Network Solutions Offers Sketchy SEO Promises

you'd think at least they could fire up a botnet/hit bot and provide some fake traffic with that guarantee...slackers!

;)

they promised top 10 rankings in engines LIKE Y! and Google.

There's a lot of traffic to be had on Gaagle and Yipee! :)

A couple of years ago Fasthosts sent an email around all their customers telling them if they linked back to FH their own search engine rankings would improve! :)

Gotta love corporate stupidity.

I know a guy that used to work there.. the horror stories from NSI are worthy of a epic movie on par with Office Space.

They were told to 'sell'

It doesn't matter the product was akin to shit on a stick in terms of quality.. they were told to 'sell' and yea that SEO package was one of them...

So yea, I know one of the guys that was 'selling' that SEO package.. he said he felt like a used car saleman with an inventory of lemon-law recalls each and every day at work.

He couldn't take it anymore and resigned

I can guarantee top rankings... No problem.

As long as you don't care what the keywords are...

But I won't guarantee, how much traffic or what percent of conversions you get...

***

I think that is in fact the oldest SEO scam out there.

If your very lucky they might be able to rank you on the first page for your domain name.

So look at your SEO rates and do some math. Netsol is a big company with many, many clients. If you are an SEO consultant and you deliver more results than 3 pages on page one of Hotbot and Lycos 9for any searches), you should be charging more than $2800 for your services.

I know plenty of "SEOs" who charge less than that every day. And I can alomost guarantee that they deliver better results than that, although I would never want to spend the time checking hundreds of arcane search phrases in order to prove it.

Their own ThinkLocal.com site is not so well represented.
Or maybe my examination is faulty...

This is very interesting to me.

Another nameless large company I heard about do not guarantee top rankings, but they do "Assembly Line SEO". (AssLine SEO)

The company has people who are assigned 200 or more clients to service each month. There is no way any SEO can do a decent job for anyone with that many people.

It is no wonder why search engine marketing is getting a bad name.

Hi,

Thank you for your comments in this post. I wanted to post here to clarify any concerns or questions about the SEO service we offer. Our Top 10 Search Results product guarantees top rankings and does not guarantee traffic or sales. We have decided not to guarantee traffic because popularity of the phrases that consumers search on is ever-changing and the Network Solutions Top 10 Search Results product optimizes for a set list of keyword phrases that does not change over time. Our product does not guarantee sales because conversion of a Web site visitor depends on many factors outside of our control including the popularity of the products offered, pricing and features, along with the overall design and usability of the customer's Web site. For example a site may be listed in the top ten for “ABC tennis racquets” but if their pricing is 5 times greater than competing sites, they are most likely not going to convert sales. The guaranteed number of listings is across 12 search engines; however, we target Google and Yahoo! primarily. We have found that other engines, including AOL and MSN, still drive targeted traffic to our customers' sites.

The guarantee is a bare minimum number of guaranteed listings at which point we have found the average site will reach a return on their investment if converting their site’s traffic at a healthy rate. It has been our experience that our Top 10 Search Results customers have received far more than the guaranteed number of top rankings. If the bare minimum guarantee is not achieved, money paid for the optimization is received back in full.

Network Solutions fully discloses all details and properly sets expectations regarding the Top 10 Search Results product. We have a long list of very satisfied customers and proven results that we provide potential customers interested in our services. It is commonly stated in the search engine marketing industry that providing a guarantee of a certain number of top ten listings is difficult to fulfill in SEO, however, the Top 10 Search Results product has been performed on hundreds of small business sites every year since 2003 with great success rate. It is only through tried and true results that we can confidently guarantee a set number of top ten listings for every customer.

Most of our customers purchase the SEO service over the telephone where all expectations are set and details explained in full. I have read through the original article and the comments posted in this thread regarding the service and will work to better clarify key details about the product on our Web site. I really do appreciate the opportunity to receive feedback on the features and benefits of our products.

Thank you :)

Erin
Product Manager, Network Solutions

Thank you for posting Erin. It is enlighting to hear your explanation of what many here (including myself) consider to be shoddy and/or unethical practices in the SEO field.

Yup, I think that is a problem. Most respectable folks in this business have decided years ago that promises like that are bullshit.

This really bothers me, nothing written down, no way to prove what was said or promised. Over the years, I have observed that most SEO Business that operate this way (over the phone) do so, to avoid the written contract... A bad thing. Not saying that is why NS doing business over the phone, just that has been my experience over years and years in the SEO business. Whenever I think of an SEO phone boiler room it brings up memories of Traffic Power and their ilk.

I guess I am thick, but the above statement makes absolutely no sense to me. Why not just guarantee a general increase in traffic? As top ten listings for any good keyword will increase traffic... no matter how the site converts.

Please bear with me as I try to figure your above statement out...

...You optimize for a set of given keywords that do not change, but that is not really valid because the keywords people are searching for change over time...

OK I give up... (I think Erin just tried to baffle everyone with bullshit)... Erin your statement makes no sense at all to me. Why optimize for keywords when no one is going to be searching for those keywords?

BTW - Erin do you have any satisfied customers that would be willing to publicly endorse your product and let their site be examined by a few long time SEO Pros? If so bring them here, lets take a look.

Thanks again for posting.

Network Solutions response is no response.

I guess that Network Solutions must not even have ONE SINGLE satisfied SEO customer, what a shame, but no suprize...

After some of the questions raised here in this thread, that have not been addressed by Network Solutions, I would say that in my opinion, everyone should stay far away from Network Solutions SEO program.

If Network Solutions can't address the questions raised here in this thread, just imagine how they must treat customers...