Internet Marketing Fraud

The word SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is very commonly used and understood word in internet marketing. Today everyone wants to promote their website and business on internet and there for wants their sites to rank higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Now to help these people there are plenty of seo firms in which some are genuine and some are not. In this article we will target those seo firms who guarantees their client about rankings.

Why clients seek SEO guarantees?

It's simple to understand why SEO buyers are looking for guarantees:

1. Affirmed return on investment

2. Security

Buyers who ask for SEO Guarantees are either new to the concept or have dealt with a SEO firm that gave no results at all.

What SEO Guarantees Clients Seek?

There are two kinds of guarantees that we often come across, one kind focus on Number One ranking and the other kinds focus on rankings in top 5 across ALL search engines. 'ALL' here is an important word. Here is a glimpse of the guarantee list:

1. Number one in Google for 'Real Estate'

2. Get my website in atleast in top 5 or no deal

3. I have three websites, all about XYZ. I want three of them ranked in top 5 in Google, Yahoo and MSN

4. I don't want rankings for 50 keywords, I just want rankings for these 10 keywords - can you do it? I want a guarantee that my site would be in top 5 across all search engines. What was interesting was that none of these demands for guarantees actually asked for a timeframe, until this one:

"I want a guarantee that my site would rank for 'travel' in Google in top 10. I also want the contract to include by when you would get my site to rank"

The following demand was from a client who'd been fooled before by a company guaranteeing rankings:

"I know what SEO is. Just tell me if you guarantee that the site would rank in top 5, ok top 10, in at least Google and Yahoo. I also want to know how long would it take. I also want a guarantee that the rankings would stay for at least 2 months"

Why these SEO guarantees can't be given?

SEO firms don't own search engines or search engine algorithms and don't have control over how the results are displayed and how long the rankings would last for any site.

The SEO firms can't realistically give the following guarantees:

1. The website would be indexed by all search engines its submitted to

a. All sites do get indexed though. They get indexed because search engines which allow free listings want to increase their database and give useful and new information to its users at all times. Paid search engines obviously index sites because they are paid for it. Why SEO firms can't guarantee it because free search engines may take 2 - 3 weeks for indexing and also may not index a website if it has been previously banned.

b. Interestingly, no one even asks for a guarantee for getting indexed - it seems to be so because everyone is aware of the process. Also, most of the times the site is already listed with search engines due to their large database sharing model.

2. The website would rank for the keywords it is optimized for

a. Let alone top rankings, SEO firms can't guarantee that sites would rank in top hundred either. SEO firms do not have access to the search engine algorithms nor does any SEO firm we know of has any kind of partnership with any search engine that allows them to rank their clients' websites high in organic rankings.

b. If any firm is giving you such a guarantee, read the fine print. We'll be discussing a lot of such Trick Guarantees in the next article.

c. Again, this is not to say that rankings don't come. Rankings are achieved but purely on the basis of the Expert's own understanding of the algorithm and research.

Hopefully, this article will save at least some people from SEO marketing fraud.