Search Engine Optimization ‘experts’? Don’t make me laugh...

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EmmaEmma Clarke is a leading female voiceover and comedy/drama writer. She voices all kinds of things from advertisements to radio identity packages – but is best known as the ‘voice of the London Underground’.

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Search Engine Optimization ‘experts’? Don’t make me laugh...

Tuesday
Apr 14 2009

We’re all familiar with the unsolicited emails that vomit daily into our Inboxes, aren’t we?  The emails from hard-up African princes, the cheap Viagra ads, the penis enlargement medication, the weight-loss pills – we all get them. (It’s not just me.  Is it??)  And as someone who has a website, I get emails from people claiming to be Search Engine Optimization experts.

I love these emails!

  • They claim to be able to put me at the top of every engine, search and otherwise, on the PLANET.
  • They claim my current search engine position is so low the only people who find my website find it by accident, probably when they’re searching for penis-enlargement medication.
  • They claim I have such a low inbound link stat they think I’m the website equivalent of the ashen-faced attic-bound orphan with no friends.
  • They tell me that for a fee, they and they alone can ‘save my business.’

I get the phone calls as well. Sometimes I play along for a while, pretend I don’t know what they’re talking about, even ask them if ‘a Google’ is a cricketing term.  And sometimes, Reader (and it shames me to admit it) I am rather pompous. 

Last week I got one of these emails and thought I’d share it with my web people.  They loved it. They even wrote a blog about it they loved it so much.  Read it – go on.  It’s very funny.  It’s all about how SEO people like this can’t be arsed to do any real research, how SEO’s are often just the front end of spamming scams, how they actually don’t know what they’re talking about because Google don’t bother putting a criteria on inbound links any more and haven’t done for ages.

So if there are any Search Engine Schisters reading this, I’d like to make a few things clear:

  • Please don’t phone me again.  Your patter makes me laugh too much.
  • Please stop emailing.  My colleagues and get too distracted by your hilarious claims to get any serious work done.
  • Why not think about doing a line of work that requires professionalism, integrity and honesty?

No? 

Oh come on.  Give me a ring and let me optimize you.

4 comments · add a comment · this blog is moderated

Emma Clarke takes no responsibility for any comments below, as these do not necessarily represent her views.

Bob Souer
20 April 2009 at 10:15

Emma, I get those emails (yes, all of them) too. No phone calls though, thankfully. And yes, the claims and pitch are funny at least as much as they are pathetic. Be well, Bob


David Supan
20 July 2009 at 10:43

Reading this, I kept hearing your neutral Tube voice in my head reading the text. Not that it's a bad thing, quite the opposite.


Phil Ainley
03 September 2009 at 11:04

How true. I get these emails and calls all the time. The when I tell these callers and spammers that I work in the new media industry they lose their bottle and bravado. It's about time the likes of Google and the other Search Engines took some responsibility for this!


Lindsay Abbott
15 February 2010 at 07:41

Emma Yes, I get these aswell and you're right, they don't do their research! I delight in letting them give me the pitch and then gently informing them that I'm already on page 1 of Google for pne of my websites they usually contact me about...they completely fall apart - they haven't even checked it out!