SEO Mistake: Hiring SEO Companies That Promise You The Moon

When you receive an email in your inbox promising guaranteed search engine results it can be tempting...don’t give in. These emails almost always offer a scam – a way of manipulating the search engine results that either don’t work, or can get you blacklisted from the search engines.

Definition of Blacklisted: Denial of access. Getting your website either banned or boycotted in the search engines. Shut out.

Avoid SEO companies that promise you #1 ranking for certain keywords. They will either be targeting keyword phrases that people aren't actually searching for and are very easy to rank for or using black hat SEO techniques.

Search engine optimization specialists have no control over the results that appear in the search engines. What they do to make it appear that you’re getting results is use black hat methods to artificially affect your rankings. This is temporary, at best, because the techniques they use violate search engine terms of service, putting you at risk of getting your website banned from the search engines.

This is what Google says about companies that guarantee a number one position in Google:

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Techniques that are a violation of search engine TOS include:

• Keyword stuffing
• Hidden text and links
• Doorway and cloaked pages
• Link farming
• Blog comment spam

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, Google gets these spam emails too:

"Dear google.com, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

If you avoid suspect techniques, and SEO companies that promise you the moon you’ll have more resources to spend on legitimate strategies that actually work long term.