First Page Guaranteed??

I just spoke to them, did a search and this thread came up

Their site is currently under construction...

 

I was the first in this thread to mention Alex Doyle Associates...

Reading back my post I checked the key words they presented me of their existing clients. Yahoo still isn't number one so I guess they got their money back by now. Would be interesting to ask them perhaps. 12 months number 1 on 27 search engines still seems a tad adventuruous to me but hey, one has to aim high I suppose.

I hadn't stopped by at this thread in a while, quite a good read on a rainy thursday evening I must admit. What's all this business about not daring to come out with your real name? ADA never mentioned his/her real name.

I regret deleting the contract sent to me, I could have shown FoxyWeb a catalogue of spelling misstakez in it.

For those interested, the site can still be accessed here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.alexdoyle.co.uk

(That archive site is quite good to be honest, you should see www.google.com back in '94)

Anyway lets not re-ignite the fighting... Thanks for the good read everybody!

 

I'd just like to point out this wonderful line by foxyweb.
Very nice.

Now let's just hope it never "jumps the shark".

 

I have to think that the first page would be the top one hundred links depending on your preferences for each of those search engines. Deceiving, but I will have to look deeper.

 

Good thread, very enjoyable reading..

One final couple of words ' Why would a SEO company not have a holding page whilst the "new" website is being designed? '

Surely, this is loosing them custom? Doesn't make business sense to me, but what do I know, I'm only a small business owner learning SEO

Darren

 

Hi ya all.... Well it look's like i'm not the only one having probs with Alex Doyle....I would love to have a chat with anyone regarding them...and on how to get our money back.
Regards
Peter

 

Story is so long...it goes back to Nov 03...and is still goooooooing even today...we are a new internet company...wanting to get on building good customer base and sales...but have been badly let down by a company...who have promised things for the last 7 months and have not come up with the goods...they are now saying that they have done the work...but we are still not getting any listings on the search engines....we have been asking for our money back for the last 2 months....but their director will not even talk to me on the phone!!!!!! Any and all help would be welcomed.

 

Ive got copies of contracts and loads of e mails....

 

Sorry to tell you peter but the only things you can do are

1. Trading standards office
2. Post the contracts and relevant comments here to warn others
3. Cut your losses, learn from everybody here and watch your fortunes rise

There are some technically very good people here, and some good people as well

 

Thanks Foxy,

Posting my comments on here......
I am a very un-happy customer of Alex Doyle Ass......
Any one wishing to contact me...then please do so...
ADA - you may contact me as well....as i'm still waiting??????

 

ADA, can you post your guarantee here, or give me a link to where I can find it.

 

Doesn't matter, another poster on here has sent it to me...you quote:

"We offer you five search terms, which will exclusively belong to you for a period of 12 months within which you will enjoy number one listings on the search engines above. Once purchased, these can’t be resold to any of your competitors hence you will have a unique lead on the field.

We will optimise your site, take the search words off our data-base, assign them to your site and then submit to the search engines listed above.

Here at Alex Doyle we pride ourselves on product delivery, to the extent that if for any reason we are unable to complete the work as specified, we guarantee a 100% refund of any money you spend towards this product.

The service period of twelve months will commence once you are on the number one spot of the search engines listed above. The time period of installation will usually take four weeks from the date of purchase at which point you will expect to see a number one listing.

You will receive monthly statistics to report on the performance of your site."

Does this mean I have to wait 12 months before getting my money back?

 

For those wondering which search engines Alex Doyle Associates is guaranteeing you'll be top for are:

Yahoo
Msn
Lycos
Excite
Fast
Go to (alltheweb)
Alta Vista
Google
AOL
Ask Jeeves
Iwon
Go network
Open directory
Netscape search
Northern Light
Ixquick
Icq
SearchUk.com
Overture


So far for the five terms I chose , three are listed in Jayde, and one in exactseek, neither of which are mentioned in the above, this is after four months.

 

For those who need to know [ie everybody] TOPS30 gave this address for the archived site of ADA: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.alexdoyle.co.uk

And to save all of you looking it up, this is what is there:

Now to all of you, spot the mistakes....hehe - I'll bet Microsoft had something to say about that!!!

 

They are a joke aren't they... Too bad they still managed to lure in so many unsuspecting innocent people.

 

Guess what all.....Alex Doyle Ass (ADA) have still not replied to any of my e mails since Monday 21 Jun 04. Thanks to all of you who have contacted me....at least i'm not alone...which is a shame...that we have all been conned!!!!!

 

Ok everyone stop for just a minute....

Read this again. I know you don't want to, but humor me:

"As a Microsoft ® approved Keyword vendor, Alex Doyle Associates provide a professional service to businesses in all areas of industry.

Keywords are a new type of web address, which permit you to incorporate multiple words, spaces, punctuation and even special characters that are unique to your name or brand, ultimately providing easier alternatives for your customers to reach your website.

Using Keywords, your customer's don't have to type or even know long and complicated web addresses. By typing in your chosen Keyword into the internet explorer address bar, they can reach your website immediately, removing the chance of error in typing incorrectly your web address and additionally cutting out your competition. "

THIS IS NOT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. THIS DOES NOT PRODUCE HIGH RANKINGS IN SEARCH ENGINES. This is another type of internet marketing service, yes, but not search engine optimization. Go back and read it a third time. They are a keyword vendor.

Here is what you are paying for: The right to be found when someone types in your exact keywords directly into the address bar. Now, the next question: How useful is that? My answer: Not very. 99% of people go to Google or Yahoo or whatever and do a search there. That's where search engine optimization comes in. In these cases the search engines search and rank sites according to what they believe are the most accurate results.

The key thing to note here is that ADA is not an SEO company, but rather a Keyword Vendor. In my opinion their service offering as a keyword vendor is still overpriced, sneaky, and worthless, but that's another story. Try typing your keywords into the browser address bar (no http:// or www. or anything like that, just type them in and click enter) if you are their customer. If your site pops up this way than they have delivered on what they've promised, although they've been quite sneaky and unethical about disclosing what service you actually receive. If you still don't pop up, then indeed you have an even more legitimate beef as they've failed to even deliver on the scammy service they do offer.

 

Yes and No.

That is the service they advertise on their site, or at least did. When they call you they do offer SEO. And they have provided this SEO service to a few and quoted me as well promising #1 positioning on 29 SE's.

My address bar serach just comes up with google.com results, basically the same as searching from google.com itself thus SEO is involved. But that depends on your browser settings of course.

And what is keyword vending anyway? You can't sell the exclusive right to a word. It's nonsense. You can bid for placement but not own it.

 

Well, while you can't buy exclusive rights to a word, you can buy exclusive rights within a particular software program or service to a keyword, which is rather served in place of and not in addition to search engine results.

Think of it in a similar way to how AOL uses their keywords:

Go to www.aol.com/search and do a search on "music". The first "matching site" result you should get is www.allmusic.com. This illustrates the AOL search engine and how it works - largely by providing Google results with some readjusting.

HOWEVER, if you have AOL and you type in the keyword "music" into your address bar RATHER than doing a search on music, you'll be sent to music.channel.aol.com, which is tied to the AOL keyword of music. This just means that they own the right to be the resulting site if someone types only that into the address bar. Very different from search, as an AOL search results in a different site as the #1 "matching site" (their term for regular results).

 

Ephricon, Alex Doyle sold me a conventional SEO on five search terms. I questioned them about what their web site said they sold and they said they no longer did that, just SEO.