to misery.
SEO is not a set and forget marketing effort, it is part of strategy, a strategy that is revisited and reviewed. Does submitting a few hundred keywords to a company that you pay $30 per month to maintain sound like a viable long term solution to strengthening your brand and establishing yourself among your competition?
OK, now stop paying your $30 per month and as promised that firm that controls all of your keyword positioning among X thousand of their carefully controlled and positioned websites pulls the plug and you disappear off the map.
Congratulations, you get exactly what you paid for and we as an SEO industry have to mop up the mess and defend what we do again because another scam artist found an easy way to make a quick kill.
The $30 a month sounded good right?
Now if someone came to me and said “i value you and your product at $30 per month” i would be a little worried from the start.
Again i will refer you to Google themselves and what they have to say about SEO;
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
It`s a great starting point, but beyond that be very, very careful about any company that tries to baffle you with bullshit, bullshit like “Guaranteed page one rankings”.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gabriella Sannino and Bruce Cat, Heather Lloyd-Martin. Heather Lloyd-Martin said: RT @SEOcopy: Guaranteed Page One Rankings are BS http://ht.ly/3YcMP | Amen brother
[...]
I agree with what you say about priority submit, special relationships with Google etc. But as for you saying that a good white hat SEO specialist cannot guarantee page one Google rankings, I completely disagree. nnI, myself, have the same crap to mop up myself after my clients are continually being ripped off by these ‘companies’ that charge for multiple submissions and all of the other gubbins that have no place in a genuine seo campaign. nnBut, I do offer guaranteed page one Google rankings. I’ve never once failed to deliver and I do this by writing original, search engine friendly copy, optimising title/meta/alt/header tags, coding the site in a clean manner, organizing internal link structure correctly and then by building same niche bakclinks, 2 way via exchanges and 1 way via article submissions, blog posts etc.nnIn writing your article you have damned all SEO practitioners and basically said we’re all out to rip people off. Not good…in my opinion anyway. nnSo tell me, do you sell SEO to your clients by saying ‘it might work’…..???
Having never failed in the past doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed at all, it’s never guaranteed because it’s not within your control. No SEO should ever use the word guaranteed when related to Google positions, doing so is a scam and nothing less. Google actually state this themselves.
It is within my control though Steve. I may not be able to target one word phrases but I can, and do, rank every site I work on for related keywords that make my clients money. If I can’t do it, I give them their money back. It hasn’t happened in 6 years. No one has ever called me a scammer either! nnSorry if you find my choice of domain name such a heinous crime. It’s a gimmick and one that people seem to like….other than the ones on this page. If my methods were not as white hat as they are, then I’d be rightly called a fraudster. But my choice of one domain name does not make me so. nnGlad you liked my post so much that you called me a fish Dean, drove some traffic my way. The general consensus my end was that you’re a bit of a plank really mate. I fought your corner, but had to give up after realising it was a losing battle.nnIf you need some work I’ll happily use you as a freelancer if you’re any good?nnLet me know mate…
Thanks for stopping by again Lee.nn”It’s a gimmick and one that people seem to like”nnSorry you feel so bad about this post I wrote over 7 months ago that is obviously infringing on your search space and your whole business model, but as outlined in the post and something which you have neither addressed nor confirmed, you are in breach of Googles terms of service. You know it and I know it.
As Steve has already pointed out it is against G`s terms of service which has already been outlined and linked to from within this postnnBetter than that you may want to take a closer look at http://www.google.co.uk/accounts/TOSnn“9.2 Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use any of Googleu2019s trade names, trade marks, service marks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features.”nnNot aware of that one either?nnOnly a matter of time before your brand piggybacking is caught up with.
OMG POGR – you’re high. As a kite. Caught on a wind current taking you higher. By the minute. I too used to claim page one rankings for clients – not guaranteed, but likely based on my experience. Back when I worked with small companies in limited markets. Unless of course, you’re guaranteeing page one rankings for crappy phrases that offer little to no value. Then sure, guarantee all you want. But you better disclose your nonsense methods if you do. nnAnd Dean has by no means damned all SEO practitioners. Only asshats like you.
