The content and purpose of this article is directed at all online marketers, but most specifically anyone new to marketing any type of business on the Internet. Early in my own online marketing career, I fell prey to this SEO “black hat” scam outfit and it is my intent to warn people and make as many people as possible aware of these unethical businesses. If you have not already received a call from USA SEO Pros, you soon will. The term “black hat” simply refers to using unethical practices or techniques to achieve search engine optimization results.
As all Internet Marketers know – traffic to your web site is the lifeblood of your online business. SEO black hatters also know this very well and prey on people new to internet marketing.
This is most likely the scenario that will occur -
You will receive a call from one of their salespeople whereby they will make promises to you about getting your web site first page listings on all the major search engines resulting in loads of traffic to your web site and business. These salespeople are very friendly and are well trained and skilled in the art of persuasion. I also believe they know how to identify and target the newbie online marketer.
Once they get you to agree that first page listings and lots of traffic would benefit your business, they will then attempt to get you to agree to an online demo of their so-called “service.” Understand they have created these online demos to be very convincing. Here they take you to their web site where they will offer and show you keywords and keyword phrases that are highly targeted and relevant to your business. They show you that these keywords and keyword phrases are available to you, but tell you that you need to sign up with them now to get them. These demos are very convincing, so beware.
If you agree to sign up for their service, they will then take you to a web page whereby you agree online to contract for an SEO Campaign with them and you then are required give them your credit card for payment. This online agreement for their service or campaign is legally binding, so beware.
Once you have agreed and paid for the campaign, everything now changes. the technical people who actually create the and set up your campaign now contact you. The first thing you will discover is that all the great keywords and keyword phrases they promised you are not really that great after all. They will require you to modify them. They have you add a city or state or some other location to each keyword or keyword phrase and tell you this is to better “target” each one.
Next, instead of submitting your web site and domain name directly to the search engines, they instead register a new domain name and create a web page with content containing all of your keywords and keyword phrases. It is this second, newly created domain name and web page that they submit to the search engines for optimization. This is called a “bridge” site and is a common black hat SEO tactic. The actual content of this bridged page makes no sense when read, it’s only purpose is to provide a saturated source of keywords to the search engines. It will also contain an active link to your web real site. Another tactic here they use is to take your existing landing page and actually “frame” it within a newly created web page on the new domain they have created, whereby it looks to the search engines to be your web site. Both of these bridging and framing tactics for SEO purposes are not allowed by Google and are considered unethical techniques.
The cost for these so called SEO campaigns will range anywhere from three to five thousand dollars depending upon the length of the campaign. The initial campaign length is for just six months, but they will try and coerce you into extending your campaign to a full one year by offering you a discount on the extension price.
Either way, you will be out a lot of money and will get absolutely ZERO results from their SEO campaigns. Many of the search engines they submit to are virtually unheard of also.
It is my intention to either put these SEO black hat outfits such as USA SEO Pros out of business completely or to inform enough people so that everyone will eventually be aware of them and not fall prey to these unscrupulous outfits. USA SEO Pros also does business under the name of BDI, or Business Development Institute. They are located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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thank you so much for that post Scott. Only wish I had come across it BEFORE signing up with this outfit. Knowing that it is a legally binding contract, you obviously had to continue through the process. Obviously you can't do anything about their methodologies, given that it's not your company. So, from this arises several questions:
If they do this bridging and including your link, HOW does the traffic get to you?
Will Google give them one hell of a slap if/when they recognise these tactics?
So, what was the final outcome: did you get any traffic?
Having already paid my $3600USD, and seeing as a refund is not possible, if I can get enough traffic to at least cover the cost, that would be good. Otherwise I will let go and not give it anymore of my attention.
Appreciate your feedback Scott (and anyone else who has any experience with this mob).
Wow thanks for this info. Those little sneaky snakes!
Thanks for the comment Sue. I actually have names for this outfit that are much stronger …
Good day Scott. I just wanted to stop by and personally thank you for providing the information you have about USASEOPros aka BDI aka Dynamic Web Products aka Cloud Nine SEO aka whoever.
We are now tracking the progress of this company's practices in the SEO industry. We've got a regularly updated Expose for consumers of SEO to hopefully find before they make any commitments to companies like USASEOPros.
