am I being ripped off? they want to charge me $150 for this!

27 replies
i apologize if this is not the appropriate forum, mods please move to the appropriate section if need be.

i am a newbie to internet marketing but do have a successful blog that has 100K - 200k unique visitors per month. i am trying to learn more about internet marketing and seo. recently a trusted company sent me this proposal:
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for $150 we will create three, 450 word articles targeting 1 keyword. We will submit them to Top article directories. We will then backlink those articles and your site with two tiers of backlinks. You will also receive Social Bookmarks, 200 diggs, and 2,000 Stumbles for your main site.
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is this a good price? what should i expect to pay for a quality service like this? thanks for your feedback
#$150 #charge #ripped
  • Profile picture of the author mattlaclear
    Sounds like a great deal. You're posting like it isn't. So what is the point of your post?
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    • Profile picture of the author testwarrior
      thank you for your reply. i have no clue if it's a good deal. it seems expensive to me but i really have no idea
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  • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
    I would strongly advise against this. This board is full of horror stories of Google penalizing sites for being associated with schemes like this. Whatever you are doing now is working, don't screw that up.
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    • Profile picture of the author mattlaclear
      Originally Posted by Rich Struck View Post

      I would strongly advise against this. This board is full of horror stories of Google penalizing sites for being associated with schemes like this. Whatever you are doing now is working, don't screw that up.
      Are you serious? Schemes? Good grief I'm going to bed.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
        Originally Posted by mattlaclear View Post

        Are you serious? Schemes? Good grief I'm going to bed.
        Read the board and you'll see people complaining about losing Google rank all the time after doing stuff like this. The articles aren't a problem but the sudden influx of incoming links probably is.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
          Originally Posted by Rich Struck View Post

          The articles aren't a problem but the sudden influx of incoming links probably is.
          But all links are not indexed by Google inmediately. There are some that never get indexed actually. I don't think this can cause any sort of penalty. If there is proof it does I will purchase some XRumer blasts to get my competitors out of my way.
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  • Profile picture of the author gefflong
    I would ask... why go that direction right now? You are already getting a LOT of traffic. Seems to me you would want to monetize it somehow at this point... not try and get more traffic. 1 million unique vistors per month with no monetization is still $0.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
      Originally Posted by gefflong View Post

      I would ask... why go that direction right now? You are already getting a LOT of traffic. Seems to me you would want to monetize it somehow at this point... not try and get more traffic.
      Exactly. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken.
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  • Profile picture of the author drimaffli
    I saw a thing in the WSO area about getting 500 backlinks so if what you are saying is true Rich that would actually hurt my SEO?
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    • Profile picture of the author gefflong
      Originally Posted by drimaffli View Post

      I saw a thing in the WSO area about getting 500 backlinks so if what you are saying is true Rich that would actually hurt my SEO?
      Don't worry about that right now. Seriously. Monetize what you already have. You could make very nice money with what you already have.
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      • Profile picture of the author drimaffli
        I was just asking as a reference, right now I have 0 traffic. I am still trying to figure out the whats and hows.
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        • Profile picture of the author gefflong
          Originally Posted by drimaffli View Post

          I was just asking as a reference, right now I have 0 traffic. I am still trying to figure out the whats and hows.
          Whoa, back up.

          I thought you said you had 100K - 200K uniques per month already.

          Now I'm confused.
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          • Profile picture of the author Terry Crim
            Originally Posted by gefflong View Post

            Whoa, back up.

            I thought you said you had 100K - 200K uniques per month already.

            Now I'm confused.

            I think you got lost in the thread. That isn't the OP with the traffic.


            - T
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            • Profile picture of the author gefflong
              Originally Posted by Terry Crim View Post

              I think you got lost in the thread. That isn't the OP with the traffic.


              - T
              indeed I did. My bad.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
      Originally Posted by drimaffli View Post

      I saw a thing in the WSO area about getting 500 backlinks so if what you are saying is true Rich that would actually hurt my SEO?
      If you have that much traffic, you need to be very careful about stuff like this. I would never, ever, ever entrust a site with that much traffic to someone who could do something stupid and screw it up for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author testwarrior
    i am already monetizing the site quite well. so really there would be no point to these seo services, based on what most of you are saying?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
      Originally Posted by testwarrior View Post

      i am already monetizing the site quite well. so really there would be no point to these seo services, based on what most of you are saying?
      Are you making some money with this site? How much?
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      • Profile picture of the author testwarrior
        yes, i am making money. i don't really know enough about seo to know if this would be of any benefit, which is one of the reasons for this thread. if i can rank higher than other similar sites, that could help drive traffic, right?
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    • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
      Originally Posted by testwarrior View Post

      i am already monetizing the site quite well. so really there would be no point to these seo services, based on what most of you are saying?
      There are two rules that I always follow with my online business.