You boys need to lighten up a little. It’s easy to pick holes in someone else that you don’t have any idea about. But you’re entitled to your opinions. Alan, how you have managed to come up with such a pile of crap is quite beyond me? Are you Deans ‘friend’ per chance? Perhaps on drugs yourself? How else could you explain this drivel: nn”OMG POGR – you’re high. As a kite. Caught on a wind current taking you higher. By the minute”nnWhat on earth are you banging on about? You may well know seo like the back of your hand, but you sure as shit have no right to judge me on my choice of domain name. I don’t have to justify myself to you, only my clients.nnMy clients would not continue to use me if I targeted crappy phrases that showed no return and I wouldn’t be happy doing so. That IS the wrong way to go about things, I grant you.nnIf you can’t guarantee your clients at least some page one rankings then in my opinion you are not worth a rub. How can you sell SEO by saying “I’ll have a go but I aint promising nothing…”??nnCheck out my asshat methods yourself Alan by Googling ‘page one of google’ and looking for my site. Real black hat isn’t it….nnBoys, it would not surprise me at all if you were both teachers pet that shook with excitement at the though of getting the bigger boys who used to nick your dinner money off of you a detention by telling sir as he tanned your scrawny little backsides once more….and you know you loved every damn minute of it.nnGrow up for christ sakes…
Ok you have my interest nownn’try googling “page one of google” and looking for my site’nnTried it Lee and I can’t see you anywhere in fact I had to go a little further and it was not until I searched for “Guaranteed Page One Google Rankings” until I found you.. in 2nd spot. nnLets just try again for an exact match for your domain name itself.nn6th Spot, for an exact match of your domain. Let me just repeat that, 6th spot for an exact match of your domain.nnIf you would like me to get you to that top spot Lee, give me a shout.nnWhat worries me a little here is that you obviously have no problem infringing upon Googles trademark and badly at that, you obviously have no clue how to code just by looking at your site and your use of “HTML Tidy” lol. What depths would you delve to to Lee just to rank. If you can’t even rank a 5 word exact match domain for yourself, then I sure as shite am woried for your
uncles and cousinsclients.As well you know know Dean, rankings fluctuate. Touche that that result changed and made an apparent monkey out of me. Of course that particular site will rank well for lots of Google related words. Purely on the strength of the domain. You can check my site out as I think there’s a screenshot of the actual result on there now. Yup, another gimmick….christ Deano, would not want you on my sales team, sorry fella.nnYep, I grant you. The word Google is in my domain name. I do use this to my advantage too. My job is about putting my clients, not uncles or aunties, sites onto page one of Google. Therefore I fail to see the wrong in my pitch. My methods are white hat, my clients get business and I earn a good living. nnSeo is a very small piece of my puzzle Dean, life’s too short to hang on to one basket. And to be fair, being stuck on the PC all day and night is If Google ban my url I’ll just get another domain and target another related word because it makes a good pitch to prospective clients. If I promise and deliver, tell me what I am doing wrong? Other than your vehement obsession with Google’s T’s&C’s….nnThat domain name is only a couple of months old. I’ve seen sites using Google in their domains floating around for years. Also, how about these E-authors that put together sales pages for all kinds of Google related marketing info for a premium and then have an army of affiliates promoting their product all over the net. Even using Google Adwords as a means of advetising. A big company like Clickbank would surely be seriously liable if what I am doing with one throwaway domain name is such a terrible crime…..nnAs for getting to the top spot Dean, you can see that the site is full of inline scripts, styles and all sorts of other nonsense. I would not waste my time optimising a site to compete in the global seo market. I don’t have to. My work comes from word of mouth, social networking and from people that find my site for Google related search terms. I notice that Google themselves let Ebay and other BIG sites run ads for things that have absolutely no relation to them whatsoever. So occasionally rules get broken…..in every areas of life. nnLook, I don’t really want to argue with you. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. I cannot sum you up as an individual by reading a few posts. You’re probably good at your job and a fine upstanding member of the community. I just cannot understand how an seo sells their services unless they guarantee to put the clients site where it wants to be?nnI’ve genuinely never failed to make this happen in 6 years. Apart from once when a company went ahead and had a site I made for them replicated by another company using exactly the same copy and put on another domain. But that’s it….nn
