I've been approached by Internet Advancement (http://www.internetadvancement.com) regarding their search engine optimization/ranking services, to become a reseller of their services.

The customer testimonials and related linked ranking reports look impressive and it sounded like an interesting proposal, but thought I'd check with the folks here to see if anyone is familiar with their service, performance/track record, and/or has had direct experiences in utilizing their services before I go further. Any input about them would be appreciated.

Thanks.

How were you "approached", if it was spam or any other shady method I'd take it as a bit suspect. After all, why does a company that specializes in search engine placement need to advertise off search engines, shouldn't they have good enough rankings themselves to get business right and left?

Of course if anyone has first hand knowladge I may be completely off and they may simply be targeting a new audiance...

Just some thoughts.

It was Spam in the sense it was an unsolicited contact, initially by email, and subsequently by telephone. But caller ID identified the company as represented, and reviewing their site info peaked my interest.

I generally don't pay much attention to unsolicited sales contacts, but in this case they weren't pushing a sale of their services directly to me, but suggesting I consider becoming one of their resellers. I'm always at least willing to listen (and check out) a possible new services to add to my hosting business services.

This type of service is one I know little about, but from what I've been reading, site/rank optimization services have some value, particularly if they have a good success record. That coupled with the fact that I do have some customers who have expressed interest in my providing search engine placement services motivate me to further consider the possibility if there are no known negatives.

Thanks for the extra information... if things work well, please let me know, thanks!

Ok, will do. : )

Originally posted by Shauna
The customer testimonials and related linked ranking reports look impressive Speaking generally, since I know nothing about this company, I'd give little creedance to "testimonials" that are credited with only a first name. Right here at WHT we've discovered occurrences of faked testimonials.

That said, the nature of SEO leaves people wanting to be somewhat discreet about what they're engaging in, so there's some reason not to reveal the specifics -- but that still leaves the testimonial somewhat valueless.

I only see a couple of ranking reports linked from that page (why display 36 sites but results for only two?); the current results in the search engines if you try the reported queries are not quite as good. But in any case, evaluate the competitiveness of the specific terms. One way to do that is simply to check the number of results for the query in question, especially those in which the exact phrase is on the page (put the entire query in quotes).

For some reason, they're using a javascript redirect from their real index page (it appears they're redirecting to a newer version of the site). That has search engine positioning implications. I'd ask them what keywords they're targeting for their own site, and check the results for those.

Thanks for the checking them out and the suggestions. That's exactly the kind of help I am seeking. :)

Specializing in search engine placement? You mean like, say, trafficmagnet?

These guys are a barely legal scam using loopholes to place companies in search lists. Only reason you've been contacted is to act as a front for them that isn't spammed to death.

I'd say run away... quickly.

Sincerely,

-Matt

Originally posted by RackNine
Specializing in search engine placement? You mean like, say, trafficmagnet?

These guys are a barely legal scam using loopholes to place companies in search lists. Only reason you've been contacted is to act as a front for them that isn't spammed to death.

I'd say run away... quickly.

Sincerely,

-Matt

Ok, thanks for you input. I do have some questions:

When you say they are a barely legal scam, are you referring to trafficmagnet or Internet Advancement? If the latter, could you possibly refer me to an online info/source about them that I may review or tell me where/how you learned of that?

Also, if you could expound a bit about their using loopholes to place companies, I'd appreciate your educating me.

Originally posted by Shauna
Also, if you could expound a bit about their using loopholes to place companies, I'd appreciate your educating me. It's not clear to me if Matt was talking about Internet Advancement specifically or about SEO firms in general when he said "these guys."

If it's the first I can't really comment because I've never heard of them before. If it's the second, I'd disagree because there are plenty of SEO firms (a group which I like to refer to as "us") that operate legitimately and ethically using industry best practices. Just as there are shady operators in the hosting business, there are in SEO as well (I like to refer to them as "them").

But you absolutely do want to move cautiously if you'll be reselling for or partnering with an SEO firm -- and especially if it's going to appear to your clients as if you're doing the work. If something's done that results in a client site being penalized or dropped from a search engine, they'll hold you responsible. So you should be very confident about the techniques being used. "Loopholes" is a pretty vague term, but there are certainly tactics that should be avoided or at least not entered into without being aware of the risks.

No matter how much I pay them, they're not going to get me a top 3 listing for "web hosting". It's impossible. Everyone would be paying.

Any company that guarentees top listings for search engines are shady because they do it by getting you a top10 spot on keywords no one using. Therefore, it's very easy for them to get me a top spot.

I'd stay away from being a front for their services. As soon as one of your customers pays, and realizes he paid for a top listing in the exact match of "web domain authorized reseller" - he's going to be pissed... at you.

Originally posted by JayC
If it's the second, I'd disagree because there are plenty of SEO firms (a group which I like to refer to as "us") that operate legitimately and ethically using industry best practices.

Yes, I wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.

