his is easy to understand and the basics of this con-job is available on most Link Development threads on practically any forum going. A sole trader business approaches Mr SEO agent - Mr business requires some links to raise his profile/gain traffic to assist daily sales. So Mr agent suggests 300 'builder block links' from blogs and low level, untargeted directories for a fee of £1000 (but can be way above that), Mr Biz accepts and awaits the amazing results promised - except it never happens. Here's why it fails: The links are Junk... its this simple, it fails, but people are so desperate for mega results, they think such experts exist because a ton loosely operate with a semi-decent website that says "We are the experts!". Sadly many are Charlatans chancing their arm, trying their luck and scamming based on 'paid for effort' when it should be 'paid for results', except the agencies dont have a clue about marketing and their clients are even more clueless, so this is where the problem starts and isnt showing signs of stopping. Clearly too many are being ripped off. The key to the con is obvious - the SEO never discloses the exact link space/sites you will be placed on, they only tell you the type of sites eg: blogs, directories and its unlikely they'll disclose their 'buddy list', you can count on that. For those who don't know what a buddy list is, let me explain - a buddy list, is simply 'an arrangement for link placement' between 'contacts' or association of like-minded fools, usually frequenting online forums, but it may involve anyone who is approached for a favour, on a favour for favour deal basis. Problem is, all these agencies demand cash upfront, so they are guaranteed cash in the bank, and only promise on the effort involved to spam the links, but the links are junk, and now you can't get your money back. But here's the biggest lie of all.... SEO's will claim their expertise in getting the traffic/results - No!!!!!!, how can they claim that when all they do is en-mass drop links onto other people's web properties, when its those publishers that really produce the results, yet the agencies are the ones getting paid off, and ripping off both the clients and publishers. There you go, so now you know the truth, ofcourse the agencies/freelancers will never admit to any wrong doing, oh no.... just avoid middle men, cos the SEO agents arent actually working in agreement with any publishers - so its lies. Never use SEO agencies who: 1. never disclose the entire list of where you'll be placed 2. who charge upfront fees Ofcourse they won't disclose the 'link list' and won't email this to you, for it reveals the list to be used for free, and they lose the client who will take the list and do it themselves, plus it reveals the bad quality of sites where you'll be posted. The SEOs must refuse to hand over the list, if the con is to work, and they all will have a list which they work from - as they won't trawl the web looking for potential link partners as its too effort heavy and they won't get the top sites, seeing as the top sites all charge their own fees, again, pretty obvious. These are just the basics ofcourse and this knowledge can only be learnt from either operating a free link space website for years, or working as a SEO freelancer.- unfortunately the SEO clients won't know any of this or how it works, and why its easier for the agencies to con them, and why so many get stung day after day.
I did my master thesis on SEO, and found the exact same result (regarding link building). At this time I decided not to go into business as an SEO. It's almost all lies, scams and fraud. Actually the biggest organizations I interviewed did this the 'best', they had a huge publisher database and their own huge network of spammy sites. At the time it seemed quite logical, there is no way placing links manually can be cost effective for anyone to purchase as a service. A good backlink costs time (an hour), and paying an hour worth per backlink is simply too much for many businesses.
Agreed - as its far too expensive for the results to work. An hour to obtain a good backlink? I doubt it would happen by purchasing services off the average guy online (and don't believe in SEO gurus either as they don't exist and is a con-job sales patter anyway), as first we'd need to agree on what constitutes 'a good link' - is it traffic, status or cash... either of those is irrelevant if you can't get the link in the first place, and from owning a pretty traffic heavy site myself, there's no way I'd give away free links on something that took years to build up, and definitely not to a bunch of snake oil agents, or freelancers - just no friggin way.... You cant make money if you give too much free stuff away (and the most directories/blogs do, - oh its great for the clients, sure - but not for a pure web biz, as most offering free link space are of that ilk. Well, that's the mistake isn't it - they gave too much away for free.... so ofcourse many will take advantage. The problem is 'spammy sites' - if they didn't exist (and I don't mean capable of survival, as I'm sure most are dead), we wouldn't have half the spam problem, we have today... I'm shocked they still exist and people stil maintain and host such sites, as most are totally devoid of content and they need tons of it to draw in the visitors for their product, so its a crazy set up to have a contentless site, yet they decide to do this, without thinking about how their to fill the darn things. You can't sell an empty website for starters, so the fact these SEO lunatics try to plug their services or list with empty sites is beyond me, it makes no sense from a ranking point of view, as how can an empty site ever get popular without content to drive that start-up traffic. Plus word of mouth marketing is impossible with nothing to attract and zero stickiness, for the word to be worth mentioning - so the whole idea is over before a single link is obtained - what a waste of time promoting sites like that - yet there are hundreds still hanging on to the dream, but that's all it is - a dream, and we have the SEO agencies taking advantage of it all. What a stupid world, with stupid people and more money than sense, or the lack of both.