SEO and the non disclosure ruse.!

[sirearl]

Now one frequently see's an SEO company claiming they can't disclose there results because of a non disclosure claus.

Now what is that about all the companies I have worked with love the fact that they are up the top of the engines.

There is nothing they can hide from there competition if there online.

I can see a company having an agreement that the SEO company does not work for competition .

But the above is totall rubbish or paraniod dellusions.?

The only thing I often say to people is don't tell the world that you are having SEO done on your site or they will all want it.I prefer to let the world think the sites meteoric rise is due to factors other than SEO.:)

Earl

[lesliedocherty]

I agree, i have been quoted by loads; Smart Traffic, SEO Click Consult, Its Cold Outside to name a few, and have never ever had that clause in the contract.

Your right to think that they are lying when they pull that chestnut out when asked about rankings

[Simon-M]

Iv'e seen designers do similar to this in the past too so don't think it is exclusive to SEO. I think it's a case of no real substance so I will pretend I'm respecting privacy.

Having said that if there is a case for confidentiality then you should definately respect that regardless of what the reasons behind it are.

Simon

[OldWelshGuy]

I currently have 3 NDA's that prevent me from mentioning the association with the company, let alone their rankings.

[sirearl]

I currently have 3 NDA's that prevent me from mentioning the association with the company, let alone their rankings.

now maybe you could explain what benefit there is to a company to do this.?

Only most of us want people to see our rankings especially people who type in search terms in google.:D:D:D

or is it because there on page 100.:D:p:D

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

i agree with whats been said but you do get the big clients asking for NDA's to be signed before the sign contracts.
This in effect means you cant tell others of your success.
In some cases it isnt worth the risk telling them and not expectingthem to call the client to confirm.

[Chris Ashdown]

now maybe you could explain what benefit there is to a company to do this.?

Only most of us want people to see our rankings especially people who type in search terms in google.:D:D:D

or is it because there on page 100.:D:p:D

Earl

I would ask the opposite question if I hired a SEO company to help me, why the hell would I want anyone to know my business and give them a easy lead to a good SEO when you have spent many hours and possible a few hundred pounds getting ripped off by the cowboy SEO companies

If company A spends his money on SEO company B why would he tell company C to use SEO company B and have more competition

The only person who is interested in position is the company, the customer just see's you before the others hopefully near the top

[JElder]

That and from the SEO's company point of view, you could be a competitor building a list of clients to approach - in the assumption that a company that already outsources SEO will be far more responsive than a random company.

[sirearl]

I would ask the opposite question if I hired a SEO company to help me, why the hell would I want anyone to know my business er I thought that might be a good idea.


and give them a easy lead to a good SEO when you have spent many hours and possible a few hundred pounds getting ripped off by the cowboy SEO companies A good SEO will not work for 2 companies in direct competition ,hence why individual SEO's knock the pants off companies in all respects.

If company A spends his money on SEO company B why would he tell company C to use SEO company B and have more competition as above

The only person who is interested in position is the company, the customer just see's you before the others hopefully near the top

Oh I suspect everyone is interested in seeing you near the top.

answers in red.

You can't hide from your competition ,impossible if your on the web.

Earl

[david64]

My main reason for not listing any clients is because I don't want people going though the links of the sites to see what they think I am up to. When you are working on SEO for someone, other people take this as, "all the links are built by them.", which is not the case.

The way I do things is by letting people know the straight dope and then letting them choose what they want to do and this might not be what I would do for my own sites for example. They decide what they want to do and I do it, whether I like it or not :p

Also, lots of the sites I am dealing with are linked up to the hilt with gutter splogs. If someone sees that in my portfolio they are going to think that I did it and I might get outed somewhere for something I didn't do.

Another reason is companies cold-calling your portfolio. I have seen this carried out on a full-time basis

[sirearl]

My main reason for not listing any clients is because I don't want people going though the links of the sites to see what they think I am up to. When you are working on SEO for someone, other people take this as, "all the links are built by them.", which is not the case.



If a site is in competition with one of mine ,be sure I know where there links are coming from.;)

Earl

[Ali-v-8]

it all boils down to

1) your client being happy enough to give a referral
2) the referral not being in competition with the new prospect
3) permission

[petera]

To be honest, if one of my clients asked me to sign an NDA then it's not for me to question why. If they're going to pay me for the work I do that's really all i'm bothered about.

