Search Engine Scams

Search engine scams abound but probably not in the way that you think. There are plenty of people who understand the search engines (in general) and how you can use them to promote your business.

The scams really take on two or three different forms that are created for nothing other than milking people who don't understand how they work. Here are some of the top search engine scams and what to watch out for:

People who claim they have mastered the engines: There are a lot of people who claim they can get any web page ranked at any position, for any word and in any search engine of their choosing. Unfortunately for people who spend money with them, that isn't the case. As a person that works with the engines a lot, the engines can be manipulated but not mastered.

Products that claim to work with the engines really don't work with them at all: There are no companies at this time that actually work with any of the analyzers, submitters or page creators because the engines don't want people messing with them. There are rules for each engine and they can be learned and strategies can be formed. That is a lot different from getting any ranking that you want.

The search engines look at twenty or thirty different criteria for every page that you submit. I can tell you eight or ten things that you can do to increase your rankings (it has helped us a great deal) but that still doesn't allow you to master the search engines. Search engines are not animals that you domesticate, tell what to do and sit back.

They are programs that are constantly being changed by programmers so their results are always different. While search engine placement is something that we ourselves have gotten quite adept at, we can't at this time recommend that you spend thousands of dollars on services that claim to do it for you.

Shameless plug: We do have a nice section in our book about submitting and some of the tricks of the trade. ;)

When it comes to figuring what is a search engine scam and what is just a good strategy, it comes down to what works and what doesn't work. Don't spend a bunch of money on anything else.

Matt Gagnon