McKyton » SEM

Perfect Example of SEO Snake Oil

mckyton — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:31:29 +0000

This morning a client of mine received an email from a supposed Internet marketing specialist. This email is such a great example of a company misrepresenting the search engine marketing industry and SEO techniques. How many false statement can you identify in this letter.

Hello, my name is————–and I am an internet marketing specialist. I was looking at websites under the keyword don swanson racing school and came across your website http://www.domainname.org. I see that you’re not ranked on the first page of Google for a don swanson racing school search.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.
There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for the keyword don swanson racing school based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.
You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you’re interested I can help you with this…
I’m talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for http://www.domainname.org.
The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.
My partners and I own 1000′s websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.
I didn’t send this email out to very many people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword don swanson racing school can deliver.
I have your contact information and phone number. Is it ok if I give you a call?
I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it’s risk free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes
Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

Sincerely,

———
(xxx) xxx-xxxx
www.linkstiger.com

P.S – If the tables were turned and somebody I didn’t know came to me with a proposition, even one that was appealing, I would be hesitant because I would be wondering – what’s the catch? What does this guy know that I don’t.

But then I would think he does know something that I don’t know. He does have thousands of high PR websites, he does have hundreds of thousands of pages indexed and ranking in Google Yahoo and MSN. Sites that can deliver the quality anchor text backlinks. I would also think that I need to get my website in the top rankings. And he is offering to turn key top rankings for me…on all my keywords including don swanson racing school. Even keywords I’m not currently competing for. Keywords that produce traffic that’s potentially worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.

I emailed you because It’s a win -win for both of us. Think of it this way – Who wouldn’t be interested in buying money at a discount? Because that’s what I’ll be able to do offer you…Money at a discount.

Is it Ok to give you a call? Or you can can call me anytime at the number above?

It really is amazing… in one message this sake oil sales man has:

misrepresented the SEO / SEM realities
Insulted current SEO efforts ( while using an irrelevant key-term, no less)
Guaranteed top placement for “All of your keywords”
discussed his link selling scam
Threatened to help out a competitor if we did not sign up with him and his unnamed “partner” who manage thousands of websites……….
Finally, this person actually says he can offer “Buying money at a discount” , if that ‘s not a red flag, I don’t know what is

Do business owners actually fall for this kind of marketing? Doing a quick search for this company on Google the first result is from ”RIPOFF REPORT”. Clearly Google knows this guy is a fraud.

Is Google taking any steps to really deter this kind of activity. Can it? I don’t expect Google to play police man but is there anything else they can beyond giving them low page ranks? I mean these SEO snake oil folks almost never produce worthwhile results but they do damage the industry through misrepresentation and confusing business owners. Google has really built this industry, now what can it do to help protect the legitimate SEO companies and business owners?

Google’s New Advaced 404 Error Code for Webmaster Tools

mckyton — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:24:48 +0000

Google recently released a new way to implement and manage 404 error pages.

Below is a screenshot of the widget.

404 error pages are those pages that are displayed when you try to access a page that no longer exists on a website. Marketers often try to optimize these pages to ensure that if a visitor lands on one of these pages they do not leave the site altogether. Another common trick is to try to cross promote products and services via 404 error pages.

This domain has been several things over the last few years so I have a number of pages indexed in google that are no longer active. So I am trying out this widget on my site in hopes that it may communicate with Google technology and help remove outdated indexes sooner. (I have no proof of this, just hoping)

You can se the widget in action here: http://www.mckyton.com/doesnotexist

I am using the default widget setting but you can customize the look to your liking.

Search Engine Strategies Conference

mckyton — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:57:28 +0000

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose started yesterday and unfortunately I am not attending. I have attended this conference several times over the last few years but always in Chicago. This is an excellent event that can get anyone, regardless of their experience in SEO, up to speed in no time.

Over the last five years there have some big announcments made by search engines at these conferences including algorithm changes that drastically changed search engine result positions for many many companies. So far I have not heard any big breaking news, but I am following along to see what comes out.

There are a number of people live blogging So I will be following along. Hopefully I will make it to the Chicago event this year.

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/

Have you Stumbled?

mckyton — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:54:55 +0000

Have you tried using StumbleUpon yet? If you are anything like me you are probably growing a little weary of the myriad of gimmicky social networks and novelty widgets. Well perhaps the fact that the social space is so saturated is exactly the reason I get excited when I find one I really like and even find useful.

Stumble upon is a social bookmarking services that allows members to create a list of favorite websites via a browser tool bar. It is these favorites that you can easily share with friends on the stumble upon network. However it’s not this that I like so much. I mean, already have a ton places where I can save favorites. No, what makes this service so great is the magical stumble button on the toolbar. When you click the stumble button a page will be presented to you that matches your list of interests (you setup your areas of interests when you register). Nine times out of ten I am thrilled by the hidden gem of a website retrieved upon clicking the stuble button. This is why I like Stumble Upon.

Now the reason I find it useful is because I have seen the true viral power of this service. About 2 weeks ago a client noticed a drastic spike in traffic and was trying to determine the source. After spending a few minutes digging through the log files I saw that the traffic was coming from stumbleupon, a service I had heard of but never tried.

Further inspection revealed that this spike turned into a 600% increase in visitor traffic for the week. By far this was the busiest week this company had seen in traffic and sales reflected this increase.

So not only is stumbleupon downright entertaining there is some real, easily implemented marketing value as well.

Give it a try yourself. www.stumbleupon.com