First, let me start off with saying, I have a rule I normally live by and I deserve a slap on the hand for not listening to myself.
My rule has always been NOT to advertise with someone who calls me. My philosophy has always been that if their service is as great as they promote, they wouldn't be looking for me, I'd be looking for them.
I don't know how or why I failed to follow my own rules on this one.
Another rule I have is never to buy on impulse. I always pinch my pennies more than once before I let them go. I consider myself a smart shopper, most of the time. But, I'm human and make mistakes just like everyone else [;o)]
This company I contracted with is an SEO company. For me, that's always a red flag. Sorry guys but just like any other industry that's gotten a bad rap, it's those unscrupulous one's that make it hard to believe anything is for real.
I'm sure this company found me through my PPC advertising because of the way they promoted themselves to me. Their promotion included a comparison of cost for PPC advertising to SEO and natural results searched through the search engines themselves.
They then go from making this comparison to brining you to a search engine and have you search certain keywords and show you how on this particular keyword this company they are working with is placed somewhere between #1 and #5 on the first page. To me, that was impressive. From there, they will show you how with some search engines, on some keywords, you can tell how it's NOT natural results that are coming up but results controlled by the search engines themselves.
From here, this company will show you how they are members of the BBB and have no complaints against them. They will point out all the links to their website which in reality is Press Releases they did themselves but you don't know that at that point.
Now, the kicker is, they take all this information and tell you how the group that's doing this are SEO geeks and know what they're doing and then they tell you how they can do the same thing for you with your first results showing up in 90 days in the search engines. After 90 days, they tell you that your results continue to get higher and higher in the search engines.
After our initial conversation, I did my research and did anything and everything I could to dig up dirt on this company but I couldn't find anything, at that point. I figured that even if I only got half of what they offered and only paid the half that I agreed to, it still would cost me less than what I was paying for PPC's so I thought I had nothing to lose and would at least gain experience from it.
So now comes the day I we come to a price agreement and I sign the contract being sure to use my card that expired next month in case things didn't work out as promised. On the day of the signing, they tell me I will hear back from someone within something like 3-5 working days to begin picking my keywords for my SEO pages.
10 days go by and I figured I waited long enough, tried calling the number I was given to use to make inquiries and it was a wrong number. Emailed my contact person who gave me a different phone number to call and a different person to talk to if I didn't hear anything in the next 24 hours. 24 hours later I am contacted by yet another person who says she will be working on the keywords for this service and she gave me a list of keywords to choose from or modify. They were created by looking at my current website.
3 days after this above process, I get an email with the subject line "Internet Promotion Now Work Completed for www.homebizcareer.net"
This email is copied to the email addresses complete@internetadvertising1.com and jlindsey@1stinternetadvertising.com as well but I didn't take notice of this at that time.
Same day I get an email from the support department that includes the following information:
(Results) - It takes approximately 12-14 weeks for most search engines to add your new information to their databases although the spiders may see your promotional site many times during that length of time. For this reason, it will take approximately 12-14 weeks from your completion date for your promotion to produce good results.
(Promotion Reviews) - We will review your promotional site and contact you four weeks from promotion time. Also, we will keep on reviewing the promotional site periodically throughout your promotion and will let you know of the progress and results.
(Keyword Analyses) - Four months from promotion time, a promotion analyst can evaluate the performance of your promotion. We will be sending you a keyword analysis, if requested, and provide you with suggested keyword changes if needed. (Without your authorization, no keyword changes will be made). Throughout your promotion, your keywords should be analyzed periodically.
Four weeks (or so), sometime in November, I get a call from someone named Josh who supposedly works with this company. I wasn't in when he called so he left a message and a phone number. A different phone number, again. I called Josh and the voice message system that routes the calls says the name of this company is "1st Place Internet Advertising". I left Josh a message and gave him my cell phone number because I was in and out that day.
When I have the opportunity to speak with Josh he takes me online to the stats page for my domain they set up and proceeds to show me how the search engines are spidering my page and how that's a good thing and not to worry about placement yet, it'll happen because the pages are being spidered. He again confirms that I need to wait 12-14 weeks to start seeing results. Very nice person, very nice conversation, very easy to talk with, made me feel comfortable as he was able to handle all of my questions and concerns I was starting to have at this point.
