Comments on: SEO Approve – Review Top SEO Companies

By: Steve Ollington

Steve Ollington — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:00:10 +0000

Fair enough, yeah that makes good sense. To be honest I might have been a little harsh anyway… there’s going to be issues at first no matter what with this type of thing, and you’ll have the ability to evolve how it works as you go along, acquiring feedback as you go, etc… I’m just permanently bitter about the existence of TopSEO’s…. I shouldn’t really be taking that out on you guys though lol.

By: SEO Approve

SEO Approve — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:10:50 +0000

@Steve you bring up a very valid point. First of all, we really don’t care about what badges other companies display other than ours. Secondly, we encourage as many free members as possible….but they DO NOT have the right to display our badge unless they pay for membership. If SEOPositive appears to be using shady tactics out of the gate, that doesn’t mean “instant approval” from our point of view. But it must be obvious that they are not following ethical guidelines. However, I would still want them to have a basic listing so that the organizations that have a bad experience at that firm TO BE HEARD and should be publicly displayed as we see it. How else are the non educated businesses that make a poor choice in their SEO company have a place to turn? Lastly, if we see any guarantee of SERPS, you can bet that they ain’t getting a badge from us. Perhaps they can pay Sempo or TopSeos to look more legit….but we won’t tolerate it. Does that make sense?

By: Steve Ollington

Steve Ollington — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:18:59 +0000

Well that’s certainly decent of you to get back and give this response, as well as addressing potential issues and asking for feedback. I’d still like to know though, how would you go about barrier to entry? i.e. will there be guidelines in place that require SEO’s not to use misleading sales tactics, etc… in order to be in your system.

Again, PositiveSEO obviously aren’t aware of how most of the SEO community views TopSEO’s but for them to be displaying a TopSEOs badge on their site puts them in the misleading category instantly, yet they’re also in SEO Approve… For me that’s not a good start for filtering agencies that should instantly be “unapproved” until they remove that badge and other fake advertising.

By: SEO Approve

SEO Approve — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:10:06 +0000

@Steve Sorry that you feel this way. Its actually the reverse of how we want to be viewed. Yes the word “scam” comes to mind when a company like TopSeo’s charges a company $1000 just to be considered for their rankings.

We simply took the “review angle” in which we hope that businesses and organizations will actually rate companies based on their performance.

Also, please note that there are several advantages of becomming a member which may I add is cheaper than any other professional SEO resource that’s out there.

Couple of notes regarding membership benefits: 1- you get a badge that links directly to your listing so that people can make a review 2- You can add a wealth of information and even add articles that will be republished in our article area 3- Ambassadors get a detailed profile view. Lastly, we scrutinize your ratings and will revoke membership for companies that consistently receive bad reviews. BTW- thats why you have to purchase membership to get a badge. Last time I checked, any membership from TopSEO’s started at the $600/month range, but its been a while. Please let us know how we can better be perceived as a “non-scam” SEO site. We would love to hear your thoughts.

@Scott In regards to “salted reviews”, we track people’s IP addresses (and people cannot submitt multiple reviews from the same IP) and manually review each and every review that comes through. There is always a slight chance of competitor slamming and such, but swearing, hateful words, etc will not be tollerated. BTW- We studied many of the shortcommings (especially the concern of reviews) of semcompare.com before we launched.

The next addition will be to add a lead generation component to the site for paid members in their respective territories which is currently a work in progress. Again, any feedback to improve the site’s experiece would be greatly appreciated:) Have a great week.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:28:03 +0000

Nick,

Is there any safeguard against false negative reviews? Is there any particular moderation process for this site? Can anyone go on and leave a review, similar to Places?

Thanks

By: SEO Approve

SEO Approve — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:37:45 +0000

Thanks for the write up Nick. It’ts always hard to be the new kid on the block. But we hope that people are as sick of the popularity contest SEO directories and give us a shot. We’ll be adding a lead generation portion to the site in the near future for paid members as a value added reward. Not like SEO Consultants where you have to jump through several hoops to sign up. We want this resource to be solid and are proud to see that you are a Featured Vendor and Sponsor.

BTW- There is a Cyber Monday sale that spans all week and ends on Sunday. Save 75% on paid Membership or Ambassadorship with promo code: CYBER75.

By: Steve Ollington

Steve Ollington — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:53:32 +0000

I clicked through after seeing an ad for these guys on Facebook and sorry but some of the repertoire in general just made me think “TopSEO’s” and “Another Scam”. It doesn’t help that they seem to have links to SEOPositive, who I don’t actually know but to my mind, any company that proudly displays a TopSEO’s badge on their site as if it’s something that’s somehow earned rather than paid for, and not just something to deceive the naive and get leads, is not an ethical company. Then they further confirmed my thoughts with the advertising campaign of “As seen in the Telegraph” which is a paid advertorial written by them. I know advertising can be a bit iffy but that’s intentionally misleading… basically it’s a scam, a con, and other words to that effect.

So anyway, SEO Approve, Approve them when they do stuff like that, well then there approval really doesn’t mean a lot to me.

Apologies for ranting in your comments lol