Possible Link Farm? Advice Please...

[KPickenJr]

Hi everyone

I'm a little concerned as a few of my clients (so far) have been aproached by a company that could be using spamming techniques, a possible link farm i think.

I'm not all that sure due to my lack of knowledge on this side of things (spam). They claim to generate PR articles which in turn generates the inbound links to your site, all 1000 of them and all on "PR 4 and above sites".

I'm not sure about the rules of the forum so I will take out names and refrain from posting the company URL. The following is the opening paragraph to the mail, all the same text for each client,

" *COMPANY NAME* guarantee using its PR Link Networking System to create PR articles across this network, generating backward links to your web site on up to three major key phrases.

*COMPANY NAME* PR Network consists of over 1,100 independent web sites, of which over 400 have a page rank of 4 or more. "


"For the purposes of this contract, *COMPANY NAME* will generate not less than the sum of 1000 backward links to your website."

The price is 300ish pounds sterling, pretty cheap for 1000 links!

I would appreciate advice on this one. One client has asked my advice and one has just went ahead and signed up then informed me that he done so due to the low price.

Alarm bells went off straight away, when it all boils down, you are "paying" for inbound links and there is no details of the sites linking to you i.e. relevancy. Yeah, "over 400 with PR 4" - but so what?

Don't get me wrong, if they are really going to write good articles about the site and post them on good quality websites with even a little relevancy, then maybe for the price it would be worth it - although as far as I know, acquiring 1000 links in one go is enough to trigger spam filters ?

What do you think? Anyone came across anything like this before?

Thanks

KPj

[Chris Boggs]

Hi K...I think I heard the site you are discussing mentioned at Webmasterradio.fm chat...

To me it sounds like it could be a shaky proposition at best. As you mentioned, you have no control over the content on the site linking to your's. Also, article trading seems to be a fad, and we'll have to see how valuable the majority of those links are/remain if/when Google and others find sites that exist for this purpose. 300 Pounds is nothing to shake a stick at, especially if it could do more damage than good.

As far as the spam filters, it would depend probably on the overall health of the site in terms of existing links, and probably the rate at which other sites in the category gain links. Most important would be how long does it take to get the links?

If you have a good article, RSS it and hope for natural links that way, I would say. Without seeing a particular example of a site hosting the articles, plus an example of the links, my comment is pure speculation, though.

[KPickenJr]

Hi Chris, thanks for the response

The site is - (edited)

I just called them and asked for advice on a project site of mine, which I haven't done much to yet -ladesidemotors.co.uk

The owner is allegedly a former MSN employee.

So, here's how they say it works....

First of all, they have quite aggressive sales tactics, I would go as far as to say I was being bullied, lol. They told me constantly that they had 18000 clients worldwide - but failed to mention that they have done web design, hosting etc since around 1998ish (thank you waybackmachine).

The price is 100 pounds per month, no set up fee for me :-) lol. They say it takes 3 months for google to 'catalogue' the links and another month to see results.

What they do is, they pick 1000 existing clients and add a page to their sites "article" section. The actual site itself is not related to yours, however, the 700 word article is, and this includes 4-5 links from the same article on the same site (every time your key phrase is mentioned they make it anchor text). I’m not sure if the 4-5 links from one site is considered as one link or 4-5….

So, would search engines see this as a relevant link if the actual page was related, but the actual site was not??

I asked why other SEO companies charge so much more, I said the whole thing seemed "too good to be true" based on price. I was informed that other SEO companies spend time constantly tweaking actual web pages on your actual site, trying very hard to make it very relevant to search terms.

My gut is screaming out that this is just wrong. But how would the search engines know what they were doing? How could they filter that?


I'm not going to sign up, I'll take my chances without them. But if I say to my client "don't do it", I need to have some factual reasons for it. The company gave me example sites that have benefited from it, I’m sure my client has also seen this - how do I say "yeah but it's still wrong" and not sound like an idiot lol


Thanks again for your help

KP

[KPickenJr]

Hi

Just thought I would update you on what I discovered about (edited) over the weekend. Apologies for using the name, but I am hoping that

1. it is allowed and

2. This thread will rank in google etc along with other articles slating them for the benefit of other unsuspecting customers.

As said in my last post, I called itscoldoutside to enquire about a site that I do in my free time. The site sells cars but specialises in BMW's. I told them I want it to rank for "used bmw". They said "fantastic" and asked me to type that search term into Google. One website that ranks very highly for car terms is called 'compucars'. When they showed up in number 1 or 2 in Google, they asked me to click on compucars. They then said "we do SEO for compucars, among a lot of other work" and I was very impressed. No sarcasm, generally very impressed.

So, after reading another discussion on another SEO forum, I decided to contact compucars and told them that "i was thinking of going with this SEO company, I believe they work on your site so I was really looking for a testimonial" - they have never heard of them, until now :cool: They do their SEO in house.

The phone call (edited) will receive today should be interesting : p

Therefore, I was told a blatant lie. I never bothered contacting the other companies they claimed to work with. I don't understand how a company can get away with methods like this for so many years.

Lesson learned for anyone thinking of going with an SEO company - Speak to the sites they claim to work on, don't just take their word for it. Check out everything they say. FYI, I am an SEO, I would have no problem with a potential customer speaking to an existing customer, providing they weren't rivals. However, they (edited) actually told me "you should speak to those guys" - referring to compucars.

