Im not going to try to answer your question, but I have a solution. Rob Laporte President, DISC, Inc. 413-584-6500 Great guy, local and had been in the SEO game for a very long time. I have asked around about him because Im looking for a good SEO partner and he has gotten glowing reviews both for integrity and skill. Thanks, Michael Oberther 413 348 2873 Moberther at gmail.com Get some social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeloberther https://www.facebook.com/clientcyclehttps://twitter.com/ClientCycle On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 5:44 PM, Bram Moreinis <bram at gamefacewebdesign.com> wrote: > ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area. > ** If you did, we all thank you. > > > > Hey, Robert. > > Well....it's not a scam, IF you want to have your listing show up higher > on Google. The white hat way of doing that is negotiating good backlinks > on reputable places (e.g. generating articles, adding listings) and having > a clear strategy about anchor text, landing pages, on-page SEO, etc. etc. > > The black hat way is to hijack a bunch of sites and build pages on them > that link to the client's site. For example, one of my Drupal clients > (Drupal 5, from way back) turned his User settings to allow other people to > create accounts without telling me. As a result, there were over 1000 > users, each with their own "profile page" upon which they could write > anything, and which would be indexed by Google robots. > > There were no links to these profile pages from the public site, so no way > for my client to discover it was happening, unless he Googled himself: site: > redhookcurryhouse.com > > I deleted all users, deleted all profile content, turned back to change > the user settings (I know, that was in the wrong order), and discovered > that in 2 minutes 5 new users with profiles had been created. All done > with automation. Very clever! > > I'm punishing him by making it a flat HTML site (if he wants it to be > Drupal again, he has to pay for a Drupal 7 upgrade. > > So, my short answer: Black Hat SEO works fine, and is worth the money if > you need to go that route. > > -Bram > > On 8/23/2014 10:43 AM, Robert Heller wrote: > > ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area. > ** If you did, we all thank you. > > > I've been getting sales pitches from SEO Marketing companies, both via > telephone (Robot calls mostly) and via E-Mail (and via my contact page on my > website). All with more or less the same basic pitch: "We can place you the > first page of Google searches..." or some variation on that theme. > > These companies charge something like $300-$500 / month (which is way outside > what I could afford). > > What *exactly* are these companies really doing (other than looking to pocket > a pile of *my* cash)? Some claim to be using a propriatory system -- whatever > that means. > > Note if I do a search for "Linux Administration North Quabbin" *my* website > shows up as the first and second results (at least with duckduckgo), so my > website can't be that bad as it is. I do get some business, maybe not vast > amounts, but I am not sure I could handle vast amounts of work anyway -- I am > a one-man operation and there are only so many hours in the day. I would need > to get more work than I could handle to cover the $300-$500 / month anyway -- > that is I would end up becoming a cash cow *for the SEO Marketing company* and > my net income would not be much more than it currently is! What would be the > point of that? > > Most of the pitches say that my website is not findable, but somehow these SEO > Marketing companies have found my website (is it a chicken or an egg?). What > are they doing: doing a search and then working backwards from the *last* page > of results? Or are they really finding my site easily enough and thinking > 'this might be an easy mark', since I might not be at the top of all of the > search results (or the search results for the searches they are doing). I > wonder: maybe my website is really good in that it looks like a bigger company > than I really am? > > Is this some sort of scam or what? It has all of the look and feel of a scam, > much like the credit card robot calls, which start with "This is your final > wanring about your credit card..." (and I *don't* have a credit card!). > > > > -- > [image: GF Logo] > Bram Moreinis, Principal > http://www.gamefacewebdesign.com > (845)-750-2412 > > _______________________________________________ > Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net > Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net > > You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list. > If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members > page on the Hidden Tech Web site. > http://www.hidden-tech.net/members > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20140824/de353d78/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: elogo.gif Type: image/gif Size: 15744 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20140824/de353d78/attachment-0001.gif