Scoville Units Unite » SEO http://agraham.org/blog reviews, rants and random chilli ratings Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:37:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc A Rank SEO Company http://agraham.org/blog/2010/06/05/a-rank-seo-company/ http://agraham.org/blog/2010/06/05/a-rank-seo-company/#comments Sat, 05 Jun 2010 07:29:27 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=699 Genna was called yesterday by yet another dodgy SEO company. They called from 0161 9058460 which from an advert appears to be a company called Rank Right.

They claimed that they were from Google and could get her site to the first page of Google for £99 per month.

Having dealt with this sort of thing before she responded that this sort of claim was a scam and that her site was already on the front page of Google. Additionally companies claiming to be Google were scammers.

The response from the Sales Drone That’s not right you can’t get on the first page of Google yourself you need to pay a company to do that

]]> http://agraham.org/blog/2010/06/05/a-rank-seo-company/feed/ 0 First Search Consultancy http://agraham.org/blog/2010/04/23/first-search-consultancy/ http://agraham.org/blog/2010/04/23/first-search-consultancy/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:31:38 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=658 I was recently contacted by someone else who had received legal threats from First Search Consultancy. They have since edited and re-published their post about First Search Consultancy.

I recommend reading it. Ryan also says he has a recording proving the claim made by a number of people online and my partner that they say they can guarantee first place in a search on Google. This is of course not possible to do and any company claiming so would be obtaining money from customers by deception.

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I mucked around with the samples throughout the book and think that Gennas Jewellery site is probably ok for layout and style. I will probably tweak it a bit – definitely try to do something with the logo section to be laid out a bit better.

I have the idea in my head of what to do with the amount of content – move from 11 top level pages down to 6 and re-write most of the content there. The catalogue I am still not 100% on.

Just started reading Building Findable Websites so that I have a better idea of what to do with the content I write for it.

]]> http://agraham.org/blog/2010/03/05/designing-without-tables/feed/ 0 First Search Consultancy – SEO cowboys with a different technique http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/18/first-search-consultancy-seo-cowboys-with-a-different-technique/ http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/18/first-search-consultancy-seo-cowboys-with-a-different-technique/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 19:33:11 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=374 I am used to seeing all the scam letters Genna gets from SEO companies guaranteeing first place on Google etc. Lately she has been getting pestered by phone calls.

Today she had one from Google.

Or at least a company impersonating Google.

The company was First Search Consulting. A bunch of snake-oil selling cowboys.

I won’t link to their shit website as it:

  • Plays music when you load it
  • Doesn’t have valid HTML
  • Will help them in search engines

Amusingly, like all SEO companies, their own search results are pitiful. The only search page keywords which get them on the first page of Google are the company name.

SEO isn’t the only thing they do though, oh no.

They also do Broadband and Web Design.

On broadband, they don’t actually have that yet, but they are taking orders for a too good to be true deal. Their expertise in the area shines through when they mention they need your MAC code, which changes on a monthly basis.

Fuck knows what they mean by that.

A MAC code in relation to broadband would be a code put on your network card when manufactured which stays the same forever unless you go into the guts of the software and intentionally change it. It certainly doesn’t change frequently never mind monthly.

But their web design side.

Holy crap what an abortion.

Their portfolio has 9 examples of their work.

None of which validate.

Nine of which have table based layout.

These fucking cowboys shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near computers.

]]> http://agraham.org/blog/2009/05/18/first-search-consultancy-seo-cowboys-with-a-different-technique/feed/ 20 Tech Talk http://agraham.org/blog/2009/03/19/tech-talk/ http://agraham.org/blog/2009/03/19/tech-talk/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:25:38 +0000 Alan G http://agraham.org/blog/?p=302 On Wednesday I attended a meeting of Scottish Developers with a talk given by Michael Briggs on SEO.

It was quite interesting. Some of the information I knew already. Some I did not. The stuff I already knew I have put into place on blogs/sites etc. The stuff I learned I plan to prioritise and work into sites in the near future. He pointed out some of the things squirrelled away in Googles Webmaster Tools. I had previously used it for adding site to directory and adding a sitemap. Some of the stuff I hadn’t noticed is very cool though.

Over the past few days I had already been working on Gennas Jewellery site so was in the right frame of mind for taking it all in. I hadn’t noticed where all her links were coming from though. Her main site is her name GennaDelaney.com. We also registered GennaDesign.com as that is the name she trades under. I just had that pointing at the same directory but that is where a huge amount of the inbound links are coming from. Being on the same server and having the same content it probably makes her look like a linkfarm. One of the top priorities is to sort that into a proper redirect. I tried last night and it failed to work properly.

I also realised something about ping servers so added a load to the blog and am away to publish the first post to loads of them. Lets see what happens.

Disclaimer: one of the things he talked about were valid mark up and his site does not have this (probably his blog theme to be fair, something I have wrestled with).

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