You can find our ongoing and regularly updated coverage here…
http://www.SEOConsultants.com/USASEOPros
And here's a URI Short to share via Social Media Networks…
http://Twuna.com/USASEOPros
Thanks so much for leaving me your URL and information, I tweeted you to all my followers and tribe today and put you all over Facebook today too. I would like nothing more than to put these vermin out of business completely. If I can do anything else to help, let me know.
Thanks so much for leaving your URL and information with me. I tweeted this to all my followers and tribe today and also put you all over Facebook to all my friends and people there. If I can do anything else to help, please let me know. I would like nothing better than to put these vermin out of business completely.
Thanks soo much for exposing these scam. I believe this is not the only scammer. There must be heaps across the net
Tim from SEO ´s last blog ..Links direct within Google Search Suggest
Thanks for doing this!! It’s Pro SEO is such a scam!!! They called me today and they are so annoying!
Dear Scott,
Thank you so much for this information. I run a company in London and was surprised to get a call from the USA this evening. I listened to 38 minutes of USA SEO Pros sales tactics, then had to call off to eat supper (that annoyed the sales rep!). I then did some investigation and found your site. I was already suspicious because they wouldn’t properly explain their techniques or costs. Well done for exposing them as a scam! I would advise anyone wanting to increase their SEO to read Google’s advice carefully to improve their organic rankings, and try out the Google Adwords for non-organic – it should be cheaper than USA SEO Pros – and without the worry of being blacklisted for underhand tactics!
Cheers, Ros
SEO Pros took my $2795 and hasn’t fulfilled on any of their promises.
I want my money back, but we used paypal and you can only dispute within 45 days.
Does anyone know any other recourse to getting USA SEO Pros to pay up? Let me know through our website. Thanks.
If nothing else I have learnt to trust no-one without checking them way back down the line! USA seo pros phoned me out of the blue and and made all the right noises, taking $3500 dollars of me. Luckily I never went for their 12 month deal or I would be even worse off!! Yesterday I had a call off BDI in Las Vegas offering personal guidance (for a price) but I dodged their advances by saying I had to go out. This crowd have made the last 2 months a misery and I hope they rot in hell!!! Keep up your good work.
John
SEO usually costs about $350/month. Larger companies have their own teams covering their keyword placements and such. BDI is a scam because they don’t promise first page GOOGLE placement. I can go make my own search engine and promise you first-page placement. They even make their employees sign a contract that legally binds them to secrecy for two years basically saying that you can’t say anything about the company. Well luckily I only worked there for one day so I never learned anything except what I already know as a web designer and independant contractor… I quit the next day when I discovered they are a scam. It was very depressing to find out exactly what they were all about. If anyone has any questions about SEO feel free to email me at christophermgeren@gmail.com – and I’ll help you out. I know some excellent companies around the world that do what they promise. It takes 3-4 months to rank on page one in google. Any other promises and you are being lied too. It’s hard to “SELL” a first page placement and then ask for that 350/month if you have to tell the client it’s going to take 3-4 months… that’s why they make up or use nonsense search engines and promise it in one month and charge thousands… because everyone wants everything fast, and technically they did nothing illegal because you were placed on the first page of bullcrapsearch.com.
Well what you have described has been our exact experience for 18 months! They continue to tell us that they do not know what happened. Some mistake and they will extend our contract for free. They promise the sun! Say how sorry they are and that this NEVER happens! Then when we checked our account we have seen they have done nothing to it since November of 08! They basically stole $3,500 from us and covered themselves legally by postponing our key words and making promises until the 90days we could cancel within our credit card passed. We were so new to everything and they took advantage of us! They never return our calls. They have NEVER brought me one lead!
Thank you Scott for sharing this post and video with us. I know it took a lot of guts. These companies will not last.
People and companies can’t ever expect to make it long term by ripping people off.
I commend you for sharing this with us and the rest of the world.
Thank you!
Daryl Whicker
Daryl Whicker´s last blog ..Child Internet Filter
Hey there Scott,
I really appreciate the review here. I got a call from these guys earlier today and they REALLY tried so hard to convince me to buy. But here is the tell tell factor that will let you know they are just trying to cash out. Its when you ask for 24-48 hours to think about their offer. As soon as I said that I got transferred to the “ultimate salesman” and they really tried to close me hard.
But what they didn’t know is that I AM UNCLOSEABLE, lol! Hah, but boy did they try hard.
Thanks for your review Scott, you saved me some financial heartache.
Matthew Neer´s last blog ..HUGE LGN Prosperity Commissions Update