Every day I find more and more evidence that the web is a cesspool of misinformation. I came across this post today and since this is what I do for a living (except I do it the correct and ethical way), I just had to blog this one. I get a little irked when I see this kind of thing because it’s idiots like this passing out garbage information trying to make a quick buck that gives the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) industries such a bad rap. This is his/her post in a forum. In the spirit of professionalism I removed his/her name, position, and company. I’ve placed some of my comments in-line with the post.
*** Begin Post ***
My name is [ REMOVED ]. I used to be an [ REMOVED ] at [ REMOVED ] I recently started a search engine optimization business. It helps you to score higher in the search engines such as yahoo and google. It has a free 30 day trial.
My Comments: Note he/she has left out MSN and Ask.com who still have a small share of the search queries performed every day.
You can put your website in a search engine submitter for free that will send your website to 300 search engines and 700,000 classified ads every day. It iwll greatly increase traffic to your website. You can change the addresses in it and try it for all your addresses for 30 days. There is no credit card required it is free to join for 30 days.
My Comments: Okay, sending your site to search engines has not been necessary for the last several years since search engines started “Crawling” the web automatically on their own. 700,000 classified ads? He or she has got to be joking. The search term “Classified Ads” doesn’t even show up in the top searches performed on search engines. Who looks at these anymore? They’re hotbeds for spammers.
There is also an affiliate program that pays you 30% commission and 10% on affiliate under you. You recieve free training, ads and banners. They give you an affiliate link that you can put on your websites, posts, or emails and make money on a monthly basis. All you do is tell people they can try this program for free for one month and if they decide to buy it for $20.00 per month then you make $6.00 per month on every person. If you get 10 people you make $60.00 per month and if you get 100 people you make $600.00 per month.
My Comments: Look at his/her first paragraph and then look at the last one. Tell me if you can spot a connection.
I got all of my signups from this social group
[ LINK REMOVED ]
The website is [ LINK REMOVED ]
If you have any questions…
*** End Post ***
Let’s go over what he/she has missed or misinformed readers about:
1) Search Engines do not need you to submit your website anymore. Get a wordpress or squidoo account, start a blog or a lens and link to your website from it. When the major search engines crawl your blog/lens they’ll follow the link to your website and start indexing its pages in their database for display in the search results. Bottom Line: Site Submission to search engines died years ago and you should never pay for such a service.
2) He/She fails to mention the power of inbound links. Inbound Links (links to your website from other websites) are by and large one of the largest factors when it comes to upping your rank, especially for Google.
3) A Monthly Fee for what? I sincerely hope that this isn’t a fee to continuously and automatically submit a client website to the major search engines. If it is, this is probably one of the quickest ways to get your domain banned and dropped from the search engines altogether. Search Engines HATE automated submissions and queries; especially if they happen multiple times. It’s like a ‘nobody’ hammering away at the door to a very exclusive party. Eventually, the host is gonna’ get P.O.’d and call the cops.
4) “I used to be a ____ at ____. I’ve recently started a search engine optimization business”. Ok, let’s rewrite that statement with ficitional occupations filled in: “I used to be a mechanic at XYZ Garage. I’ve recently started a medical practice…” Yeah, THERE’S a doctor with street credibility.
Maybe this post is littered with negativity. Please forgive me, it’s 3am and I have to be at my desk in about 6 hours so I’m tired and maybe just a bit cranky but if you take nothing else away from this post, remember this: Good search engine marketers don’t just “start a business”. Search Engine Marketing is not a turn-key type of industry. Good search engine rankings are a direct result of holistic, measured, and continuous effort to build quality incoming links to your website, optimize your content for visitors and search engines alike, and make your site as easy as possible for search engines to access and index. Like anything else in life, there’s no magic bullet.
/rant
