4 replies to this topic

[badgerboy]

Hi I am newbie to the site My name is Dave.

 

I am not in to SEO as a living and my knowledge is limited but I have a question to ask as my existing SEO Company have been doing what I will try and explain in a moment but I am not sure if this would be considered underhanded by either Google or other Companies.

 

OK here goes.

Large SEO and Website UK Company

They make lots of Web sites

They sell SEO to all of these Businesses they have made web sites for.

 

So far so good.

 

OK this is what I think is unethical.

 

They start submitting the web sites to Business directories as part of link building

They have a 2 or 3 pseudonym names (maybe more)  who all submit the sites to the business directory and then one of the other 2 submit a Customer review scoring maximum scores  for this business..

Each pseudonym will have between 50 and 200 reviews they have submitted associated with there user name all for Companies who are paying for SEO 

 

I came across this by chance when I was investigating how many back links I have to my site. Well SEO is not cheap and I am always worried just what are they doing for there money. Now I know.

 

Could you let me know if this is acceptable?

If not what implications will this have on my site

Is this considered Black hat

 

I am really worried this may poop up my site within Google and potentially put me back six months within my seo campaign.

 

any thoughts and opinions would be very much appreciated.

 

Thanks 

Dave

 

 

 

[chrishirst]

What they are doing is NOT SEO, just useless promotion.

[badgerboy]

Ok so useless promotion but with regards to made up feedback for all there sites is this  not damaging is it normal practice?

 

What is odd I have found out more on this site tonight than I have from my company, They always go on about duplicate content. I have read the sticky that this is not a bad thing within google, may be the wrong item is indexed but not a bad thing.

 

Also about the use of footers and links within this. They have filled my footer with some of the link building network they do to allegedly to assist the seo proces.

[Jill]

It doesn't really sound like something you'd purposely want your site to be associated with, if you ask me. 

 

That's basically how you can figure these things out. The ole smell test

[qwerty]

I read a story a few months ago about the review site Yelp going after businesses with fake reviews associated with them. They've started sticking a big badge on such a business' page indicating they were buying reviews. I think that's the right way to deal with people who do this kind of thing.

 

There was also some SEO firm I've never heard of that recently got caught publishing fake reviews of their own services, supposedly written by well-known members of the SEO community, including a certain (fake) Jill Whalen. Not a smart move. A lot of people who have a lot of people reading everything they write had plenty to say about these folks.

 

I think it's decidedly unethical to pretend to be a satisfied customer of some company when you're not, and a bit worse if you're being paid to do it.