Of course being able to show off your work to potential new clients is beneficial but then so is retaining your existing clients.

Get your own website ranking well and use that as an example instead.

[Chris Ashdown]

Oh I suspect everyone is interested in seeing you near the top.

answers in red.

You can't hide from your competition ,impossible if your on the web.

Earl

Earl

Just where did you learn of this moral code in SEO companies, or are you just quoting your own position. do you for instance believe that "It's cold outside" follow this code of practice,

As a company owner I want my company as high up in google as I can get, but I dont want to advertise who my suppliers are so that it's easy for someone else to start-up (some are obvious other items hard to find suppliers). So I still cannot see any advantage in that if you did my SEO, Me advertising the fact. Maybe I am missing a point, pre-hapse you could explain the benifit to me

Nobody is trying to hide anything, just not advertising how we do things if we don't have to

[sirearl]

Nobody is trying to hide anything, just not advertising how we do things if we don't have to

In that case I suggest you don't publish any sites on the web for public dissemination.:)

Earl

[downsouth]

I personally think its the 'in' thing to do at the moment and not only within the SEO world.

To me its just some companies not feeling confident about the work they do, thus restricting the likelihood of you being able to contact previous/current companies they are doing work for.

Me, well if I did a good job then I would have no problem in any potential, serious customers asking for evidence of previous work.

I wouldn't go so far as to plaster current/previous works on a website as this can lead to issues some have mentioned.

[david64]

Good SEO is subjective though. One person's SEO is another person's spam. There is a lot more to the success of an SEO campaign than where the site ranks for competitive keywords.

Such as:
total search traffic
conversion
subscriber stats
what techniques have been used to promote the site
how sustainable is the traffic?
is the site building real links from real sites?
are they engaged in the paid links war?

and then some

Take for example the three UK seo services sites on page one for [SEO]. According to SEM Rush (http://semrush.co.uk/) I have more search traffic than the lot of them combined; and I am just one person who has only been operating for a few months.

Take a look at another SEO company, Hobo (http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/). They have about 10 times as much search traffic than all the UK SEO companies on page one for [SEO].

Those companies are largely basing their online promotion on being on page one for one big term, which is massively prone to change. If they slip off for that keyword, then they may have lost their only/biggest source of enquiries. On the other hand if you look at a company like Hobo. They are not using the heavy handed techniques that are outside of the search guidelines that other sites are using and they have built up a sustainable source of traffic; and which is building more than page one rankings for terms that are prone to change.

IMO there is not much quiestion which is the better stratergy. My old company based its entire lead generation through being position one for [web design]. Now that is almost all over and the company will basically collapse because they have based the company on being on page one for one term. It's not the first time and won't be the last time that happens.

Measuring an SEO company on how many big terms they rank for is not a good metric.

You can get to page one for pretty much anything with a few schemes and a big paid link budget. If a company is doing that as many people are it's not very impressive. Give me the money and I can do that cheaper.

[Chris Ashdown]

In that case I suggest you don't publish any sites on the web for public dissemination.:)

Earl

What on earth are you on about, and why so selective on what you answer

[matt.chatterley]

I currently have 3 NDA's that prevent me from mentioning the association with the company, let alone their rankings.

We have some "live" contracts which are similar, and contain non-disclosure clauses.

While they are not related to "SEO" per-se (but rather development), I could certainly imagine situations in which this can occur.

Most typically, it is when the final solution is being present completely white-labelled, e.g in a situation or scenario where the existence of the developer/designer/optimizer/marketer is denied completely. ;)

[OldWelshGuy]

I personally think its the 'in' thing to do at the moment and not only within the SEO world.

To me its just some companies not feeling confident about the work they do, thus restricting the likelihood of you being able to contact previous/current companies they are doing work for.

Me, well if I did a good job then I would have no problem in any potential, serious customers asking for evidence of previous work.

I wouldn't go so far as to plaster current/previous works on a website as this can lead to issues some have mentioned.


Sorry I am missing something here. The service provider has a simple choice.
1. Take the work and sign the NDA
2. refuse the work.

I don't see how that can become 'the in thing to do' Or are you talking about the practice of CLAIMING to be bound by NDA's?

