BEWARE: Traffic Power has changed their name to First Place or 1P.com - High Rankings Advisor
High Rankings AdvisorJill Whalen announced in today's newsletter that "Traffic Power has changed their name to First Place or 1P.com. So BEWARE if you get a call from a company with either of those names. Hang up withoutlistening to their pitch! They're still the same spammeisters they always were. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, see my "Getting Banned Due to Sp@m
The article referred to By JW states:
It seems that most of those who were banned have the same story to tell. The code and pages that they were asked to upload to their server (or that were uploaded for them) seemed kind of fishy, but the SEO company said it was necessary. They said that this was what you *had* to do to get high rankings, and that "everyone" did it.Apparently, they even have results from clients with which to back up their sales talk.
What these site owners didn't know was that results obtained through these methods are short-lived and dangerous to the long-term success of a site. Basically, it only lasts until the next round of bannings takes place. When one technique gets banned, they simply find a new way to spam the engines on your behalf. This gives the company a constant supply of short-lived high rankings to show potential clients
in order to convince them to sign up to become their next guinea pig.
10/09/2004
Case studies - sites dropped due to Traffic Power, the article by Kevin Capp, CityLife's newsroom assistant, underlines the near impossibility of getting back in web search by communicating with searh companies...
Las Vegas City Life: "Jason Ohrum, the sole owner and operator of a Vermont-based Website design company, was settling in for a long night's rest before going on vacation. It was then he discovered his business received the Internet world's equivalent to the kiss of death. Two of his most trusted clients' sites had been banned by Google...
The most appealing part of the offer centered on the fact that these would be "natural listings" on Google as opposed to paid listings. Since Traffic Power only charged an initial fee of $3,000 with the anticipation of another $1,600 - a fraction of what Google charges - Ohrum signed the contract.
Less than two months later, his two clients' sites were dropped from Google.
"I almost developed a stomach ulcer because I thought I was going to get sued," Ohrum said. "At that point, there's nothing you can do. Google, you can't talk to them, they're untouchable. Your hands are tied."
Apparently, the "attraction pages" Traffic Power used to link his site with specific search terms violated Google's bylaws. Google has another name for them, "doorway pages," a technique outlawed years ago. Once that happens, any sites associated with those pages are banned. The largest, most popular search engine in the nation will have nothing more to do with companies in violation.
Hedger said Google takes such violations very seriously because it costs them money. The extra Web pages Traffic Power creates to link sites eats up space on databases, which takes big dollars to maintain. Even though each page only costs fractions of a cent, when enough are out there, he said, the fractions add up - potentially in the billions of dollars.
"Search engines don't like being gamed. They don't like it when certain players in the SEO industry create pages solely designed to get attention," Hedger said. "If you're trying to get your company on the public market, you don't want people thinking your product can be manipulated."
posted by Jen @ 9:06 AM
<< Home