The Underscore Archives

(bit of a long post, sorry)

HI All,
I have a question and wondered if anyone would care to share any experiences
they have had using India based backlink builder services.

Of late, quite a few of my clients have received a bit of spam saying about
how an India based company can help them to quickly build their search
engine ranking and google page rank, by performing very cheaply, a backlink
building service, pr development, press releases, content development etc -
even full SEO. 

This company, who shall remain nameless, also send out "proof" of backlinks
developed for other sites, coming from sites with a page rank ranging from 3
- 6 with vague relevance to the subject matter of the example site. This all
sounds very convincing to the clients and some are left wondering why I am
more expensive and do not spend more time prolifically generating backlinks
in the same way "to help their positioning"

The service providers I have seen from the spam emails seem very polite and
customer service seems friendly and convincing etc - which is likely to sway
many who don't understand SEO fully.

I have heard many stories however, about links going to and from fake sites,
links to and from fake blogs etc. 
I don't want my clients to think I am just being precious over the work I do
but it is a worry how quickly my SEO optimisation of their sites could be
damaged by running this service alongside my work, should they end up
generating links from bad neighbourhoods, fake sites etc and then getting
penalised.

These India based services operate at a fraction of the costs I charge (I am
not expensive, they are just very cheap. You would hope the cheap cost would
be an indicator for most, but some clients don't buy the "you get what you
pay for" idea in this regard)

Has anyone ever used such services, from India specifically, for backlink
development and if so, did it help or hinder position development, page rank
improvement etc? Were your clients happy to have link building requests on
their behalf sent out from an external company?

In my experience, link requests out of the blue rarely work, and therefore
one might wonder how this company could obtain backlinks from genuine sites
on behalf of the client.
I normally provide a list of sites and contacts to my client, to contact
themselves along with guidelines of the way to go about asking for a link /
presenting the business case for why the company should link to the client
etc. I cannot imagine letting a total stranger I have never even met send
out spammed link requests on behalf of my client, risking their reputation
etc, just because the link building service is cheap.

I appreciate I am risking classing every India based backlink service as
being the same, and that is not my intention at all. I just think shared
experiences of such services might help others to determine whether, in
general, other businesses have had success in using such services, how long
those results actually lasted; or on the flip side whether clients in
hindsight they would recommend that the client do the link building
themselves, based on the advice and list of sites provided by their own SEO
service provider.

If anyone has first hand experience of using such a service that I could
explain back to my clients, that would also be great, as hearsay very rarely
cuts it, I find :) 

On or offlist is fine for replies.

Thanks in advance,
Sam


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