I can show rankings etc, the issue is I can't name 'some' of my clients. It always tends to be the bigger clients that wanty an NDA, and in fairness they don't mean it to cover what it does, they mean it to prevent data disclosure etc. It is just that they are tighter than a nuns chastity belt!

[matt.chatterley]

Sorry I am missing something here. The service provider has a simple choice.
1. Take the work and sign the NDA
2. refuse the work.


Bingo.

I don't see how that can become 'the in thing to do' Or are you talking about the practice of CLAIMING to be bound by NDA's?

Which as I'm sure we all agree is quite different!

I can show rankings etc, the issue is I can't name 'some' of my clients. It always tends to be the bigger clients that wanty an NDA, and in fairness they don't mean it to cover what it does, they mean it to prevent data disclosure etc. It is just that they are tighter than a nuns chastity belt!

Absolutely. Plus there are faith/trust issues. If you are seen as being 'indiscreet' by clients, the odds are they won't trust you with their data/IP/whatever, so when "secrecy" is required for part of a deal, it's often best to apply it to everything.

Besides, I'm sure we all have better things to do than to sit around trumpet blowing. ;)

[sirearl]

Besides, I'm sure we all have better things to do than to sit around trumpet blowing. ;)

well actualy no .

Trumpet blowing is the way that most of the world seems to sell its products including SEO.:)

Earl

[I, Brian]

Trumpet blowing is the way that most of the world seems to sell its products including SEO.:)


Just don't let Google hear you. :)

[david64]

Just don't let Google hear you. :)

There was an SEO company that was decimated about a year and a half ago for their very open trumpeting of their Google gaming. As soon as they started ranking for [SEO] they got hammered and now come up nowhere despite being up to their eyeballs in keyword rich links.

There is also a web design company that is bragging about their rankings which has been pushed up on paid links, footer spam as standard and I've been comment spammed by both them and one of their clients with totally irrelevant comments on two different sites. Very dangerous stuff. If you have scraped the link building gutter for all its got and are reaping the benefits - keep it under lock and key.

[sirearl]

There was an SEO company that was decimated about a year and a half ago for their very open trumpeting of their Google gaming. As soon as they started ranking for [SEO] they got hammered and now come up nowhere despite being up to their eyeballs in keyword rich links.

There is also a web design company that is bragging about their rankings which has been pushed up on paid links, footer spam as standard and I've been comment spammed by both them and one of their clients with totally irrelevant comments on two different sites. Very dangerous stuff. If you have scraped the link building gutter for all its got and are reaping the benefits - keep it under lock and key.

There was once upon a time.?:D


Whats wrong with naming this company can't see it doing much harm to them as they have already disappeared into the wilderness.:)

Earl

[david64]

Whats wrong with naming this company can't see it doing much harm to them as they have already disappeared into the wilderness.:)

Don't think it is very nice to name and shame. I don't have any problems with the sort of things the company did or the way they operated. There was no scams and clients got results. However there was quite a lot of BS floating around and the dangerous trumpeting on the homepage. They just rubbed Google up the wrong way and got hammered. If they kept what they were doing under wraps they would have been allowed to rank.

If on the other hand the company were swizz mongers like some of the companies that have been named here, I would have no problem with naming who they are.

[Place of design]

tricky one this. Sometimes I am working on photography / sites / seo for people/companies who are competitors with eachother. Especially for photography, competitors want the photographer who did the work for the other company on thier books too

So sometime we keep things totally zipped, other times we shout and scream about it. Its not about non disclosure, it can often be more about business sense

[sirearl]

tricky one this. Sometimes I am working on photography / sites / seo for people/companies who are competitors with eachother. Especially for photography, competitors want the photographer who did the work for the other company on thier books too

So sometime we keep things totally zipped, other times we shout and scream about it. Its not about non disclosure, it can often be more about business sense

I won't work on 2 companies that are in competition.

Its an ethical clash of interest thing.

simples.:)

[Place of design]

I won't work on 2 companies that are in competition.

Its an ethical clash of interest thing.

simples.:)

When? at the same time, this year, next year? what about the clinet that comes back and back? and the one that uses your services once?

[OldWelshGuy]

My system is that I will not work for competing businesses. if a client wants to retain me for a few quid a month, purely to stop me working for competition, then i am fine with that, and then they get to bounce things off me for a minimal fee per month.