Josh told me in this conversation that some people have left or changed positions with the company and he was handed a few extra accounts because of this. He went on to tell me because of the extra load he is a little behind an apologizes for not calling me sooner.
Josh ended the conversation by telling me he would send me an email with his contact information and that he would be calling me again in 4 weeks to review my account. I never received that email nor did I receive the call I was promised.
13 weeks after promotion supposedly started I have -0- for search engine placement and 3 links showing in their online stat thing. I didn't expect any better at this point because I started seeing the writing on the wall before hand.
I then went to my SEO page www.homebizcareer.net and on the bottom left of the page is links to other pages supposedly for link popularity. As I started clicking these links to try to learn more, to my surprise, many came up "page not found" or as a generic keyword page that lead to no where. On some actually brought you over to a website. I knew at that point things have gone bad but, I always give everyone the benefit of doubt first.
I sent the company support department and email on 1/08/06 questioning placement and asking for someone to contact me. I use a program called www.msgtag.com, the paid version, and with that I can get a receipt for about 85% of the emails I send directly through outlook and you don't know it. I got a receipt from this company showing my message was received on the 9th but no response.
On 1/11/06 I went directly to the website www.internetpromotionnow.com and sent an email through the website with the same request. Again, no response. Since I received no response I made a complaint to the BBB that day. From there, I contacted some of those who were linked to my SEO page www.homebizcareer.net to ask about their satisfaction with this company and out of 4 people who responded, only one person used www.internetpromotionnow.com. One person was the webmaster, not owner of the site and knew nothing about it but is in contact with the website owner now. The webmaster fears that all his work will be lost. Another person used the company www.1p.com and the third person used the company www.eresultsinc.com
The person who responded who used www.internetpromotionnow.com was happy to hear from me. He stated he had the same concerns and the company was asking for more money and he didn't want to pay because he didn't feel he was getting what they offered.
The other person who used www.1p.com said he will not be renewing his service with www.1p.com because of many of the same reasons I am not happy with the company I contracted with.
The third person who used www.eresultsinc.com says she only got started with them in December and is happy so far but needs to wait the 12-14 weeks to know if it'll work. (uh oh, same thing I was told). She says she's been ripped off before and doesn't like getting ripped off so she did her homework on this one and she called references on this one (same as the guy above using the same service as me). Her reply said "The people I talked to used a different (more expensive) level of their service but said they did as promised."
Am I jumping to conclusions?
Who knows? I don't think so though.
What I've learned since digging deeper these past two days has confirmed many of my suspicions.
I can't say for sure but what it feels like this racket does to hide themselves is to change their name quite frequently so you can't find a whole bunch on them.
http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/archives/discuss-google-bans-traffic-power-and-its-clients.htmlSee Sept 02, Sept 07, Sept 16, Sept 27
Note above the email address domains that the above confirmation was sent to
internetadvertising1.com and 1stinternetadvertising.com
And the name of the company that called me in November
1st Place Internet Advertising - AKA www.1p.com
Strange thing is, I can log on to www.internetpromotionnow.com, www.1p.com and www.eresultsinc.com and check my stats for www.homebizcareer.net
So, this is what's happening so far. I will send the company a letter in reference to their breach of contract today and will officially cancel my contract with them. They aren't responding so I don't expect them to ask me for more money anyway but I have to do this to cover my butt.
No, I haven't called them. I've done everything in writing so I have proof in case I ever need it.
I realize this is long but wanted to give facts because I from what I've learned thus far, I don't think these guys will go away. But, although they won't go away, from what I've learned thus far is sounds like they use the same tactics or very similar tactics with each company name so if anything, by posting facts here, if you hear someone using these same kind of tactics, just be informed.
Fortunately for me, I didn't spend as much as some companies have spent. I read of some companies spending upwards to $4000 for this scheme. My cost was less than 1/4 that amount so I do feel fortunate in that area.
What did I learn out of all of this?
I have two webpages I've been working on for years that have a PR3. What I learned is that I just need to go back to focusing on those webpages and promoting them myself as I was doing at one time.
Feel free to repost this message in it's entirety if you wish.
I have intentionally not linked any of the above mentioned SEO websites so as not to give them the benefit of a link.
To continue with this blog, read UP from here OR go to
Someone finally got back with me. next
