SEO Misinformation | Misleading SEO article

SEO unhelpful and misleading advice

With all the fuss around about bad SEO suppliers and what to look for in a good SEO supplier, about what matters in Internet Marketing and what doesn't, I was really disheartened to read today's Entireweb.com newsletter entitled 'What Corporates should know about Online Marketing'. This sort of misinformation really doesn't help anyone looking to choose a reputable SEO, web marketing, online marketing or SEM supplier. Just read this:

Tips when hiring SEO experts: - Whenever using a company in order to improve your SEO, always check out the Google Rank of their website. Since SEO is not that well known in management circles, there is a lot of companies that will try to sell SEO skills while there own SEO are terrible.

Really, check their Page Rank! Eh hem, how about finding out what their search engine rankings are like, how many unique visitors they get, how successful their portfolio of past campaigns is etc etc. Page Rank is just no guide at all and this tit bit of information is really going to get the heckles up of a lot of SEO consultants, Internet marketing specialists and professionals, as well as mislead a lot of people looking to improve their positions in the major search engines.

Oh, and what if its a talented SEO consultant who has decided to go it alone and only just started his/her own SEO website - not going to have much of a PageRank, but could be run by an SEO guru. In short, PageRank is the least useful measurables to use in order to check out the credentials of an SEO company or Internet marketing consultant.

They also claim that:

if you could increase your Google rank, your number of new visitors to your website will most certainly increase.

Not the case - Getting in bound links from websites with high page ranks might not do any good at all of A) the website/ webpage isn't relevant and doesn't have relevant content or link text is irrelevant B) the customer/ client web site has bugger all content C) The client website has problems such as not being indexable or is using duplicate content and so forth. Website visitors might not increase, the increased volume of traffic might not be properly targetted, or high ranking inbound links have been used as a silver bullet without properly identifying issues with the client website that need to be changed or improved in order to get results.

They continue:

Also try to get some form of guarantee. It is very rare that marketing companies ever give guarantees about the effects of their efforts, but if they actually do, you know they are serious about their skills.

Wrong - the SEO companies who do give guarantees are often charlatons who over-promise and under-deliver on their Internet Marketing campaigns - promises such as 'Guaranteed first place results', 'Guaranteed first page results' or 'see your online income skyrocket or your money back' are just absolute rubbish. There are no guarantees in this game and it is irresponsible to offer them without very carefully thought out caveats and clauses - SEOs need to be honest about the uncertainties of their profession both to protect themselves and to ensure that their customers make informed decisions. In truth, search engine marketing professionals have no control over the vagaries of search engine algorithms, nor can they have any control over what the competition are doing or how they are performing (unless perhaps if they are engaged in some dodgy black hat practices to knock them down). Ultimately web marketing professionals don't even have any control over what customers can do themselves to ruin their own chances - they can only give good advice, set guidelines and hope that the customer abides by them. The very best Internet Marketers I know are very careful about the promises they make, while some of the less reputable ones are happy to throw out guarantees left, right and centre - '200,000 links in two months', 'immediate search engine placement', 'you can buy a top search engine position', 'get to the first page or your money back' etc etc I've heard them all.

Finally, one small point of contention (I'm nit picking now):

Search engines have the most advanced mathematical algorithms available today

Not true. SE algorithms are indeed complex, but A) we have no real way of knowing how complex B) it is highly doubtful that they are THE most complex or advanced algorithms in the realm of mathematics. For instance, the true LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) algorithm is almost certainly not the exact one used by Google or anyone else online - sure they will be using a watered-down version, but to apply it in its original form, well, many people have their doubts.

I want to weep, after reading this article.

The proof in the pudding is the very next email that landed in my inbox after the newsletter: Read it and weep:

Does your site bring you profit?


Well ,it must!


Mass stream of clients is what is you want your site to bring you!
Your site should not only be repaid but keep on bringing prosperity
to your company. Your site is your very own representative in the
World Wide Web and it's what works 24/7 and independently.


We'll make it work for you, bring you clients and bring you profit,we
shall advance your site in above board ways.

So these guys just farmed one of our business emails and sent out a mailshot claiming with certainty that they will make us money, and make our website successful - All automated - a bot collects our email address, then a mailer sends out a mail shot - no one has even checked that our website has potential, that our keywords are profitable, or even noticed that we are an SEO company or checked what our industry is etc etc - its an obvious and extreme example of shoddy guarantees, and there are plenty out there who sound more credible, but still they're bound to be convincing someone. There are plenty of gullable people out there, and give them some misleading SEO advice about guarantees and they will be just a little bit more suceptible to false promises and the reputation of our industry will sink just a little bit further into the shit.