When I looked at IA's 100%/150% money-back guarantee it seemed to me at first blush to be fairly broad, but perhaps there's subtle wording employed that protects them in ways that would take some thought to ascertain.

I'm also wondering about the number of submissions they state they make regularly under each of their programs. Not knowing much about this process, my curiosity arises regarding how the number of submissions can be that high, as there wouldn't seem to be enough search engines to which to make that quantity of submittals for each client, without being branded as spamming by the search engines. Or am I in error?

Originally posted by Lirath
No matter how much I pay them, they're not going to get me a top 3 listing for "web hosting". It's impossible. Everyone would be paying.

Hi Lirath. I think you've misunderstood. I'm a web host, but they weren't approaching me to buy their service for advertising my business, but rather to provide the SEO services to sites hosted with me as an added service. While someone of the hosting community does get the top positioning on search engines, no doubt to gain/hold even a top-10 position as a web host would take megabucks - nothing I anticipate having any time soon. LOL ;)

Originally posted by Shauna
I'm also wondering about the number of submissions they state they make regularly under each of their programs. These days there are only a handful of search engines that both accept free submissions and are worth submitting to. The high numbers some services quote come from submissions to FFAs and link farms, and you really should stay away from both of those.

Shauna,

Companies such as those above utilize unauthorized linking techniques to artificially bump placement of your site in a search engine. While not technically illegal search engines (such as Google) are wising up to techniques employed by "SEO"'s and either totally removing sites with fake rankings or penalizing them in other ways.

If you're interested in helping your clients get noticed with search engines I'd direct them to the paid offerings from search engine companies. Google and Overture are the major players these days and both offer pay-per-click and flat-rate pricing guaranteed to increase blanket advertising of a site without skirting the rules.

Sincerely,

-Matt

Originally posted by RackNine
Google and Overture are the major players these days and both offer pay-per-click and flat-rate pricing guaranteed to increase blanket advertising of a site without skirting the rules.
Certainly true, but the fact remains that someone is going to be at the top of the "normal" free listings for any query -- and getting there isn't necessarily the result of "unauhtorized linking" or any other shady technique.

There are some points made on the "services" page of the site in question that could be interpreted as meaning that they use some techniques which search engines themselves would caution against. But nonetheless, linking is very important to search engine ranking today... and done right it can make all the difference. But "done right" means a lot of work in identifying appropriate sites -- real, legitimate sites -- and getting links from them. The shady techniques of building your own link farms are what might lead to problems.

And while linking has grown in importance, it's only part of the formula. Effective SEO also involves precise management of onpage elements, focusing on keyword phrases that strike a balance between being searched for frequently and being overly competitive.

Pay per click, paid spidering, and any of the other approaches at monetization of search engine results are all fine in my book, and using them effectively can be a big part of marketing a website. But most search engine-derived traffic from a resource like Google still comes from "free" listings. In many cases it'd be a big mistake to ignore those and only use the paid approaches.

Search engine-derived traffic is growing even as "surfing" traffic declines (the trend is less "random" following of links, and more search engine use and direct domain name type-in). If you ignore it, you're missing a clear opportunity.

I found this thread by looking up Internet Advancement Scam because I wanted to see if any other unsuspecting business people had been hurt. I also was contacted by email but it looked like I had been recommended to them. I was very untrusting as to their claims. I called the BBB and they got a good report and of course their money back guarantee. I subscribed to their service. After 3 months of the 6-month contract I got angry that nothing had been done so... I decided to act on the 100% money back guarantee. I tried to call (for several weeks) no answer and never a call back. I emailed my cancellation no answer just another $32 bill. I emailed my cancellation to every email address that they had and finally go a message back saying that I was sending to the wrong email address to send to the cancellation department. I did and I got another monthly bill. They are now trying to ruin my credit but I will not pay another cent. I will fight with the credit bureau when the time comes. They did nothing for my stats, all they did was list me on several mall pages and send me some Meta tags. I did everything they told me to do but all I got was grief. When I did finally get in touch with someone he told me that my account was almost set up after 4 months of billing - I only had 2 months left on the contract! They seem like crooks to me!

I agree with JayC. Good post.

As a guide, http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

Originally posted by RackNine

If you're interested in helping your clients get noticed with search engines I'd direct them to the paid offerings from search engine companies. Google and Overture are the major players these days and both offer pay-per-click and flat-rate pricing guaranteed to increase blanket advertising of a site without skirting the rules.

Sincerely,

-Matt

say i was to pay inktomi/fast/jeeves/altavista via there search submit rapid inclusion / trusted feeds et all, if the site is not "optimized" or does not take into consideration search engine friendly design, they will not rank under the chosen search terms the site is wanting to aim for - thus a need for a professional seo consultant.

for PPC/CPC, it can work at places like adwords/overture but companies have to find pretty good niche words or have a big search marketing budget to compete with the big players.

alot of seo consultants these days are there to consult the client on many things such as search engine friendly design, link strategy, roi analysis on ppc/cpc engines, etc etc.

of course theres alot of places around on the internet for DIY seo, but people will have to take into consideration of how much time it will take to learn/implement & research, research, research & research again.

