DoorWays and Promos Legit seo?

[Jill]

I hope this is the right place for this question. I was contacted by an SEO company claiming they will put my web site in the top 10 placements on all the "major" search engines. Okay, they all say that, so what? Well here's my questions:

1. They state they use doorway pages and mirrored domains, and have for 6 years, to submit to Yahoo and everyone else and that they've never had a domain booted for this practice. I thought this was frowned upon, especially by Google?

2. The sales person actually told me that if I would send her some of my products gratis that she could offer me a better price break on my services. Is this ethical? I mean is this how SEO companies usually run their business?

[Receptional]

I'm not going to comment on point 1 - I am sure others can, but point 2 sounds very much the sound of a fly by night company. If you never pay, at least they get freebies!

[richardsi]

Beware anyone who says they can guarantee you top 10 rankings...

They can't.

As we've seen time and again in these forums, Google does an update, and people disappear.

When people make guarantees like this, they often do the following things:

- use nasty tactics on big engines
- get rankings on small engines that aren't that competitive
- optimize for obscure keywords that have essentially no competition

If you decide you want to use them... ride the guarantee... make them give you money back if they fail to deliver, make them give you money back if you get penalized, allow no obscure keywords, etc...

My guess is they'll back off the guarantee if you start requiring these things.

[Jill]

Thanks for the replies. I was not even considering using this, or any company for that matter. We've been doing our own work since 1996 and while I'm no expert I know that what they're promising is short lived at best. I sometimes like to let them rant on about how awful other companies are and what makes them so much better. I was especially disturbed this time though on the request for free product. That's a bit over the top don't you think?

[shawn]

Thanks for the replies. I was not even considering using this, or any company for that matter. We've been doing our own work since 1996 and while I'm no expert I know that what they're promising is short lived at best. I sometimes like to let them rant on about how awful other companies are and what makes them so much better. I was especially disturbed this time though on the request for free product. That's a bit over the top don't you think?

I dont know if its over the top all the time. I have had clients pay me in cash and product. If its a product I can use I may even propose to the client that I will take part of my fee in product. Then again I work for myself and I can do that. Most "companies" do not work that way.

I generally do not gurantee placement, however, I explain to the client that if the search term is not competitve there is a good chance they will break the top ten.

[Jill]

Believe me when I tell you that I know I was being set up to send this girl product. She told me that if I would send her some stuff she would see if she could get her "boss" to okay a reduction in my costs. This is not a mom and pop SEO org. They've been around. That's why I found this to be so out of place. I also swap out product for services but I don't do it in such a way that it sounds like a bribe. ;)

The terms we were discussing were very high profile. I can hardly believe they guarantee top placement, "first page results" for what we were talking about.

[identity_00]

Anyone can promise #1-3 placements for crappy keywords. Put their cash in an escrow account that way when they give the results they get the escrow account. That is what escrow is for.
Most people dont know what their talking about when it comes to SEO - eventhough it really is not that hard. If you got the time to read about SEO you can do it yourself.