The Washington State Attorney General announced in a press release yesterday that it was suing a Redmond-based SEO company, Visible.net. According to the Complaint, Visible also does business under the name WebMarketingSource.com, Caputures.com, and Captures.com (that's not a typo). The AG also names the owner of the companies, Gilbert Walker, as a defendant in the case.
The defendants sell website design, SEO, and other internet marketing services, along with providing e-commerce services to process online purchases for merchant customers. They promote their services through their website and by telemarketing. Packages include an initial startup fee of 3,749.99 up to $9,749.99, plus a monthly fee of $39.9 to $99.99.
“When it comes to Internet search results, every small business wants to pull rank,” Attorney General Rob McKenna said. “Merchants hoping to increase their online sales paid thousands of dollars to Visible.net and Captures.com but didn’t always receive the top listings and other services they were promised.” The Ag's Consumer Protection High-Tech Unit, said that AG's office and the Better Business Bureau have received nearly 90 complaints about the defendants, showing a pattern of recurring problems since at least 2005.
Washington filed the lawsuit on behalf of consumers and accuses the companies and their owner of violating state consumer protection and telemarketing laws. The complaint makes the following claims:
- Defendants misrepresented their ability to increase their customers' traffic, ranking, and sales. Defendants misrepresented that their customers will obtain increased sales by using defendants' services, for example stating that they will have "more business than they can handle," that they will be making money within "60 to 90 days," and that they will have a "hard time keeping up with Internet orders."
- Defendants also misrepresented that they are affiliated with other marketers in order to sell services to prospective clients. For example, they falsely represented that they are affiliated with Specialty Merchandise Company, a drop-ship. SMC is a "membership program" whereby member/resellers pay a monthly fee for the right to advertise and sell products that SMC directly ships to their members' customers. The defendants directly solicited these members, claiming that they were affiliated with the company. A number of consumers agreed to purchase defendants' services in the mistaken belief that they are, in fact, affiliated with SMC.
- The defendants are also accused of wrongfully claiming that its customer services representatives can be reached at any time when, in fact, customers are often unable to reach representatives and sometimes do not receive return calls.
- Defendants allegedly failed to provide refunds or honor cancellation requests. They continued to bill the credit cards of some consumers who have attempted to cancel and submitted alleged debts to collection agencies.
- The defendants also failed to register with the Washington Department of Licensing as commercial telephone solicitors and failed to provide written confirmation of a consumer's rights under the Commercial Telephone Solicitation Act.
Visible.net has not yet issued a statement about the lawsuit, but a representative said that they will probably post something on their blog. UPDATE: Visible.net posted a response on its blog. They deny the AG's allegations.
I'll keep you updated as the case develops.
Best Regards,
Sarah L. Bird
Hat tip to Ryan Todd for bringing the case to my attention.
Other coverage:
Networkworld.com
Interesting. I got a call a couple days ago from a company that said that they have a special agreement with Google and can guarantee a top 10 search result within 5 days of signing up.
I was tempted but in the end I decided to pass on the offer. :)
Seriously. Is there some place to report this kind of sleaziness.
lee88, i think a related post with their details on matt cutts blog, he seems to have fun with those companies...
i promised a client that if that in fact works, i will work free for 3 months... still yet to get the call that the dodgy firm has been successful...
I find the first 2 causes of action in the suit a little troubling. Basically they're saying Visible is a crappy company. You can't be sued for being a crappy company. You go out of business.
Obviously operating as an unlicensed telephone solicitor is grounds for a suit. So are the unauthorized charges on folks' credit cards.
But if the plaintiffs win on the first 2 causes of action, we're all open state attorney general-backed lawsuits any time a client feels we didn't get them the rankings to which they feel entitled.
On top of that, they miss a real deal-breaking bit of deception, where Visible lists Google and Yahoo! as 'technology partners'. They're not partners. I don't even see that they have Adwords or GAAC certification.
Read those first 2 causes carefully, then decide if the folks who decided to bring the suit did their facts research.