Short answer:
Don't touch them with a barge pole.

Longer answer:
$1500+$80+$80+$80+$80
7 months of submissions.
Two only ranking reports received (ever).
Best result: 2 keywords in top 10 with Excite+Teoma
Sackload of furious emails first resulted in stonewall.
Thereafter, a slimeball.
The contract is sufficiently loose to force resort to legal arguement.
Bottom line is that the potential for recovery of monies is outweighed by litigation costs. They keep your $$$.
Be warned.

JayC,

As a person that is always looking for current information regarding SEO and page rank, I went to your site for more information. My hope was to either gleen more information on how I can help my (and my customers) positions and possibly use/reccomend your services.

One of the first links I visited was the "manual" submission page. There I found a lot of information out-of-date, and links that had been removed by the SE's. Some of the links contained the appropriate disclaimer about the recent SE purchases and possible changes, but many did not. Most of the SE shake-ups happend in 12/03 and 01/04, leaving ample time for your pages which specialize in this industry to be updated.

This is NOT intended as a slam, I am a potential customer, and have hundreds that would pay a reasonable fee for reasonable performance.

Your comments are most welcome.

Bob

Yeah, they Suck. I think that they are legitemate, but they still suck.

I have done more (much much much) more in the lasat 3 months then they ever could have. There is now possible way for a third party to raise your SE rankings without touching the content of the web site. Sure they email you some meta tags with some keywords that you choose. That alone does VERY VERY little without the proper keyword density and fresh content every few days.

bottom line. STAY AWAY FROM THEM. No reason at all to pay someone to do what you can do better.

Originally posted by box0800
Short answer:
Don't touch them with a barge pole.

Longer answer:
$1500+$80+$80+$80+$80
7 months of submissions.
Two only ranking reports received (ever).
Best result: 2 keywords in top 10 with Excite+Teoma
Sackload of furious emails first resulted in stonewall.
Thereafter, a slimeball.
The contract is sufficiently loose to force resort to legal arguement.
Bottom line is that the potential for recovery of monies is outweighed by litigation costs. They keep your $$$.
Be warned.

Exactly. No way of getting that 100% satisfaction garruntee...
I was not happy with the results (or serious lack of) so they offered to do the whole run again for free after saying it was my fault for not having the meta tags in place. (BS to the 100th power.) anyways. hope people get to read this before paying them.

I am a victim of Internet Advancement's scam, after you paid, nothing will happen. No first page listing in any major search engines, no report ever received, no even list in their directory, and needed to ask twice to get the meta tag. While they requested more time to work, they waited until 6 months comtract is over and refuse to refund.

Already make complain to BBB and FTC, also see more complains over the internet.
Their ethic and business practice is highly questionable.

They are listed with the BBB, you can report to them if any mishap occurs. they look trustable, let us know your experience.

Yaser

I didnt see your post blueplume, thanks for posting here. I thought there was just one page to the thread and was about to email BBB re: Internet Advancement

Thankyou once again! Yaser

I finally got a call from Internet Advancement on 4/30/04 and had a long argument with the customer service manager. He only insisted I did not send cancellation on 4/2/04 the last day of the 6 months contract (the contract says by the end of the initial 6 months and I sent refund request on 4/6/04) and never talked about they totally failed to fulfill the services the contract stated. They even tried to charge my credit card in May after my refund request and saying I did not use the word cancellation in the email but says "no longer belive your service and request refund".
They are playing around one or two words and refused to take any responsibility.
He even offered me 3 more months service(without charge) to get the results and if not there, they gave me 1/2 refunds. NO way to accept. Its like they tried to get more time to play around and then at least take my $490 or using some otehr excuse to refuse paying.
Well, i think if I am not eligible to have an automatic refund, I should be eligiable to have compensation not only the $980 I paid but also the time and the frustration I have.
I gave them the easy way out by counter offer 3 months ( of cause no charge) and no result , full refund. They don't accept it. I don't see why execpt they never really want to work on my site.
I already talked with my credit card company to stop any furtehr charge from this company.
I really thinking about lawsuit against this company (at least using the small claim court) and if any of you are the victims as well, please let me know how is your situation now adn did you get your money back yet? please caontact me at kenkwok77@blue-plume.com.

It seems as if the Washington State Attorney General has sued this company and people are getting their money back.

Their website is
atg . wa . gov

(I can't post links. Sorry)

Check out all of the complaints against IA at
RipoffReport . com

Very good to read this thread. I was thnking about taking this over to the Trexhost staff and seeing if we can begin offering this to our customers, by making a deal with one of the representatives there that would offer a huge discount. Our customers come first. We always research before we proceed, and the research has paid off. Internet Advancement is definatly out of the picture. Please let us know if there are any recent updates on this thread. Thank you
James
Trexhost.com