Anyway, I hope I’m not stepping over any lines here, I don't want to abuse this forum. Everything I said is fact despite my tone, the other discussions I referred to were found searching on google for "(edited)".

Thanks

KP

[Chris Boggs]

(sorry KP had to remove the name since you stated your 2nd purpose above. ;) )

I have to say, that is a pretty shady move if true. I was a little unclear about your description: you said that they said: "so you want to rank for 'xyz?' Search for it." You searched it and compucars was #1 or 2 for that term? And/or did they ask you to do other searches that in fact led to compucars? Sorry I want to be clear before I give my opinion. There is also the slight chance that someone at compucars was just trying to get you off the phone and that they actually do outsource it?

[KPickenJr]

Thanks Chris

Oh well, I will know next time ;)

What happened was...

I said I want to rank for "used bmw". He said "lets search for it", so we did. Compucars ranked 1st or 2nd and they said "oh, Compucars, that's one of ours".

I contacted compucars and they were very keen to speak to me. I was assured that the SEO was done in house - they basically advertise for other car companies, so they have a lot of natural inbound links due to the structure of their business, hence the strong search position. They wanted the contact details etc for the company in question...

Also, they (company in question) actually asked me to type 'loans' and a site that ranks 1st or 2nd for that search was "one of theres too", lol. I emailed the company and got a very frustrated response i.e. "who told you that, who are the they, that's not true".

The company in question gave me three example sites, I have not contacted the 3rd one, I was about to until I was called by the company in question again, who asked if I was "any further forward" - to which I responded " yes, site X and site Y have never heard of you" and he basically hung up.. He said goodbye before he hung but didn't answer me when I said "why is that?"

Anyway, my problem was that I didn't want to advise against working with them without giving a good reason. They have gave me more than enough (dishonesty, in my opinion), plus what I found on the net before I called.

[SEOWizard]

I spoke with a similar company - but when it came to the crunch, and I asked them to show me an example of the websites which will point links to me, nothing happened.

If people could set up Link farms and make money, everyone would be doing it! I think Google is wizer than that...

[KPickenJr]

Yeah... I don't think they are a link farm. They just write relevant articles for links on irrelevant sites. Seems to be quite popular. I could actually see this working or, to be more specific, I can't see how it can be filtered...

My main issue with the company, and the main reason I have such a negative opinion of them, is the dishonesty I experienced. I was offered a discount on a trial basis for their services and being honest, I was going to take it as it was a site I do in my spare time anyway which I use as a test bed. However, they blatantly lied and to add to that, a client of mine that took my advice and didn't sign up told them they weren't signing up because they can't afford it at this stage (as opposed to saying, 'we're not signing up because you have some bad press i.e. avoiding conflict' ). Regardless of my clients perfectly reasonable explanation, the company became 'very rude' which just enforces my experience with them.

Thanks

KP

[g1smd]

That sounds like a nasty scam. The industry needs to be protected from people like these.

It's time that names were named.

[Revilo]

My company was contacted by above who stated that they were able to increase our web site popularity using certain key words "new cars". If i am honest the offer seems very attractive as the cost is very affordable.

Has anyone reading this ever used them and would recommend their service

[urbanmale]

I contacted this company today, really glad I stumbled across this forum, I'm expecting a call back from them on Monday, I was conveniently out when they called back this afternoon.
They asked me to do a seach for 'handbags' then told me the #1 result was as a result of their article link program, later in the conversation I asked if I could call one of their existing clients he said he would ring back in 30mins after confirming with the client, during which time I thought why could I not ring the owner of the handbag website, so I'm guessing the person I would be calling would have been primed. The owner of the handbag site I assume would have never have heard of them.

[Marcia]

I've seen such spammy, cruddy articles on a site, totally unrelated to the topic of the site. It's part of some particular SEM firm's SEO strategy - no doubt there are a number of firms doing it, but the one I found was putting up some putrid stuff, and in fact ran their own "article directory."

[pierskarsenbarg]

H only a little late. I work for UK Websites, the company behind Compucars, and I can clarify that we definately do our SEO in house, so anyone who says they work for us is lying.

A trick I've learnt, is go to google.co.uk and search for SEO companies in the UK. If the company that you're talking doesn't show up in the first 10 results, they're obviously not very good at their job.

[KPickenJr]

Hi, thanks for the response.

Yes - I actually called Compucars and explained. Actually called for a 'reference' but they had never heard of them. They confirmed that it's done in house. I can't remember now who I spoke to but he was quite angry about their claims.

Cheers

KP

[bikeman]

A client of mine has been seduced itcoldoutside.com

The links they source are not from their clients they are all from their own domains.

It you look at one of the domains e.g. http://www.yourroadshops.biz/ you will see that its content changes with each page refresh - each refresh displays 10 or so links to their link custs websites and a new bit of unrelated filler article text.

None of their 1000 or so domains are index'd by Google.

This sort of link spamming might be frowned upon but even when it is obvious Google don't seem to do anything about it.

My client has not yet decided if they are getting value for money, all they can see is that they've got 800+ links quickly and everyone says links are good. If nothing else my client feels that they are doing what google says they need to do.

Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of people prepared to spend £100 a month for no result. Unfortunately none of it comes to me!

ps. I've yet to hear of anyone using them get banned from google.

[AussieWebmaster]

sooner or later... and not so much banned as ranks drop when links given no value... waste of money in long run