If I'd written a complaint like this in law school I would've gotten a 'D'...
I agree with your statements about the first two causes. As far as the partners list goes it does appear to be somewhat accurate, at least with Google. I found this while looking for any affiliation or dev work.
https://checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_cart.html#parnters
You'll notice on the page they are listed as Captures, not Visible. The h2 on that page also says, "integration partners," which seems to follow along the same terminology they use on the page to discribe their relationship. Google even refers to the relationship as a partnerhship, although it isn't adwords cert. I think they are talking about their cart integration partners here, which is common.
The funniest thing about this Google page is the URL. Did you see it? It's anchored in the page as "parnters" but is not spelled correctly. Go Google.
Weeell this might be the start of the big SEO shakeout but I doubt it. Given the lack of certification in the industry, the ambiguity of the services, the lack of consistent measurement of results, and several other factors, it seems obvious that SEO needs to be formalized sharpish.
Obviously SEO will never be like getting a plumber, but the industry is still very wild wild west. How can a new customer tell who is good and who is bad? Are there any professional associations that actually have teeth and respect (note: going to conferences does not count)?
Early web design used to be like this, when technology exceeded customer knowledge and normal market restrictions. However at least then you could look at a portfolio to get an idea. SEO companies can (and do) provide specific case study information (usually with client permission) to give people an idea of what they've done in the past, but that doesn't really affect "off the street" traffic, which it sounds like these guys were trying to attract.
Like I said this probably won't solve all of the problems though it might be a step. The question is, what is the answer?
I'm not trying to harshly judge visible.net but their prices are throwing me red flags. A large setup fee but your paying little for 'maintaining'. Idk, maybe I view 'maintaining' things, differently. I view it as updating more valuable keywords (due to additional keyword research and tests from original SEO or PPC) and/or link building for the client but heck, 99$ per month is too cheap for me and my prices are very affordable right now.
Something about their prices make me scratch my head. And say 'snail oil'.
I hope the jury expresses justice based on the facts, whether it's in favor of visible.net or not.
Aside from this. Sly-grrr brought up a fantastic point about online reputation management (via 'trust').
His comment made me think.
If, by any chance, I had a client that was pissed off, because they had ridiculous goals, #1 for 'credit'. But I clearly wrote in the agreement, 'based on keyword research, we will choose your words'. And they go off pouting and blogging about their 'bad experience' with me [cause they just made up their 'own goals' out of thin air].
This is gonna be a headache to manage, let's say they are being totally unreasonable and won't listen, etc and before you know it they start ranking for my company. :/ I know techniques to getting them off (and keeping them off), cause I'm an SEO.
But, my question is, "Is there a way to prevent 'venting' 'ranting' 'blogging' about negative experiences".
Like my contract ;) entails this, in 9.2 of the agreement, but does this hold legal weight? Like, if I find out that they are negatively blogging about my company (after they signed the agreement) can I sue them? do I have the right to tell them to take down the bad pub?
I'm sure this info will help out other WHITE HAT SEOs and sole proprietors like myself in preventing a misunderstood customer, that could turn into a mess. :D
Yeah the pricing is a big red flag to me too. 19.99! 19.99! 19.99! it's like Billy Mays selling SEO
Haha, I love that link! I typically hate auto play audio on sites but hey! it's billy mayes!! :D
Hahaha! I feel 100% the same way :)
Joshua,
Sarah can answer your question about whether/what legal options are open to us to prevent or stop someone from unreasonably blogging negative reports about SEO's services or service providers in general.
However, from years of experience I can say without reservation: If it doesn't feel right (and you will know it in your gut if it does or not) don't accept the client.
And the corollary is: If you have signed with a client and are beginning to feel that your client is not happy with your service, cut and run as quickly as possible. Here’s how:
Contact the client and acknowledge things are not working well for both parties. Indicate that you are sorry that you are unable to meet their needs/expectations. Say that you are going to 1) end the relationship and 2) make sure they have received appropriate products and services for the fees they have paid to date (or give them a full refund). If possible, try to make sure they leave the relationship feeling that they received more than they paid for. In some circumstances, it’s also appropriate to offer a list of reliable, trustworthy alternative providers who may be a better match for their needs.
