Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
He told me that he used a UK based web co to build a 2 page site and within 7 days he was ranking for his chosen term on Google.
my initial reaction was "yeah right" - with a little help from Adwords maybe. Well guess what? His site is ranking at No 3 in the organic serps for "widget maker + town" and for one or two other semi decent phrases.
I checked the whois and the site was purchased on 1st May 08 and yet there it is sitting in the organics where it has no right to be.
I was so curious I got the number of the web marketing firm and called them pretending to be a noob. The spiel was familiar - its all about links and Im talking thousands in a short space of time. They apparently own a number of "important" directories and they feed authority links to new sites.
This firm have hundreds if not thousands of niaive trade companies on their books all paying one off lump sums followed by monthly maintenance fees.
I warned my friend that he would probably crash and burn soon enough but given that he may make 10 times his outlay on the site, he naturally wasnt too concerned about this. Shame really because what he should be doing is taking my advice to build a long term corporate website which will develop his business. He cant see the wood for the trees.
Got to say Im gobsmacked that this kind of tactic actually still works in 2008.
Even more so if you get an entry showing a map of your location at the top of the SERPs.
The amazing thing here is the scale and the fact that the firm concerned gets away with it despite Google's constantly evolving algorithm.
Im not so clued up when it comes to the dark arts but when the same firm spews out thousands of links to thousands of NEW sites to get quick cheap rank - how can that be allowed? Its a pretty neat way of getting away with a sponsored links programme that doesnt involve "sponsored links".
Even more so if you get an entry showing a map of your location at the top of the SERPs.
An absolute Gold Mine in Local Search!
