Just about every day I use a wonderful service from Google called Google Alerts, that will send you a list of new content Google has crawled for any given subject or topic. I try and get the latest trends and new articles that they have for the world of SEO. Just this morning I was sent a press release for an SEO company that made me a little uncomfortable. The full press release can be found here, but let me just pull a little piece of it that got me concerned:
“Seocompany.biz, a leading search engine optimization company, is now offering its new clients a first-page Google ranking or refund of their deposit.”
Now, having a guarantee may seem like a good idea, and there is no doubt that it is great in many different industries. In the world of SEO, however, this is a big warning flag that you will want to be concerned about. Why is that? Well first let me give you a little information from Google taken from their Webmaster Help Site:
“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.”
Here we have first-hand evidence from Google that there is no way to guarantee first-page rankings. The reason that you want to be concerned with this is because there are a lot of practices in the realm of SEO that are deemed “Black Hat,” or not smiled upon by the search engines. Performing “Black Hat” SEO tactics can actually get you and your company banned from ranking in the most popular search engines.
“Black Hat” SEO practices include building false links, and other practices I don’t need to mention. All of these tricks initially can get you on the top of a search term fairly quickly and will help you gain higher traffic and possible sales from it, but once Google, Yahoo!, Bing or other search engines find you out, you more than likely will never be ranked that high again. You broke the rules and that is your consequence. The short term may be good, but the long term can destroy a company’s online campaign.
I don’t wish any business to be banned from the search engines, and I highly suggest that if you choose to go with a company other than Boostability, you do your research before you pick a company to represent you. The last thing you want is your whole online presence to be ruined.
Google’s Webmaster Help Site is a resource that I like to direct a lot of our clients to so they can learn more. It gives you great insight into how Google looks at SEO and how to find a legitimate company that will give you long term results for your online campaign. These are guidelines we at Boostability adhere strictly to. If you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to contact us.