In the end, the best defense against unwarranted poor press is to avoid getting involved with the clients who tend to write it.
Hmm. I needed to hear that. Thanks Gillian! :D
Knowing when to walk away is tough, especially starting a new biz. Thanks for that, I really appreciate it.
best way to avoid venting, blogging and bad feedback is upfront education and a clear explanation of what you can and cannot promise. In writing
I thought some of those claims, like "you won't be able to handle it!' et al were given some basic marketing leeway. "We'll get you on the first page of Google in two months," is one thing, but they aren't making specific promises as outlined in what I've read.
I mean, I don't talk to my clients that way and I don't advocate that kind of pitchmanship, but I just don't know how solid this case is going to be.
It's true that non-provable opinions, like "We're the best SEO company in the world!" are considered "puffery" and are not actionable.
However, promises based in "facts," are considered warranties and are actionable. Thus, if you promise increased sales within 60-90 days, you better deliver increased sales.
The line between "puffery" and "promise" is sometimes hard to distinguish. The courts often look at the overall context of the remark as well.
Thus, while a comment like "You won't be able to handle it!" may not be actionable if it was a question of whether visible.net created as many sales as they promised. However, if Visible did not increase sales at all, then the remark looks more actionable.
Another example in the complaint involves the defendants' claims about customer service. The defendants allegedly claimed to have "The best customer service." That is probably not actionable. However, their other claim that that provide a dedicated customer server specialist to your account who is available any time, probably is actionable.
Really interesting issues. We'll have to see how the case develops!
Thanks for your comment!
That is pretty funny. Sounds like he has quite a grudge, who knows how much of it is true, if any. I tend to listen less to sites like ROR and more to social media comments or ethical review sites like insiderpages. Unfortunately, with sites like ROR anyone can post anything they like and it's taken literally by visitors to those sites.
Washington State should've called famous alumnus and swimmer Jane Copeland from the start and all of this mess would've been avoided by using SEOmoz!
My lawyer tells me that with the oncoming recession (I still think it hasn't even hit as hard as it will) he is finding more business people are wanting to sue their suppliers for making false promises or perceived sharp practices.
To guard against I have ALWAYS been straight up with clients when it comes to providing SEO Services and I ensure each client fully understands what they are getting involved in.
I have had too many customers clearly overprice their products and then wonder why when they are receiving thousands of visitors they get very few sales compared to their competitors.
Still I am left so surprised by some of my new clients who when presented with the contract immediately sign it without reading any of it. Just leaves me flabbergasted.
Found this post interesting since it is in my backyard. I am no law expert here and consider myself to be more of a beginner seo, but I thought I would share my opinion on this one anyway. By looking at their site it would seem that they do appear to know, at least a little, about the biz. Like I said I'm no expert, and I sure didn't take the time to conduct a thorough analysis, but I did compare it to a few resources I use.Google SEO GuideSearch Ranking FactorsTheir site validates for markup and CSS (didn't check any feeds). The titles seem to be unique, descriptive, brief and accurately describe the pages. Same for descriptions on most pages. All the URLs seem to be session free and "linkable." URLs have descriptive names and follow a directory structure. They also seem to have taken URL canonicalization issues into consideration (checked www. and dir backslash only). Navigation seems to be friendly, uses a hierarchy and is mostly text based. They use breadcrumbs, HTML sitemap page, XML sitemap file and 404 error pages. The content seems to be "readable" on-topic and organized on pages. The language, grammar and spelling seem to be OK (didn't look at very many pages other than main sections). Content seems to update on their blog (not sure about other pages). Content seems to be user focused. Anchored link text seems to be accurate, descriptive, stands out from normal text and links pages internally. Pages feature headings that seem to be descriptive. Seems to follow an outline format and doesn't appear to be overused on pages. Images make use of alt text, are descriptive and don't appear to have excessive text. Image filesnames seem to be descriptive and organized. Last but not least, I checked for robots.txt, which is present and appears to follow the best practices I am aware of. Even found nofollows in footer links to policy pages. They appear to have some links, yahoo dir / dmoz listing and rank on some quality keywords (only checked main section title keywords briefly),
Now of course this doesn't mean they provide the same things for customers, but it does make one think. I'll be interested to see the outcome. Thanks for sharing the story.