“My work comes from word of mouth, social networking and from people that find my site for Google related search terms”nnand links in the footer of your client sites? – http://www.morganelectrical.org.uk/ for example?nI don`t understand why you let that hertfordshireseo.co.uk domain go, oh on further look I can see the evolution into your new effort – http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090407031306/http://www.hertfordshireseo.co.uk/nOr through your link drops in the comments on Digg for your now inactive http://www.hertfordshireseo.co.uk/?nnI have looked further but you get where I am coming from right?nnWhy have a throway domain to pitch clients?nnWhy don`t you offer previous examples of achievement for previous or current clients?nnI understand that you may still be on a learning curve but surely building a sustainable site without piggybacking on Googles term would be the way to go, no?nnSorry to keep banging on about it but if you have been practising SEO for 6 years and your dumped domain from as little as 2 years ago is anything to gauge you by, you may need to disclose the fact that you are guaranteeing rankings against Googles policies and best practices and furthermore disclose that you are infringing on their trademark.nnYou are right though, it is a matter of time before you are caught up with and more than likely you will register another throwaway domain and start all over again.nnTake a little time to read up on SEO best practices and learn a better way to sustain your clients future instead of looking for quick wins that will quickly disappear.
On drugs? No actually I haven’t had any drugs in my body in many years. I’m not Dean’s friend. Never met him. Happen to have read some of his articles. Agree with what he communicates regarding real SEO.nnI happen to have gotten every one of my clients in the past ten years onto the first page of Google organics for some significantly high value phrases, in some of the most extremely competitive markets. So what? nnIf you happen to have a similar track record in always so far being able to get page one results it does NOT mean you can guarantee them for every possible client in every possible market especially regarding extremely high value highly competitive phrases. Unless you work AT Google and know the algorithms intimately. Or use black-hat unsustainable tactics.nnAnyone who does guarantee page one rankings, if they’re for high valued phrases in extremely competitive markets, is a scammer, nothing more, nothing less. Just a fact. If that guarantee is for easy pickings, that’s deception. Because it’s high value phrases, in highly competitive markets that matter in my world. nn
Alan….nnYou know what? I agree with everything you said. Check the copy on the site that’s got everyone so flustered….You’ll see I claim nothing other than what you have just said. You’ll see who my target market is. This may make me ‘small time’ in your opinion but I provide a valid service to theses people. Not once do I say any word, any niche. Unless we are talking your average small business, then I do guarantee page one, or they get their money back……nnNext time you want to try and jump on the band wagon and use poor lines akin to ones used in ‘the magic roundabout (original!) then I suggest you actually check out the subject of your distaste before doing so….yep, my domain name might be of distaste to you…..but my ethics and how I perform for my clients is not in question. Only by a couple of faceless nobodies that seem to thrive on trying to belittle people they have no idea about…..nnYou do your job, I’ll do mine…and I notice that you haven’t published my last post Dean??? Why is that mate???
Your last comment was not published as advising me to “walk in front of a bus” & calling into question my dedication to my family is not constructive to the conversation & fuels an uneccessary direction. I don’t mind you putting your point across from your perspective, but not to the detriment of adding zero value that neither helps you, me or anybody choosing to read these comments.
I totally agree with you Dean. No one can guarantee anything as far as Google are concerned. nnI design and optimise websites for clients and yes I get PG1 often position 1 but these are local businesses with little or no competition.nnIf an insurance broker or ambulance chaser asked me to get them on pg1 I would say yeah we can do it but it would cost you around 20k per year and don’t expect to see any results for 2 years! Whose gonna do that?nnso page one google rankings is talking bollocks. You cant maintain your own position so how can you guarantee someone elses? Not knocking you POGR but get real, if Google change their Algorythm and you cant work out what to do what happens to your guarantee then?nn
Thanks for stopping by Damien & you are absolutely correct, 1 flick of a Google classifier and whammo all your guarantees up in smoke.