      1) Don't **** where you sleep.
      2) If something is working, don't **** it up.
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      • Profile picture of the author JamieSEO
        Originally Posted by Rich Struck View Post

        There are two rules that I always follow with my online business.

        1) Don't **** where you sleep.
        2) If something is working, don't **** it up.
        Rich is right - if it ain't broke - don't fix it!
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    • Profile picture of the author Dano1981
      if you already have that many visitors, it would seem pointless to consider the email. If you aren't already aware of the panda update by Google, article directories were essentially emasculated, and at this point they no longer provide the results in the SERP's that they once did.

      These could easily be spun cheap articles and you may have no way to determine if the work suggested for linking would ever be carried out, or if it would be effective given the situation with the update and directories...

      there is an even greater chance you would give them the money, and never hear from them again.

      I've got a better idea, take $150 dollars and give it to charity, at least you can received the benefit of a tax write off at the end of the year, where if you gave this party $150, you would likely simply be out of $150 and never see any results, if fact they even did what they say they would do...

      I've got for better advice for you, don't bet on "No Show" in the 5th!

      In addition DizzyPickler is right

      Originally Posted by dillpickle View Post

      Dont waste your time with this junk. Its not a long term biz plan.

      Danni~
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      • Profile picture of the author testwarrior
        Originally Posted by Dano1981 View Post

        if you already have that many visitors, it would seem pointless to consider the email. If you aren't already aware of the panda update by Google, article directories were essentially emasculated, and at this point they no longer provide the results in the SERP's that they once did.

        These could easily be spun cheap articles and you may have no way to determine if the work suggested for linking would ever be carried out, or if it would be effective given the situation with the update and directories...

        there is an even greater chance you would give them the money, and never hear from them again.

        I've got a better idea, take $150 dollars and give it to charity, at least you can received the benefit of a tax write off at the end of the year, where if you gave this party $150, you would likely simply be out of $150 and never see any results, if fact they even did what they say they would do...

        I've got for better advice for you, don't bet on "No Show" in the 5th!

        In addition DizzyPickler is right




        Danni~
        what is the panda update?
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        • Profile picture of the author JamieSEO
          Originally Posted by testwarrior View Post

          what is the panda update?




          Seriously - just Google "what is google panda"...
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          • Profile picture of the author testwarrior
            Originally Posted by JamieSEO View Post





            Seriously - just Google "what is google panda"...
            lol, love the pic. and for those too lazy to google it themselves.... let me google that for you

            Let me google that for you
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by testwarrior View Post

    You will also receive Social Bookmarks, 200 diggs, and 2,000 Stumbles for your main site.
    I did a (very) little searching on this and found that 100 Diggs or Stumbles tend to run about $5-$10, so this is worth somewhere between $110 and $220.

    The articles would run about $7-$27 (for all three), submission to directories $5-$10 per article, backlinking $10-$20 per article plus one more for the site. So we're looking at about $62-$137 for the rest of it, and a total of $172-$357 with an average of about $265.

    So you're saving somewhere from $22 (13%) to $207 (58%) with an average savings of $115 (43%).

    If - and this is a very big if - you were already going to do all this anyway.

    And chances are you weren't going to get all those social bookmarks, so my psychic powers tell me that the people offering you this service have spent considerable time and effort building a service where they can offer a shedload of social bookmarks... only to find that nobody gives a crap. Or at least, not enough of a crap to pay $150 for them.

    So they've rapidly bundled up a bunch of other services they can provide, as a cover for the basic idea of selling social bookmarks. Which means you're probably looking at the lower-end savings in the 15% - 20% range, because the non-social bookmarking components of this service are almost certainly "free bonus" quality and not really what the providers care about.

    Keep in mind that my psychic powers are not infallible and have sometimes been completely inaccurate. But that's how I'd interpret it, and what I'd use to make my decision on whether or not to buy the service.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author blillard
    Sometime more traffic does not equal more cash. Look at this way you already got a decent amount of traffic now, why not try to focus how you can maximize your earnings through better monetization and ad placements. Sometimes by improving your ad performance and ctr is all you need to really see you sites potential. Also those services can be found here for way less money and from a trusted warrior.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    Testwarrior, for a site in your position I wouldn't resort to the type of back linking scheme being offered by that company. I would try and find a way to leverage the traffic you already have to help you create the required back linking to get more of s boost in the SERPS.

    It will depend on the niche of your site and the type of traffic you are already getting but look at ways to get this traffic to create the back links for you. Make use of social media to help get people talking about your site and perhaps this will trickle over to the blogosphere where you will get a nice range of links on a variety of domains - this will give you true ranking power.

    Finding out how to leverage the traffic to get them to drop links will be the hard partl but you do have the volume to test, test, test.

    Get creative and try and brainstorm ideas for what would make the link back to you. With a good article and well placed social sharing icons you should be able to get more social bookmarks from the people who matter for nothing.
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