These guys are a complete joke. I just had a rep cold call me today. When I explained to him that we weren't in need of his company's services, his response was "well I ain't seeing no keywords on your page". Clearly they are hiring only the most educated professionals as as their "SEO experts".
I couldnt agree more with Joshua, what can a SEO do for a client with $40 to $100 a month. Unless the per hour rate is $10, which would then account for about 4 to 10 hours of SEO work every month, how would they do it? Well considering those controversial slogans such as 'make money within 60 to 90 days' and similar, frankly, I think visble.net were looking for trouble big time. I presume that things will be happening every so often in future because there is just so much SEO scam out there.
$10/hr maybe i could outsource some work to you, even with the exchange rate their would be a profit... :)
is 4 to 10 hours really enough, if that is just implementing changes, not having issues with ftp password changes, cache delays, reporting, research, talking with the client... then i think 4 to hours would be enough for a small client.
i managed to spent 4 to 10 hours arguing over why we need to spend money on content development, because 1 paragraph besides visually looking terrible doesnt rank.... or why spamming blogs is not going to get them listed at the top of google...
As a former employee at Visible.net I will say that I thank them for introducing me to SEO back in 2006 when I was first hired. I had many differences on SEO oppinion and company vision which lead to my departure. One of the most upsetting things that has come of late is a negative press release about my company ElevateSEM found on a site called Ripoff Report. When I read the article I was shocked partially because our company doesn't cold call and usually involves a detailed proposal. The press release states that the customer got a call from a man called Alfonzo and tried to impersonate themselves as a Google Employee. We don't have an Alfonzo and more over, the way we introduce our company is generally through email or direct mail before a call is every made. As I looked further into the matter I discovered nearly the same verbage on another negative press release on another SEO Company in Redmond, WA who was started by a couple of former Visible employees. The article had the same name reference to Alfonzo and Google (Big G itself.) Since leaving Visible, I have been dealing with a non-compete lawsuit which I do not take personally, its just business. There is lots of things that I could say about Visible that I will keep to myself but the day I discovered that my former company which I worked for 4 years was into writing false slander press releases was the day I can honestly say I'm assamed to have ever worked for that company.
I was just working on an article regarding the Lost Trust online.
Regardless of how much damage this case does to Visible.net or the lastcase does to the Lead guys, it does have an effect on all online business.
I know that most of the players in SEO that have been around for a while have seen this kind of stuff before and I am totally certain it won't be the last. The challenge from my point of view is separating your business from it.
I am not advocating we get the government involved or even some certification process. I just think it important to be above the Boiler Room tactics. Be a reputation builder as opposed to an email spammer. Build business relations rather than a thick file at the AG office.
I have a hunch that if The AG gets too many of this type of cases, they will start to help us sort it out. It will cost more, it will be very restrictive and in the end only the consumers, web business owners, and good SEO's will pay for it.
The scammers will be off to infest some new business.
I wonder if the ripoff report person will testify in the AG's case? Can or will they subpeona all the employees to testify?
Gotta watch those claims. Nobody can guarantee placement or how many customers are going to come in from a placement.
It seems the way to stop "venting, ranting and blogging" about negative experiences would be to give customers a realistic expectation and not gouge.
Yea, I do that but there are some serious horror stories that I've heard from some great White Hat's. I was just thinking 'how to prevent worst-case situation, with a non-receptive client'. I'm sure this only accounts for like <1% of all clients but it still happens and can be horrible for anyone's online reputation. :/
I just re-read my contract. It's very upfront and honest and shouldn't lead to any confusion. I'm glad I got some help :D.
