Titanium Servers Hosting Blog

22/07: SEO Companies

What to watch out for with some SEO companies


First of all, when you are choosing a search engine optimization company you want to find one that has a website with up-to-date information. If you are on a website and see a company stating that Yahoo charges $199 per year to index your site, this is old information. Yahoo now charges $299 per year. If the SEO website you are on states Alltheweb.com or Altavista.com have a basic free submit service, this is out-of-date information. These two search engines have gone over to the "dark side" and have joined Overture in the pay-per-click business model.

Of all of the websites on the Internet that should display the latest information, the SEO companies should be at the top of this list. This is our game. Old information on any website is bad news (except for archived information that is).

Some search engine optimization companies will guarantee that you see significant results within 15 days for a new website. This is an unrealistic statement that no reputable SEO company would make. Most significant results from search engine optimization and submission will occur in months, not days. Some search engines like Google and MSN may index your site within 30 days, but if you have a new site, your search engine placement will be in a sort of "holding tank" for a while and may be buried in the search engine database for another 30-60 days. Sure, your site may be listed, in short order but it will take additional time to gain prominence in the search engine rankings.

Also, some search engine optimization companies will guarantee newbies high-ranking results on low-traffic keywords that have little competition in the search engines. If you are an SEO company who is not concerned about your customer, this approach makes sense. There are fewer high-traffic keywords than low-traffic keywords and the high-traffic keywords generally have much more competition.

There is an SEO scam on the Internet that consumers need to be aware of called the "I'll host your optimized pages" scam. In the "I'll host your optimized pages" scam you do not have control of your own web pages and basically pay ransom to the host company on an ongoing basis. Once you miss a payment your web pages may disappear or the optimization you had previous paid for will be wiped clean.

Have you been unfortunate enough to receive the SEO spam scam? This is the email scam that starts out, "I've noticed you are not listed on some search engines." You may have gotten this email even though you are listed number 1 on all of the major search engines. First, any reputable SEO company will not spam you to gain business. The first quest of any SEO company is to try to get to the top of the search engines, not send out spam. Second, this email is not specific to you or your company. Like all spam, the spammers send out thousands of emails hoping a small percentage pay off for big profits. Many of the reputable SEO sites now have ethics statements on their sites. Ethical website optimization includes no cloaking, no deceptive practices and no spamming.

This list is not comprehensive so it is a good idea to ask your SEO company questions upfront and that you receive answers to your satisfaction before you jump onboard. Also, if you have had any bad experiences with some SEO companies not covered here, please send us an email so that we may include what to watch out for in this section and warn other consumers.