Internet Advancement .com???

Ok we are finally to the point were we are shopping for a SEO firm. These guys have been trying to beat down our door for a while now, has anyone heard anything about these guys? Their prices where pretty good, but one thing I didn't like is the sales guys said something about changing our meta tags so that the spiders come to their servers where they have an optimised mirror of our site? Anyone heard of this? I would also be open to suggestions about other companys. Thanks guys!
Ian

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to recall reading that's frowned upon by the engines, however, I'll let others confirm that. My suspicion and first question would be what are they charging you to host the mirror site? I would be concerned that it's simply a ploy to get you to pay an ongoing rate for them hosting a mirror, when they could simply apply that same optimization to your real site to begin with. Something just smells fishy about it.

Optimised mirror of your site on their server? Red flag, red flag! No reputable SEO firm would suggest this. The site should be optimized on your server, not theirs. They should not make a mirror of your site. Run for the hillls!

Redcell,

I do not have any connection to, or work with this firm, but I have met several firms (and work with one) who use this "SEO Code of Ethics" as a guide for SEO practices.

Check it out, if it does nothing else, it will help you filter out those who use sketchy tactics.

http://www.bruceclay.com/web_ethics.htm

Do not go with any company that does anything remotely like that.

I think the fact that they are having to bash down your door to get your custom should tell you something isn't right.

Shop around, ask people for recomendtions, ask for client lists of past projects the seo firm has undertaken and take the time to contact their past clients. Thats the best advice I could give anyone looking to hire a firm. There is a lot of scammers out there, don't let them have your money.

I think I gave the wrong impression, this company may not build a mirror site on their servers I just understood it that way. Also what I meant by "busting down our door" is that the sals guys has been good about getting to know us and keeping in touch with us. He has sent me a ton of client testimonials and their phone #'s to contact them as well. I talked to him some more today and he said the pages are called Directory Information Pages (D.I.P.'s) and they are for "submission multiplication". At least thats what he said. He also said that they would do something like 510,000 monthly submissions. If you go to their site which is their name InternetAdvancement and .com (don't want to give them a link) and check out their "warranties" page, he boasted a lot about how great that was too. Some one check it out and let me know if its really all he said it is. Below is the meta info from a site that was done by them. If you notice it says "Start IA Modifications" and "End IA Modifications" this might give you pros a better idea of what he means by "re-directing the spiders"...
Thanks Everyone!
Oh and send me the names of the companys you have worked with and are good companys, we haven't made any decisions yet!

Ian

There are a few things that don't sound right to me ... Now understand I am probably the most sceptical person in the world and I know that! But just some thoughts -


Firstly I look at their site - it doesn't appear for the term seo, or the term seo firm, or the term seo company or the term search engine optimization.... need I go on.


Then theres the fact that they said they are going to submit your site to hundreds upon thousands of websites every month

Well how comes there own site only has 18 backlinks then?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... ment%2Ecom

Seem a little odd to you? It does me. Now i know there are a lot of directories around but 500,000 every month? Where are they planning to submit your site to? Because in two months you should be expecting your site to be listed on about a million sites then..... Which is obviously never going to happen. It's pointless resubmitting to the same places....

So my guess is they will submit you to FFA's.... Save your money, you can do that free here - http://www.worldwidepromoter.com it's complete and utter waste of time and will result in you just being bombed by spam.

The meta tags you have posted as their example are WAY over the top - you only need title, description, keywords and maybe a revisit tag if thats what takes ya fancy. the other tags are not gonna help you one little bit.

Then I look at the clients list and i see rankings like

1 - 10 of 184 Results for camtracker and their only placed at number 7 ...

if they can only get number 7 for 184 results I would hate to think what placements you could expect from a million results...... BTW thats with alltheweb as well - no real achievements with google for past clients??

I can only go on what I see - but it would scare me that they are just achieving for un-competitive phrases and then saying ("well we have delivered, your in the top ten") Sure you are, but for phrases that are not going to be actively searched for.

A look at the warranties and they have so many loop holes its scary -



So lets get this right, you can't change any of the modified code, or the warrenty is void (are you allowed to update your site?), you can't submit your site to any engines or directories yourself, or the warrenty is void......

The funny thing to me is tho, it looks like there expecting your meta tags to get you to the top of the engines with all this talk about how you cannot "modify the optimized code" ... maybe back in the 90's....

I'm sorry - I have probably been a little out of order here but i hate hearing stories of people paying out money to firms who just give excuses. I'm not saying don't work with the company (they are probably very legit), im not saying work with them. I just wanted to point of some things that would probably scare me away very quickly.

No way! Thats awesome that you were willing to check into this for me! All the above points are great things to think about! Ok so I am back to square one with no SEO firm to work with any suggestions?
Ian

Just another point...

I truly believe that a good way to weed out dodgy SEO firms is to look for a few specific things on the company's website. For example on the website in question they maintain the same page title on every one of their pages. This is a bad sign, straight away. Page titles are among the most powerful weapons in an SEO's arsenal. They should be unique and descriptive, optimized with keywords. The saying 'Practice what you preach' comes to mind.

If I had to reccomend an seo firm right now, I can highly reccomend seoguy.com

I have never worked with them, however I have heard nothing but praise from their clients. We compete against some of their clients sites for specific keywords and it always a good match up between us both in 1st and 2nd places, so they must be doing something right

I'm sure some other people will have some suggestions also

Also it could be worth talking to people like vetofunk - I don't know how his firm is fixed up but i'd trust him with any site of mine

If the firm is based in Seattle, Washington, walk away from this asap.

http://www.ozzu.com/other-search-engines/internet-company-told-refund-clients-t29792.html

*lol -- thanks mr_darek

I knew something kept nagging in the back of my mind about this. Now I remember why. Appreciate the link.

Looks like my instinct was right

Thanks for the link Mr_darek

Great find Data, i mean mr_darek