If my contract confuses someone, they must've not read it and a good point to always point them back to it.
Hmm, some of these things Sarah told me @ moz Adv, yet now its 'clicking'. :) Great stuff.
Is this info accurate? well i have just seen this guys this previous years.. They have such as a wonderful team and mobilized their aims.
Anyway I just hope that they will just settle their differences.. Please update me more about this..
I have read this info, https://www.universityloveconnection.com/university-Washington-Dating.htm
Thanks!
Over a year ago, I purchased a website with Captures.com/visible.net. I was made many promises about how they would help me throughout the next two years and how within a year I would be making large amounts of money. They claim in their contract that they will have your website up and running in two months, however, they don't tell you that it may take 4 months (like in my case) before they will be ready to work with you. They are supposed to be available to help you whenever you call and so you are passed to a multitude of different people who all will tell you how to handle a problem differently. The marketing program is a joke as they may do a page or more of key words but then though you make ask to have them reevaluated( I did 6 months ago), which is part of the contract, and I still have not heard anything. When you bring your problems to Administration-Glenn Smith, Matt or Galen, they tell you they will follow up but you never hear from them again and nothing is followed through. I would not recommend this company to anyone!!!
I wish I had seen this post before hand. I too was solicited via phone for over a year when I first launched my site in 2011. Unfortunately, eventually, I gave into their program and experienced no change in the sites stats. They took me for $4,200 in the course of 6 months promising the usual. Increased sales, visibility, e.t.c. And what a headache trying to cancel. I have to accept it as a learning experience.
Great Post and comments.
I feel the proof is pretty plain.
Alot of promises yet not 1 Case Study on their site, No Results shown and or for that matter not 1 testimonial out of those 5000 Unique Clients.
Hmmmmm = Red Flags
cheers Kev
Kelsey from Visible.net continues to call me regarding eCommerce services just because I own a domain that was being hosted by BigCommerce and they continue to call the number on my domain WHOIS. How about you stop cold calling me? I do not want you garbage services. I probably know 10x more then you about eCommerce and marketing of my business and can do it myself.
Cold calling was so 90's. Now its just outright annoying. So for the love of god. QUIT CALLING ME.
Here we are 2 days later. Kelsey called me again! This time regarding a different domain that I have setup but decided to not launch. Dude, take a hint and quit calling me!
i think the biggest issue is with this market turn down, companies getting their sales staff to say anything to get money in the door, and the attitude seems to be worry about it later...
the problem for many seo consultants your name is on that contract so if the deal goes sour, your boss sacks you, blames you for the poor reponse on the campaign, and goes back to the client and offers an idea that we start out again, but this time we need a larger budget...
there seems to be more issues around ppc, as many people are slowly starting to learn that they cant be number #1 for real estate in australia, when we have 3 major companies spending millions.... their $500/month campaign will work around local search and some niche terms but they cannot compete with an established player without a committment of more resources..
i can see more of these types of law suits happening, i think the next round will be when their clients site gets black listed and dropped from the index. I hear clients say do what ever it takes to get me to number 1, but when they get caught you name is going to be on that lawsuit
This is not the first time we've seen this. Trouble is that this makes the legitimate folks look bad. We've had some big name SEO companies (won't name them here) try to tell us that have special indexing capabilities with Google-- that they have equivalent of paid inclusion on Google:
https://www.cpashare.com/2008/10/18/seo-consultant-fakery-part-ii/
This non-sense has got to end, but until clients get educated about what SEO is, this is no different than mechanics who rip off folks who don't know why the "idiot lights" are blinking.
Agree Blitz. The more we educate the clients and make our work more transparent the better chances the client has to determine the value the value of the work they are asking for.
I think scale has to be taken into consideration here. It's pretty easy to keep all of your clients happy when you have 5, 10 or 20 to keep track of. Try to imagine your life as an SEO managing thousands, yes thousands of SEO clients. How many satisfied clients are going to write in to the AG? I didn't.
