Scam/Spam Alerts:

This section was created to help dispel some of the current scams making the rounds. These are our opinions and protected under the 1st amendment.

Web Position Scam
A company called Traffic-Power or 1P.com has telemarketers cold calling people to guarantee you a top spot in search engines even though they themselves don't appear. In our opinions, the fact that they are calling you should be a clue. If they were so good, they should have more than enough business. Buyer beware if you use this company and if you do, be prepared to lose your money as well as any traffic you may already be getting.
UPDATE 2/13/06: Google Engineer Matt Cutts confirms that using Traffic-Power can get your site banned. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/confirming-a-penalty/

Directory Scam
There is a certain web directory that is mass emailing solicitations telling people that they need to renew their directory listing to avoid having it deleted. The name of the directory is something that you have never heard of except in the endless emails that you get from them.

They in fact do do not run their own directory. Their directory results are supplied from DMOZ.org, which is a free web directory. The company sending the emails has simply bought the rights to display their results on their site. The asking price to renew something you never submitted to them is less than $6.00. Imagine how many people go ahead and pay them their price. That is why you keep getting those emails. It is very lucrative for spammers such as them to take advantage of unknowing people.

Keyword Browser Scam
The next scam currently making the rounds are companies trying to sell you the address bar keyword in the Microsoft browser. These solicitations either come in the form of an email or an actual sales person will call you. They talk a very convincing game and in our research, they have outright lied to us about their association with Microsoft and have even told us their software is bundled in all versions of the MSN dialup browser.

Their claim is that they have an affiliation with Microsoft to supply all the keyword results when entered into to a browser address bar. They don't tell you that it requires people to download their software and that their are many other companies doing the same thing.

This type of technology in our opinion is worthless!

We don't know many people that are comfortable downloading "plug-in's," from companies they know nothing about.

Don't waste your time on these companies, either delete their emails or hang up on them if they call you.

Email Search Engine Submission Scam
Another irritating email scam is the submission to 1000's of Search Engines. First off, can you even name the 10 most popular? In fact, there are only a hand full that generate any type of traffic.

These emails will even go so far as to include a screen shot of your site. The names of the senders are from people that do not even exist.

For less than $30.00, your site will be submit to thousands of search engines and your leads will skyrocket! If only it were that easy...

Any real Search Engine Marketing campaign from a reputable company will base it's price on your specific site. There is no one size fits all when it comes to marketing on the Internet.

Standard Search Engine Submission Scam
This scam is usually presented by either startup web design firms or someone just trying to make a quick buck and relieve you of yours.

That fact is that submitting to search engines WILL NOT affect your ranking. In fact, the most high priced Internet marketing companies NEVER submit a single site to a search engine and their clients enjoy many of the top positions for their fields.

If your talking to an optimizer about your site and they start talking about submitting to search engines for a monthly fee, it's time to end the conversation and look elsewhere.

Do you really think that for less that $30.00 a month, your going to rocket to the top?

Nigerian Email Scam
This is one of our favorites, it is very creative and comes in many forms. The crux of the email is they are going to give you mountains of money for nothing.

Unfortunately, people are gullible and actually get suckered into this scam. They end up losing thousands of dollars and many times have their life threatened in a country that they traveled to for finalizing the deal.

No matter how real or convincing it may seem, nobody is going to just give you millions of dollars for nothing.

These are the most current scams making the rounds, if you get one that is not listed here, let us know about it and we'll post it so others will now about it as well and hopefully avoid losing their hard earned money!