Someone offered me free SEO

In another webmaster forum, a person who says he used to work for a SEO company is willing to do SEO work for free. I emailed him, and he says he will optimize one of my sites for free.

The offer looks pretty good. The person told me he used to work for a big SEO company (I have seen the company's work and it is good). He says he is doing the free work because he is starting an SEO company and needs testimonials.

I am amazed that such a service could be offered for free. I'm not saying that I do not trust this person, but how do I know this isn't some kind of scam? Could any harm be done to my site?

I'm asking this not because I don't trust this guy, but because I'm new to SEO and wanted to make sure there couldn't be some kind of catch I don't know about it.

 

Maybe he wants to improve his portfolio or something.
There are still nice guys out there.

 

I would ask any questions you have up front but sounds like he is just looking for a good feedback when he starts charging. I agree with Kgrad, there are still a few nice guys left!

 

I'd jump on it, if you can verify his work. If the guy is on the "Up", you will probably get "stunning service" just for the testimonial.

 

I've been there before, you have the experience, you're trying to push out on your own. Of course you have an agreement with your old boss not to steal his clients. No portfolio and people asking for references.

Sometimes the only way to get started is to work for dirt cheap or free until you get some references.

Just be careful, make sure he does not get access to the password for your domain registration and you have a backup file of your current site.

Other than that if you don't have very good rankings anyway, the only way he can really hurt you is if he starts doing black hat stuff, have him confirm with you before he starts any new campaign.

 

The other thing to think about is that SEO is an ongoing thing so he may work for free for 2 – 3 months, you see an improvement in SERPs and then he charges a monthly fee to continue doing the work.

I would say take sensible precautions like not giving out passwords and ensuring that black hat techniques are not used, and keep the communication with him open, so you both know what the score is.

 

Perhaps he means a report - not to much work in analyzing on and off page... But still nice of him. Believe the guy - dont strangle the last nice ones, but don't give him your root password.

 

I agree with the points mentioned by adacprogramming above. Just make sure what ever he does also stays in your control. Also, ask him to make a report first and explain what he will do, and how and how much time it will take, and what results you will achieve from the efforts, before he actually starts work for you.

 

go for it.. he's trying to build some goodwill.. Keep a backup of ur pages n dont let out any persoonal infos n passwords to him dats all.. Do post the results of your site here after his SEO is done..

 

It sounds like that guy that posted here about a week ago, same story etc. I offered him the choice of several sites/niches to SEO with killer domain names, and he could even put his own adsense up and keep any money from text links, banner sales etc but havn't heard back.

I first started tinkering with getting websites to rank in search in 2000 so have extensive SEO experience, so he couldn't of got a better testimonial considering i'll know exactly what work was done and the effort involved.

Oh well, it would of benefited him not me as i can do it myself and do it well.

 

Yes he did post here a week or so ago. He had left a large company and was venturing out on his own. He was looking for the testimonials, that is why he was offering a free service. I am sure he got slammed with message of people wanting him to optimize there site. I would do the same thing, why not offer free service to get your feet off the ground and make a name for yourself in the community.

 

I don't like the deal stay away. It is best to work with a contract when this is done.

 

Was he from a company in the UK that ranked for "SEO" in UK searches? If so I saw this offer also right here on DP too.

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

I got an email back and the guy showed me some of the sites he's done SEO for. They were all well-known.

However, he wants me to give him access to my website so he can "edit my structure and links". If I were to make a backup of my site, create a second FTP account for him to use, and then let him use that, do you think is could be used for malicious use? The worst he could do is replace my website with something else, right? If that happened, I could easily delete his FTP access and change everything back.

Is it normal for SEOers to want access to a site's files?

 

Yah, it's pretty much required unless you have already taken care of all your onsite SEO. Depending on what is needed he will make sure your link structure is good, adjust titles and meta descriptions, possible change some of the content to reflect your keywords better etc.

 

That's quite common, as changing things like Meta tags, keywords, linking structure, robots.txt, .htaccess etc etc is a big part of SEO. Also access to Awstats is handy too.

Just keep a close eye on your bandwidth usage and mail system, as well as the backup in case something goes wrong.

 

Well, I guess the thread was deleted, because I can't seem to find it, and I specifically remember subscribing to that thread....

Haha, but anyone who wants to build up some reputation my site could use some SEO help! PM's are welcome.

 

go for it, man! hey, can you give me this man's email?

 

If you are safe enough then take his all details like where is he from and where did he worked and so on as you know.

If he wants to give a service then take it and take all precaution while giving details about your site to him.

Best of luck

Thanks
Ramakrishna

 

You may ask him what service he would offer.
I got some experience, saying would offer free seo services but disappeared next day and I take it as a joke.