My SEO firm deals with just over 50 clients including a couple public companies. We have reached a limit were it becomes serious work managing everyone and keeping customers completely satisfied. It is also difficult keeping all of our clients educated enough to keep them from becoming dissatisfied from simple misunderstandings.
Recently we had a client tell a mutual business consultant that they were very upset with our ability to respond to change orders. The whole time they were looking at the development server they had bookmarked when all changes were made promptly to the live site under their domain. The development server was for data entry and is still used for testing and they had access. The client kept visiting the development site expecting to see minor changes implemented. We have communicated this several times but the misunderstanding kept coming up. We finally deleted the development site. We will change to accommodate this in the future.
The point is that if you have one of out twenty clients that has been upset with you as an SEO, you've had a far greater percentage of unsatisfied clients as compared to Visible.net/Captures. This could be for legitimate reasons or simple misunderstandings. It can also be difficult to completely control your sales staff when it begins to exceed 100 people. Many larger companies have had similar problems.
Visible.net does a really good job of offering individuals and small businesses an eCommerce solution on a budget. How much would it cost for one of your clients to get an eCommerce site, SEO'd internally and hosting? Visible.net offers more than that, but you get the point.
Our firm has used eCommerce platforms provided by Visible.net/Captures in the early stages of our business with fantastic results. I also own and operate a very successful side project based on their eCommerce platform. (BuellParts.NET) We do more high-end, custom development now that our firm has grown, but we still refer smaller clients and prospects to Visible.net
Appreciate your inquiry about the recent press release. We will be posting our official statement on our corporate blog by the end of the day. We'll be sure to post the link here as well. Thank you for reaching out in this manner, that is why we have several customer centered profiles and resources available and remain members on several customer/company awareness sites.
Read our official response to the AG Release here...https://www.visible.net/visiblog/visiblenet-is-serious-about-customer-service-support/
Wow what happened? I remember seeing these folks down at Pubcon a couple years I went and being totally impressed with their knowledge of e-commerce and seo. Maybe you all know better and can tell me. Why on earth would a business that is taking advantage of people spend the time, money and effort to exhibit at a place like Pubcon infront of all the industry pros? Man that takes balls.
And I don't get why people can assume that these claims are accurate, when nothing has been proven and is only in the finger pointing stage? Aren't we supposed to assume innocent until proven guilty? The ruling can affect all of us in the industry. Shouldn't we be backing the industry up rather than throwing them to the wolves and sitting back saying, "glad it's not my firm." Just my 2 cents.
I honestly don't know these guys but I love the half hearted damage repair they got going. Not only have they got a press release immediately but also they managed to have an identity called Jennysblock start an account and have the first post of seomoz being defending them. This is SEOMoz guys, the readers are professional reputation management people who live through these cheap tricks everyday and I assure you I am not the competition you are talking about but that was a cheap trick
Just curious, is Jenny also Amira (mentioned in the ripoff report I linked to below???
Nice catch Mert.
I was pictured with her at SEOmoz advanced
Jenny?
Might be Darrens sister ;)
I will assume it's true because everything they mentioned happened to me. "By the time we are done you will need 3 people taking all your sales calls" That was the line I was given. Your lucky to get anyone on the phone there either. Now that I've maxed out all credit cards I have no choice but to stay and hope that I can make my site better.
I wanted to give my input because I used to work for another SEO firm; keep in mind I no longer work there, and I was only paid a little above minimum wage. So I am in no way biased; they were just just an employer, I didn't receive any stock options, dividends or any reason to favor them.
First of all, do your own research: google search a company name plus the word "scam". Example "enron scam", "visible.net scam" or "smc scam". It will show you all results with all those words. Visible, smc, and stores onlinehave the most complaints. Some of those may be due to the customer's own misunderstandings or innabilities or laziness. But atleast half of them are legitimate. And these complaints are verified and authenticated to eleminate the possibility that it's just a competitors employee trying to smeer them with a false complaint. Scam reports are no joke - each one is researched to make sure that it is from a real live person, and that they were a paaying customer, and have no affiliation with any competitor. If they were, they defendant could easily sue for slander.
