Companies giving you top positioning

[skigirl333]

Does anyone know about or have worked with companies that give you top positioning in search engines such as google?

I have been approached by a company VSH Productions. Here's what they do. They have you install a plugin into your computer. You pay $400 - $500 for a specific keyword i.e. doors. Then when you go to Google and type in doors your website will appear in a two inch section about the regular results in google. It looks almost like frames where created in Google. The top frame being your website and the bottom google's search results.

What I am wondering is can these companies or people who use these companies get in trouble with Google for trying to tamper with their search engine? It seems like something I shouldn't mess with. I feel like if it was a good idea, everyone else would already know about it.

Any advise or comments welcome!

[KevinSource]

My experience (not specific to the company you mentioned) is that not nearly as many people have the plug-ins as they say. IMHO it is a complete waste of time. I would put my somewhere else.

[JohnW]

Sounds like a bad idea to me.

[phpmaven]

I tried a similar service a couple of years ago and it was a complete and total waste of time. Not one single visitor during a 3 month trial.

[mcanerin]

Those "plug-ins" are generally considered to be in the same class as spyware and other forms of malware, and antispyware software usually removes them on contact.

The companies in question claim they have X amount of users, but in reality it's more like X amount of victims, and a large portion of the installs are removed as soon as the person owning their computer sees the install, at least, in my experience.

I certainly would not trust any numbers from them.

I had a client that signed up (behind my back, BTW - he go all excited about this "web marketing thing" and decided to "help" me). I don't think he got a single click, whereas he gets a TON of traffic on the same keywords using Adwords and Overture.

I think that pretty much says it all.

I can't guarantee that you would never get a good result from it, but so far I've never seen evidence of success, and I've never heard anyone not associated with the companies themselves say that they have gotten results.. I know I remove the "plug-in" automatically, as does every other trained computer technician I've ever met, instantly upon seeing it.

I will also refer you to the following antispyware and other advisory companies who offer removal support (hint)

http://www.personalfirewall.trustix.com/spyware/commonname.html
http://www.westmont.edu/_faculty_staff/pages/it/self_help/Spyware_Info.html

And this site: http://castlecops.com/article1851.html

Contains this warning:

WARNING! If you use a spyware removal product that flags something called "COMMON NAME TOOLBAR or CNBABE.***", DO NOT remove it with anything except Spybot S&D!. We have confirmed that the newest version of Common Name software now tampers with the Windows winsock settings and removing this software incorrectly will destroy your internet connection.

Spybot S&D has been updated to deal with this new threat. Do not use any other software to remove Common Name unless they have updated to deal with this.

BTW, Common Name is owned by VSH Productions.

Ian