I have talked to THOUSANDS of ex-customers of Visible.net who all said the EXACT same thing; they were promised literal, exact results: "pay us $3000 and we will have you on the front page of google", "for just $4000, we will put you on the first page of google", etc. And their site NEVER moved to the front page. In fact, I haven't taliked to a single person that ever found their website listing (and that's after reading hundreds to thousands of pages of listings).
Notice, the price of the same service varies from customer to customer, depending on how wealthy the person was. We had an ex-employee of Visible.net, and they confirmed that they were trained to ask the income level of a potential client before disclosing the price, and to raise the price if the person was wealthy. In some cases, they would ask specifically how much money they had in their bank account and credit limits, and adjust the price accordingly. That's like a shopper asking a grocery store "how much is a gallon of milk" and getting the reply "well, it depends on how much money do you have".
Most SEO firms are this way. From my own observation from talking to ex-customers of many SEO firms, I put all SEO firms into just a few categories:
1) SEO firms that simply "do their best to improve your position"; they can't promise any specific amount of improvement and they say that no SEO firm can accomplish this (untrue; how else would Zales still be on the front page of a search for "jewelry" or "diamonds", year after year?).
2) SEO firms that make verbal promises, take payment, and then, after you pay, they send the guarantee/contract that only says "we'll do our best to improve your position, but can't promise specific placement". In a court of law, written guarantees over-ride verbal guarantees, if they contradict. In some states neither written or verbal guarantees partaineing to any form of internet services, are required to be backed upand are not considered legal or binding.
3) SEO firms that verbally promise the front page, send a written guarantee that promisess the same thing, they even send it before taking payment. But they use keywords that are totally irrelevant (so that they can easily acheive front page position). We had a client come to us after a year of no sales even though they paid about $8000 to one of these types of SEO firm. He sells GPS units, and they did have his site on the front page, but only when using the keywords "fuzzy snickle gepher", "rotundus mixolate buzzbuzz" and "geraldo durden kiss kicks kitch. These would never be used by someone shopping for a gps, and someone using these terms would not be shopping for a gps. Hence - irrelevant. The reason these keywords were chosen is because it's easy to get to the front page of these listing when there is no one else there.
4) SEO firms that provide a gruarantee in writing before taking payment, it guarantees front page or your money back, and they research the keywords to make sure they are either the highest traffic or highest sales. These are the firms that you want to work with. I only knew of two in existence at the time.
The reality is that internet business is fiercly competative, and search engine positioning is the most competative part of conducting business online. Wehter you are searching jewelry, backpacks, car tires or pencil holders, there are millions of competing sites in that listing category. ALL of them want ot be on the front page because that's where almost all sales take place (people have no need to compare more than about 10 companies).
Some of them are so paranoid about scam companies, that they don't believe that their search engine position matters. Some of them try to do it themselves and are , yet spend hundreds of hours training and researching and thousands of dollars on classes and seminars, yet never get further up than around the middle of the listing. Some of them hire bargain-rate firms that bring them up to the top 50 pages or so. They may have saved ac ouple bux on SEO services, but if you aren't on the front 3 pages, there's no point - the sales on page 10 are the same as the sales on page 10,000.
If you go with Visible.net, I feel confident that you will be giving money for nothing. These types of companies prey on the fact that this realm is as complicated as surgery, and they can profit from misleading, mis-information and mis-representation to maximise the sale. I've seen it over and over again.
Hey Natty Bumpo, I am a first time user her. I currantly own a site that was set-up by captures.com and I was told Oh yes you will make lots of money....RIGHT!! Anyhow, then they changed their name to visible.net, about 4 years into it, things are just not happenning, so I took the site offline to save the $39.95/mo. hosting fees. Now, I understand why they are not getting along with their customers. They do not deliver on their "promises" . So I would like to know if there is a lawsuit and I may have a chance to get my money back so I can get back to work, Please let me know if you get this, I was just thinking of putting it back online and finding something else to sell (musical instruments has too much competition) I don't have to make a lot, just a good workable site is all I need. Axe, [email protected] Thank You, Axe
Things got off to a very slow start but I'd like to keep my website right here with visible.net now that it's looking great and I've gotten more help in the past few months as changes have been made. I don't want a law suit to drown my website. No one ever promised me the moon though I think I went in naiively expecting more help, communication & clarity up front the first year.
I get calls and e's daily from other companies full of b. s. out there, promising #1 rankings, fabulous traffic. Captures now Visible didn't promise us more than increased business. I have another sight on Yahoo small business & it's even harder to get help from a real person even though they promised great service in the beginning. Linda Rocheleau owner
For god's sakes they have the funniest ripoff report I have ever seen. (actually by an employee rather than a client).
I think that report is a bit bogus/suspicious myself, he seemed to hit on every issue in the book. Too bad RoR doesn't have some type of verification process to at the least keep false statements out (not saying this guy wasn't employed, but really? Looks like a Internet version of Boiler Room)
Well to us, both the large upfront sum, along with the low monthly fee might be a red flag; not sure that it would be your average business if they are not familiar with our industry
Puffing and misrepresentation are two different things and I think its pretty puffed up to make these claims as sales pitches. But it might still be puffing...
It'll be an interesting case to follow.
This has been a long time coming. Im a ex-employee of Visible.net and got a call yesterday from another employee about the lawsuit. I dont have an ax to grind with the company but it seems the cat is out of the bag so to speak.
I dont blame the employees either its the managment who trains the salespeople on what to say. For instance I was told to tell people we were a "prefered provider" or "technology partner" with Google and they recommended our services. We were also told by the sales manager to say we had over a 90% success rate on keeping clients and that they could reach us whenever they had a question, even though all the salespeople would never answer their phones because it was usually a client complianing.
I can also tell you that the all the "great" reviews of their programs out on the web are completely made up by the staff or a website owned by the company. If you want to read a actual review of Visible.net service read this: Visible.net review
When I worked there there was also a huge problem with calling people because people would look up the number and find these forums about it so maybe thats why Gil never registered with the state.
Like I said I dont have anything against them personally and I think the rip off report is completely bogus but they knew this was going to happen and didnt change anything. It was all about the sales after all, and the motto was "a deal a day"
My question is are they still allowed to sell seo? The lawsuit says to stop the bad sales practices but doesnt stop them from selling technically. Can you answer this Sarah? Does the lawsuit put a immediate stop to sales?
by the way I also think Jennysblock and SpackleMe and joeyjo are also Visible.net employees on this forum just a hunch.
Maybe I'm still bitter from my first job working for a "we'll build your website" place, but I'm with Washington :)
The Washington State Attorney General announced in a press release yesterday that it was suing a Redmond-based SEO company, Visible.net. According to the Complaint, Visible also does business under the name WebMarketingSource.com, Caputures.com, and Captures.com (that's not a typo). The AG also names the owner of the companies, Gilbert Walker, as a defendant in the case.The State of Washington has filed suit (.pdf) against a Redmond-based search engine optimization and Web services outfit that has done business under the names Visible.net, Captures.com and WebMarketingSource.com. --------------------------------
Shanon
The State of Washington has filed suit against a Redmond-based search engine optimization and Web services outfit that has done business under the names Visible.net, Captures.com and WebMarketingSource.com. In essence, the state attorney general contends that these entities have ripped off their mostly mom-and-pop clientele through a pattern of unfulfilled performance promises and financial shenanigans. While the clients may be on the smaller end of the spectrum, they have been forking over real money, with initial startup charges ranging from $3,750 to $9,750, plus a monthly fee of $40 to $100.-------------------------------------AshleejamesHome Business Opportunities
Ashlee, you're confusing me. Do I follow or not? Make up your mind, baby.